"creatures you control or" would have been some great text.
Sets (OTJ) Outlaws of Thunder Junction Previews
- Thread starter TrainmasterGT
- Start date
Man this card would be in every [540][Powered] Cube on the planet if it didn't have that Commander text. What a shame!
Another card where the additive distraction is an absolute card ruiner. Would love this if it just copied spells once regardless of commanders...I would be so happy in general if they literally never referenced commanders on any Magic card again, even for Commander the format's sake. It'd be a slam dunk in many of our Cubes if its activated ability was playable in 1v1!
As is, it's still not terrible. We have enough Welkin Terns for power-interested Cubes these days via Faerie Mastermind, Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel, and even Copy Catchers (for those of us with exquisite taste) that it's easy to call this baseline "good", even if late 2010s mainstay and obvious analogue Baral, Chief of Compliance has only been able to hold on to his spot thanks to a recent Universes Beyond skin.
Just another frustration for me with the card as written. I even like the art!
Embrace the Unknown is such a cool design. Glad to see them printing new Retrace cards. Loam for the Loam god!
Damn. The first half had me excited that this was Eldrazi-specific ramp.
@Onderzeeboot ?
Storm(ish) Draw a card won't matter for us, but this is cool to see.
New? token type. This one looks pretty decent.
What a let down. It costs 4 mana to be a narrow +1 to hand every turn? And it has no power? I don't even think Commander players want this.
Made me read the whole card before revealing it's Commander-only lol.
Love the design, but 5 is a lot. White custom of this for any card could be ok at 5.
Slow, but should be fine in any format that can support Loam levels of slowness.
Rumbleweed is 1-2 mana away from being sweet.
Quite a few cool Desert cards.
Some of these Outlaw cards have me looking at The Black Cube again.
I'll probably never put Crackling Spellslinger in anything but I will look at it every 2-3 months and go "wow...so cool..."Embrace the Unknown is a sick card alongside Loam itself. It's also not two full paragraphs of text, so...
A couple others I kinda like:
I know I am one of those people who complain a lot about which direction Magic has been going the last three years. But.. but I’m going to defend them a littl here and I hope you will agree. I kind of think it is okay that we get a Commander set connected to each of the main sets. Because these Commander sets are small and they are connected to the main set in a way that feels organic. They have the same art style and flavor background. And I’m okay with them being a bit more texty for this set.
However I have a problem with all the other Commander sets and that we get soooo many straight-to-Modern sets. And all the Secret Lairs. Magic should be more organic than that. If we removed those then we would have some breaks from spoiler seasons. And there would still be something for everyone. And cards wouldn’t feel like they were printed for a specific format except Standard of course and those very few Commander cards in that Standard-connected set that is spoiled simultanous with the main set.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Let me be the one to defend the Secret Lairs then. Ever since they stopped printing new cards in them, these are purely cosmetic items. Everybody can simply ignore them, and they will be none the worse off. However, all these extra pimped printings drive down the price of the normal printings, which is totally a good thing! Really, I don't see a single downside to Secret Lairs as they currently exist, they are all upside.
As for the extra commander decks, I personally know people who were lured back into Magic by the Warhammer 40k commander decks. More players is more better, in my book, so I actually don't mind these product either. I get that they're aesthetically not as pleasing as in-universe printings, and they are harder to ignore because it's actual new product, but I value the extra influx of players over my personal visual discomfort.
That’s fair
For me the Secret Lairs are only a problem because they are taking our breaks from spoiler season away. The only solution is to decide that we’re not interested in following spoiler season and track when we should follow and when we should not follow.
The prices going down is a 0-sum. Someone is losing if you are winning and the other way around. Example: You own an expensive card you’re looking to sell at some point. Suddenly your card loses value because Wizards wants to dig into your market and ‘steal’ your value from your wallet. One consumer is saving $ and the other is losing $.
Having more players is a good thing. I’m not sure these products are actually pulling in any reasonable numbers. But I would like to see some stats on that. These sets are probably made to give Wizards $ from sales and not as much to bring in new players that will eventually bring in $ in the future. But I would like to be proved wrong.
The problem with the visuals is one thing. Another is something similiar: Flavor text, art, name of the card and the names of the keywords like Grav-cannon.
And there is no escaping them unless you strictly play cube and other limited formats.
I have said it before and I wish someone from Wizards listened to me before we got to this stage: All Universes Beyond should have been skins-only and no mechanically unique cards. Then it would have been 100 % fine!
Since mtg is a game, and I hate pay to win, I loathe that cards are really expensive.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yeah, MtG is not a stock. I get that cards hold some value, but for my part they can and should reprint everything into the ground to temper the cost of playing Magic. It’s expensive enough as is, I don’t give a hoot about investors. (And yes. Everybody who complains that their cards are worth less after a reprint is literally complaining that their investment isn’t paying off.)
