You Like to Buy Geek Stuff? Of Course You Do, You’re a Geek

I’m not ashamed to admit it, I’m a geek. Buy most accounts, if you’re reading this blog, so are you. I have various geek related purchases in my life that wasn’t cards or DVD’s. I’ve bought objects such as a Rorschach figurine, a Boba Fett bobble-head, and Magic art prints from the artists when they come to Seattle and hang them on my home office wall (I’ll put up a pic sometime). But not all the time does my love for Magic make it easy to buy things. Sure, you can pick up Magic playmats (Some which look really cool) and deck boxes and sleeves and binders, but these are all related to gaming in general. I’m not talking about video games either (I still love the MicroProse version and still play it), I’m talking the other merchandise that geeks normally buy.

Wizards and RYZ Wear just finished up a contest to design a shoe. Not bad, I thought to myself and I played around with designing a shoe it with the Mark Tedin Textless Fireball art and it looked pretty cool but I didn’t enter it. The winner was decided by fan vote and that’s what the pair of shoes are up there designed by Extremeicon. Would I buy a pair of shows like that? I was pre-ordering them until I saw the price: $99. Either buy a pair of shoes, or buy a box of M10 (plus, I wear a 13, so they didn’t have my size. I know, I’m a freak)? Then on MTGSalvation, someone posted that in select pre-releases there would be Jones Soda giveaways with the labels as the Planeswalkers. How awesome is that? Mouth-watering. What do these two things have in common? They’re both the type of marketing that Wizards needs to do more of: stuff people would want.

The Magic 2010 Core Set That Could’ve Been

Warning: Again spoilers about reprints in the Core Set.

Not every Core Set is going to be great. Sometimes Wizards puts in cards that go great in the environment, other times, you think a rare is so good, then you never play it for two years.  I’m not talking about money spike rares that you have to play with to win, but sometimes even they don’t cut it in the environment (See: Troll Ascetic).

But sometimes you’re tired of seeing the same rares over and over again in the card pool and no one plays them. Sure there will be those people that do play the decks and that’s who you have to consider, but sometimes even they don’t have a need for 5 Flying Carpet decks.

With M10 adding new cards and throwing some repeats in there, I was tired of seeing some of the same rares over and over. So I thought, “What if they replaced a previously used rare with one that hasn’t been printed in a Core Set before?” Brilliant! So, as we say goodbye to the old Core Set and Hello to M10, I want to toss out some rares that have been printed at least twice in the Core Sets and throw in new rare cards that haven’t got the second chance that I believe they deserve.

White

I agree that Mesa Enchantress should be in the Core Set (plus I was really high on this card for Planar Chaos) and no other white cards have been reprinted.  But, I wanted the list to be ten cards added in, so I chose a White enchantment that would see some play again.

Nothing Out -> Solitary Confinement

Why: White is the champion of trying to protect itself and what better way of doing that then putting yourself in a bubble? While this enchantment would slow down the game a little (and who wouldn’t be opposed to that at the moment?), it would allow control decks to prosper a little better after WoG and Cryptic Command leaves. Plus, it would have White with a marquee control card for M10.

Other Possibilities: Pristine Angel, Promise of Bunrei, Reverence

Monthy Mailbag: Magic 2010 Edition

What has become a tradition around here is introducing new columns (including after breaks of time where I’m busy making money working for the man).  I get messages and e-mails from readers wanting advice on creating cards or why Wizards did certain things in their sets.  Well, my mailbag was full of questions about Magic 2010, the new Core set coming out later this month and I wanted to share with you some of those e-mails today.  Let’s just dive right in and see what we pull up.  Note: these deal with the spoiled cards found on a certain site.  I won’t names site, but you should know where it is.

Will this be the only time we see Counterspell in a non-promo new border?

What a minute, they’re bringing back Lightning Bolt and Duress, but not Counterspell? What gives?  Counterspell is way less powerful than either of these two cards. Wizards is giving every other color but Blue cheap, powerful spells like Silence in White.  Why can’t I get my Counterspell back?

Yeah, because Blue hasn’t been powerful at all; it’s always gotten the shaft when it comes to card selection. The reason why there isn’t Couterspell in Magic 2010 (note, you do get Cancel and other counterspells, just not the card Counterspell) is the fact is the card is too powerful. There’s a huge difference between Coutnerspell and Duress.