But you always have to pay to play. Except if you can sell some cards and make money so you can keep playing without paying. But this goes away if your cards keep losing their value because Wizards want that money instead.
You’re not doing that to this conversation
The people who buy cards are NOT evil investors I repeat, it’s a zero sum. So if I want to have things more cheap, then others have to lose the same money. And it’s not Wizards losing the money. It’s people who opened Booster packs.
I repeat, if you want your cards to be cheap, you will have to accept that Magic players lose their money.
Of course if you (not talking to anyone specific), if you want to open packs + buy singles and NEVER sell them or trade them away then you actually don’t care what your cards are worth and then you can only get new cards by actually paying for them somehow. And then you are a collector. But if you participate in trading or selling then you are no longer a collector and then you get to obtain a discount on your Magic purchases. A card can be free if you ‘pay’ for it with another card. But not if your old card is worthless.
Of course there are other solutions. There are ways for all of us consumer players to win. But that would lead to Wizards losing so that’s probably not happening.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I’m not calling anyone an EVIL investor, I just believe that you shouldn’t view Magic as an investment (unless you are buying cards from the reserved list). It’s speculation at best, and there is no guarantee you will get your money back if you buy a Magic card (again, excepting reserved list cards). In a sense, I don’t feel like people lose money when an expensive card they own gets reprinted, because it’s not an investment. Yes the card is worth less when they try to sell it again, but you know that going in.You’re not doing that to this conversation
You misunderstand
No one is saying anything about ‘getting your money back’
But someone (that was you) said you would like the cards to be cheaper. I just added the fact that the people who will make the cards cheaper is the people who already bought packs or singles. It’s them who lose the money when the cards are getting cheaper.
We all want players to be able to play the game for cheap. But that’s not relevant when we take money from players and give those money to other players.
What we would prefer is for Wizards to make less money and for us to play the game more cheap
But that’s not relevant here.When Wizards print reprints in Secret Lairs it doesn’t make the game cheaper for us to play on average. However it does make your cards lose value so it is more difficult for you to sell or trade them away to get new cards. Instead you have to grip into your wallet to pay for the new cards.
No you don't. You have to accept that the subset of players who financially speculate on inked cardboard lose their money, which is a different thing. You're conflating them with players in general because those people tend to be very vocal about it.
If I purchase cards for this nerdy card game with no intention of selling them (like I would a board game/videogame/model train/etc), cards being cheap is a net positive for me, since that either makes it easier for me to acquire these game pieces or makes it easier for other people to acquire those game pieces (which increases the number of people I can play it with). Sure, it might be a little annoying if I spent $100 on my playset of Steam Vents and someone else spent $60, but I only "lost" $40 if I purchased those Steam Vents with the intent of eventually "cashing out" and selling them.
No no no
Stop with the evil investors Your logic applied in old times but not anymore. This is one of the issues with Magic. You cannot even trust that the cards you buy or open can help you stay in the game. Now you have to pay Wizards again because you can no longer (as well as before) trade or sell your cards to help you get the new cards.
If you want cards cheap (as the game is now) you will have to accept that players (not investers) will lose money. It’s just a matter of which player should lose and which player should win.
That makes you a collector.
If you want to sell your cards or trade them away like you could before then you no longer get the value you want. So you have to pay pay and pay more. The game is not more cheap if that’s your belief. The money just goes to Wizards now instead of players who open packs and buy singles.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yes, this is correct, and it has nothing to do with investors. Nobody buys a board game, or a book, or a DVD, expecting to get their money back. Magic is a hobby that costs money, just like other hobby’s. The expectation should be that you lose money.No no no
If you want cards cheap (as the game is now) you will have to accept that players (not investers) will lose money. It’s just a matter of which player should lose and which player should win.
Yes
But if you want the cards cheaper because of Secret Lair reprints then you are taking money from the players of Magic who wish to trade away their cards to get new cards. And you put the money in the shareholders of Wizards of the Coast instead of George from the local game store.
And if you want the game to be cheap you could in the past sell some of your cards to get money to buy new cards. Or you could in the past trade some of your cards to get new cards. Now your cards lose value so much faster so it is not so easy (impossible) to trade your cards away and keep up. No, you have to pay pay pay now. Because of reprints.
I remember the statement from Hasbro saying they wanted to dig into the secondary market and get some of the value of the cards people already owned. And this is the result. They’re aggressively booming at the cost of George and Jenna from the local Friday Night Magic.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Between the more aggressive reprint policy, larger print runs, Arena, and casual Commander taking over from Standard as the most popular format, Magic has never been cheaper as a hobby. Maybe not for the experienced players who knew when to buy and sell, or for those who could go infinite on drafts, but for George and Jenna from the local Friday Night Magic the hobby has become much more affordable.