If I was going to play Cryptic Command and you play Counterspell, I had to spend 4 mana while you had to spend 2.  You have used up half as much mana preventing my spell as I did playing it, which is why so many people like to counter spells.  I you play Duress and discard my Cryptic Command, I didn’t use up any mana and you used up one. You still got the same effect (nullifying the spell and putting it in the graveyard) but both are different means for different colors. (I won’t go into the full math of card values in the hand while in play; this is just the basic logic of it).

Plus, Counterspell can stop any non-land card, Duress can only hit non-land/non-creatures and Lightning Bolt can only hit creatures/players.  This is a huge difference.  At only costing two mana, Counterspell gives you enough leeway early on to stop their spell and play something else if you wanted to, making it really efficient. Cancel, at three mana, is enough to where it’s good, but not too good and is more acceptable as a hard counter. Don’t worry, Blue will still have other toys to play with.

Better Know a Card Type – Tribal

To help you design better cards, I thought it would be a good idea to know what you can do with this card game.  First I looked at colors (something I’ll come back to again), and now is my overarching look at Magic.

Welcome to part 1 of my 19 part series: Better know a card type.

Today’s card type: Tribal; The Fightin’ Tribes!

Tribal is a new card type introduced in 2007 with the release of the large expansion set Lorwyn.  For those that want to argue that it was infact Future Sight that first debuted Tribal you’re wrong.  That set was in the future brought to us in the past by a man in a DeLorean going 88 mph.  Great Scott!

At the moment there are only 50 cards that have the card type Tribal in it’s card type.  It’s the second smallest major card type and the third one to only feature inside a single block.

MaRo-Type Aside: For those of you wondering why I’m calling it a major card type is there have been alot of card types that have been printed.  Some are still in use (Artifact) while some have been left behind (Mono Artifact).  While I combined Mono and Poly artifacts into just artifacts, I’m giving some of them their own part in the series because you have to know the past to build toward the future.  Yes, I’m even covering the card type with one card.  Sigh, that brings back memories.

Random Thoughts About Random Things

Editor’s Note: While the title ties in to MaRo’s post this week, my post doesn’t. This is not an After MaRo post.  Warning: There are non-Magic related items in this post.

- I hope everyone had a good release event for Alara Reborn and pulled some amazing things or amazing plays.  I really like how this format is really playing out.  Cascade is amazing.  There’s a reason you only find them on multi-color cards (besides the fact that it’s only in Alara Reborn): it is too broken of a mechanic if it was mono color.  Imagine if Blue had a cascade card reading:

Cascade Spell – 2U
Sorcery
Draw a card.  Cascade.

While there are some ideas of having a Cascade/Hypergenesis combo in Extended (you have to have the creature in play for it to work), it would be really broken if you could fit cascade mechanics into any deck.  Cascade has to be a multi-color keyword or it’s too degenerate.  I hope this is something Wizards will bring back (they sound more open to the possibility to reuse good mechanics).

- I was going to have a post last week before it got all busy on me getting ready for Opening Day of boating season here in Seattle (I was filming it).  Of course, you knew that if you were following me in Twitter.  Follow me and most likely I will follow you too; a tit for tat kind of thing.  I still don’t know what I should tweet (besides new posts going up) and I want to hear your opinions on what I should post there:

If Alara Reborn Art Were Movie Posters

Summer movie season starts next week with Wolverine, and that’s when Alara Reborn releases.  I decided to celebrate my two favorite loves (after my wife): Magic and Movies.  Let’s do some Mash-Ups and see what would happen if some art from Alara Reborn were movie posters:

Every Summer seems to have a Horror Film, and this one looks awesome as if Dead Rising, Alara and George A Romero mixed all in one.  With Romero directing you know there’s some underhanded political message.  It doesn’t matter, it would look awesome.

Restarting, to an Extent…

I’m Starting over.

Just like 11th Edition Magic 2010. I’m going to take posts from my past that I like and create all new content.  For a while I was thinking of just leaving this blog but I love the game too much.  I want to voice my opinion and luckily there are people who want to read it.  Of course some of them come here in search of 11th Edition Spoilers (Hint: Basic Land!), but some of them are legitimate people in search of debate and magic design.