Edit: PS I like these discussions, but if anybody gets tired of us just say so and I’ll move on
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Between the more aggressive reprint policy, larger print runs, Arena, and casual Commander taking over from Standard as the most popular format, Magic has never been cheaper as a hobby. Maybe not for the experienced players who knew when to buy and sell, or for those who could go infinite on drafts, but for George and Jenna from the local Friday Night Magic the hobby has become much more affordable.
Edit: PS I like these discussions, but if anybody gets tired of us just say so and I’ll move on
You’re going a bit off topic there when you accidentally include Arena there. And the game isn’t actually cheaper because of Secret Lairs even though Wizards might want you to believe it.
Let’s put it this way:
Before you could trade your cards away because your cards had a higher value than they do today. Packs costs more today but the cards are less valuable. The reason for this is because Wizards is making more money from the customers. A lot more! If you want to play, you have to pay. No more trading for new cards sadly for the players.
landofMordor
Administrator
call me a collector, then! i just collect cards... to play with...
yep
I think you're skipping a step. LGSes and other vendors set prices: it sets prices on singles so that the sales of most boxes' singles exceed what was paid for it. They would never set prices below this level, so it's not possible for packs to cost more and contain less-valuable cards, in aggregate.*
In 2015, at its last peak, that meant Tarmogoyf was $100; in 2024 it means that tarmogoyf is cheap and some premium ultra-rare junk is expensive (like for Fallout, where goyf's standard art is $6 and some SLD cat-art Sol Ring is $50). What are the effects of this?
1. I lost "value" on the Goyf I'm planning to cube until it gets so leathery with age that it's only good for a bookmark. I don't care.
2. Speculators who bought 50 Goyfs in 2014 to make a profit are unhappy about their "investment". Good. Down with speculators and scalpers. But I don't think this is what you're talking about.
3. The FNM player who owned exactly 4 Goyfs for Jund loses trade value, but so does the person who was playing Liliana of the Veil in Abzan. So they can still trade, they're just trading for less total $$.
4. The Jund player with exactly 4 Goyfs loses the ability to trade them into 4 Orcish Bowmasters and keep up with the Modern meta for zero dollars. I think this is the group you're speaking up for.
5. New cube owners can buy a cheap Goyf and a cheap Liliana of the Veil, getting into the hobby for less total $. This is a great outcome that Zee mentioned.
6. A random FNM player is less likely to open a Goyf in their one prize pack and have it pay for a month of drafting. That's bad, sure, but for every one of those FUT drafters, there were several more who opened Barren Glory, because if that weren't the case, the house would change the payouts and the odds until they were favored again. So the effect of Goyf getting cheaper cancels out here.
Let's discuss 4 a little more, as the one outcome where a fallen Goyf price is genuinely bad. Unless you literally plan to spend $0 on new cards, the EV of a box of Magic cards hasn't changed: Vinnie the Vendor is still setting prices roughly equal to "what I paid for it, plus profit". So your new cat-Sol-Ring-containing Secret Lair is still worth as much on average as a Secret Lair's $ of FUT packs was back then. Just trade the Cat Sol Ring for the Bowmasters instead of trading your Goyf. Even then, #5 is so awesome that I think it's okay to enjoy what Secret Lairs do to the game's economy.
(Also, Goyf did to Elvish Warrior what Bowmasters did to Goyf, so maybe all's fair in love and in 3 decades of slow power creep.)
* I know recently LGSes have claimed it's not worthwhile to open packs for singles anymore, because all the value is tied up in ultra-rare collector cards. This is a subset of 6, and it is an argument against pack-gambling, not an argument against reprints.
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Hold it right there mister
Upon the day the card is originally opened there aren’t really much difference.
The topic of discussion is what happens to the card price of your card over time when Secret Lairs reprints the card into oblivion.
And this is where Wizards is digging into the market. Before they most often let the players enjoy having valuable cards. It was a tool players could use as currency to trade for other cards. Now those cards lose value much faster which has several consequences. One of them is that buying singles can be cheaper today than before but not always. Another is that players don’t own valuable cards they can use for trading.
we are all fundamentally collectors of expensive cardboard with no "use value" outside of legitimate entry to tournament magic events. this is my hobby and I am a collector of magic cards, and the way I have fun collecting is through, for, maintained by, Cube. There's a lot of words posted above here about this but I think in general this is a pretty straightforward topic; magic cards aren't food, they're luxury commodities which allow access into luxury gaming experiences.
in the financial press they're saying that commercial real estate is finally going to for real collapse forever we mean it this time. money ain't what it used to be and neither are commodities. thank god we collect luxury experiences!
in the financial press they're saying that commercial real estate is finally going to for real collapse forever we mean it this time. money ain't what it used to be and neither are commodities. thank god we collect luxury experiences!