MaRo (Mark Rosewater, he’s kind of a big deal) always said that “restrictions always breeds creativity.”  And it’s true, but talking about Magic design when you don’t see any of your cards printed can only go so far.  I will still talk about Magic design a good deal of the time, have my conversations with MaRo, and even speculate what could be in Base Sets (Every year now!). 

After Maro – Lies! Lies and Slander!

(Editor’s Note: Not all of you get my references to jokes in titles and other areas of my posts.  I understand, so I’m helping you out in this one.  Watch Futurama, Season 3, The Route of All Evil.  That’s as far as I’m going to help you here.  Also, there’s spoilers to what Wizards have deemed alright to show on their page.  If you don’t want spoilers, come back after the set has been released.)

Hello, Mark Rosewater’s desk.

Mr. Rosewater, it’s me, Robby from M:tGColorpie.

Sigh.  What is it this week?  Are you going to tell me you don’t like Exalted?  Because I just don’t…

No, I do like Exalted.

(Beat) Excuse me?

At first I was like, “Wow, that’s kinda dumb, only one creature attacking.  That’s not White, especially White Weenie.”  Then I was like, “Wait, this all makes sense.  All of the creatures are helping out one creature.  That’s like totally White.”

I was waiting for the explosion and the “Bew bew sounds” but it sounds like you like it.

I totally do.

Good.  (Beat)  I’m sensing a problem.

Ah, the Force is strong in this one.

After MaRo – The 2008 State of Design Response 2: Electric Boogaloo

If I mention politics, her pic goes up

Editor’s Note: Other possible titles of this post include: After MaRo – The 2008 State of Design Response 2: Electric Boogaloo or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love WotC, Take 2, and Stop Me If You’ve Heard this Before.  If you don’t get this reference to the actual title, see here.

Just like in MaRo’s Type 1, Take 2 article (the Take 2 Link in the above aside) I want another shot at this article.  What happened the first time was that I read MaRo’s State of Design and wanted to throw some stuff that I had been thinking about or things that were bothering me, mostly about the number of cards being printed at a time.  Sure, I love creating different decks, but I made my point last time and I’m not going to do it this time again.  I felt I was a little too political with how things should be handled (though being political got me to put Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin’s picture on this site because we need to beautify it here) and I didn’t really focus on the design of the past year (Note: I’m not supporting any ticket, only that Palin is the most attractive VP in the past 20 years (With apologies to Dan Quayle)).

Keep in mind that with my suggestion (and with the hard working people at Organized Play, alright, mostly their work), States/Champs are coming back.  I am excited and now if Wizards would continue to include things that I talk about, maybe then I’ll get an overinflated ego that I think I’m making a difference.

Now, to the bulk of this post (again,a long post, but I’ll make it up to you).

Magic R&D: You guys are doing an awesome job.  I like the cards that are seeing print, and except for a few of them, couldn’t be happier.  Bringing us back to a tribal block and making it feel different was a great success.  Thoug it isn’t being run by Goblins is a great feeling, but only to have them be run by Faeries is meh.  When I was gunslinging at PAX last weekend, I played against Aaron Forsythe.  He just sat down and played against me: his being a Greater Gargadon while mine was a Zur the Enchanter that just didn’t get going (Yes Aaron, that’s what I was playing).  As I sat and looked at his suspended Gargadon while playing a Sower of Temptation to steal one of his tokens, I joked that I wish it had flash in hopes of taking said Gargadon.  Aaron looked at me and said, “Well, in testing it did.”  Maybe because I was being beaten horribly or just because I was a smart ass, I replied, “Oh, good thing it didn’t, because you didn’t want to make Faeries too good, did you?”

After MaRo – The 2008 State of Design Response

(MaRo art by UGMadness.net (I don’t think I use that much bandwidth, though WordPress helps me out there)).

Lady(ies?) and gentlemen, the great master MaRo talked to us yesterday about his thoughts and opinions about the past year in Magic design.  He told his his highs, his lows, and what he wants to do in the next year.  Most of us play the game as well as junior designing, so some of their non-design decisions have been on our minds rather then if the past block worked well together.  We’ll get to that in due time while some of that will be sprinkled in as well (this is a long post, be prepared).

Highlights of 2008

The Planeswalkers. Players were really worried when there was an announcement of a new card type, especially one that could break the game in half.  Using the hybrid of a creature and an enchantment, cries were heard that they wouldn’t be different enough to see print.

Yeah, we players were wrong.