MTG Color Pie

Blog Action Day 2009 – Climate Change – Only You Can Save the Multiverse

Editor’s Note: Today is Blog Action Day 2009. Every year, bloggers from around the world talk about one subject to try and change the world. This year, bloggers blog about Climate Change. I really don’t get political so it may come as a surprise why I’m talking about climate change in a blog about a game that prints cards on paper. If you want my opinion about the people who get political about climate change, watch this Penn & Teller clip.

So today I grabbed a celebrity to talk about climate change for me. While I didn’t get a heavy hitter like Sean Penn or Susan Sarandon (who both are suckers for complaining about anything liberal), I did someone who was pretty high up there. Also, I think the celebrity will go great with my core demographic (Male gamers). If you haven’t looked at the picture right now, shame on you. Without further ado, Natalie Portman.

Wizards of the Coast is killing the Universe.

Wait, hold on a second, let me re-read that. The Multiverse. Got it. Wizards of the Coast is killing the Multiverse. If you players don’t do something about it soon, there will be no more Multiverse left to play Magic in.

On earth, there are many different climates that you have to be concerned about. But whenever Wizards creates a new plane, it’s all one type of climate. First it was too hot there were Deserts all over the place. Then, with the creation of too many machines, they created an Ice Age. An ice age? Remember where urban sprawl took over the entire plane? You know what happened after that? Total f’ing chaos where the environment and mana was completely messed up. They’ve already allowed Acid Rain to come to pass, how long until something much worse happens? Continue reading “Blog Action Day 2009 – Climate Change – Only You Can Save the Multiverse”

Magic Motivators 2: Motivate Harder

While getting ready for Windows 7, I’ve been backing up my stuff and going through folders deleting things I don’t need to transfer. I found some more Magic Motivational posters lost in my folders. They were going to be a follow up to the original post but they got lost in another back up and, well, kids that’s why you label everything.

So, unlike the last thing Magic related that was created but “lost“, this one was exactly like that. I asked my Twitter followers if they wanted to see them. Several of them said yes. So they’re going up. What can I say, I’m a people pleaser.

After the long post last time and the posting date for tomorrow’s post, I wanted to do a simple post. While it’s not a complete cycle of posters (where’s modular mechanics?), as long as people like this you’ll get “Magic Motivators 3: Revenge of the Motivators” sometime later to finish it out.

Enjoy!

Akroma's Vengence

Color Hosers

Continue reading “Magic Motivators 2: Motivate Harder”

Design Class – How Much Fetch Could a Fetchchuck Fetch, Ohh, You Get the Idea

Admit it, you'd pay $30 for this card. — Admit it, you'd pay $30 for this card (or at least your #1 Dime)

Editor’s Note: Some of you might have read some of this before. I accidentally hit publish when I was still working on my draft. Sorry about that. Here is the full post. Also, I hate Jeremy Fuentes for picking the best title ever (Stop Trying to Make Fetch Happen).

Fellow blogger Kelly Reid runs the amazing blog Quiet Speculation about his love affair with a certain Judgment uncommon instant the financial value of Magic. On his blog he recently ran a letter complaining about the horrible effects that Fetchlands have on the Game of Magic, both from a financial and play standpoint. Mike wrote this:

I recently bought a box of Zendikar cards: $85 bucks paid partially in store credit and partially in cash. I’m working my way though the packs slowly and so far, in about 8 packs, I’ve opened up two fetchlands. A quick search of the internet tells me that this small portion of my packs is worth a little under $40.

See, like you, I’ve been making a lot of decks in preparation for the new standard format. I’m trying to be realistic with what I can spend money on, and the last thing that I want to do is spend $80 per playset of lands in order to just get my deck off the ground…

…To say it more briefly, fetchlands are boring. Dual lands are boring. Mana fixing is boring.

What if mana fixing was all in the uncommon slot? Sure, there could still be rare lands like Oran-Reef the Vastwood or Mutavault that have additional effects, but what if the foundations of deck building were more readily available?

This is a very interesting idea; making something like that uncommon. There are two facets to this issue, as a business model and as design.

Magic started off as a collectible card game (Hence, the CCG). Dr. Richard Garfield created a game to be played in between sessions of D&D, where he got the fantasy influence. Never in his wildest dreams (alright, maybe in his wildest wildest dreams) did he ever think that Magic would become so popular, that 17 years later people would be dropping hundreds of dollars every few months. So, he took an idea from D&D when making the game: different rarities. Continue reading “Design Class – How Much Fetch Could a Fetchchuck Fetch, Ohh, You Get the Idea”

After MaRo – Even a Blind Squirrel Finds an Acorn Sometimes

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you’re new to the After MaRo series (I haven’t done anything like this in a while so you might be), I sometimes have “conversations” with Mark Rosewater. These conversations AREN’T real; I make them up in my head. I know I’ve been posting some info lately that has been more “journalistic” and I wanted to re-visit this column again. If/When I do have real information about something like this, it will be done in a serious manner. Sorry for the confusion.

It’s been a while since I called MaRo. Let’s see what he’s up to.

(Picking up phone) Hello, Mark Rosewater.

Hello Mr. Rosewater, this is Robby from MtG Color Pie.

No comment.

But, I’m not the press.

No comment.

What’s going on?

I’m not talking about Priceless Treasures.

Okay… I wasn’t calling about that.

(Surprised) Really?

No, I wanted to talk to you about your article on Monday, how you said no one liked Odyssey.

Yeah, people didn’t get the point of the article and think that I don’t like Odyssey. I love Odyssey. I have a shrine in my house and write Odyssey love letters every week.

You do?

(Beat) No. But a majority of people didn’t like it. Research shows.

And what is this research?

Microchips in every card.

I knew it! Continue reading “After MaRo – Even a Blind Squirrel Finds an Acorn Sometimes”

Monthly Mailbag – Magic: The Twittering

Ah October. Time for another set to roll in and a block to roll out. Just a friendly reminder: Extended rotates as well. No More Onslaught block nor 8th edition. See my B&R list for the full details. New month also means new mailbag. Let’s see what’s in here.

I play Warp World and Ob Nixilis…

Sorry, wrong mailbag. My fault. Ahem:

What’s up with all the talk about Twitter? It’s not the world’s greatest invention, so why is it always “Twitter” this and “Twitter” that I read on your blog. I don’t have twitter so there.

The question should be why don’t you have Twitter? You know who Tweets? Mark Rosewater. Aaron Forsythe. Evan Erwin. Mike Flores. Patrick Chapin. Bill Stark. Kelly Reid (QuietSpeculation.com). Me. That’s hardly everyone who tweets, just some of the names you might have hear or read some of their stuff. When I went to the Zendikar prerelease, I met MaRo who knows of me from Twitter, yet we met for the first time. I also met Jacob from GatheringMagic there where he also talked to MaRo, and I met bccarlso, someone I met over Twitter. I’ve traded posts with Jay from Magic: the Blogging (where yes the title of this post also “steals” that idea from him as well but come on, it’s an obvious one). I got to see Mike Flores and other pro players tweet it out to see if Lotus Cobra is the best 2 drop ever comparing it to Dark Confident and Tarmogoyf. This whole “Priceless Treasures” thing play out on both the rumor site and on Twitter. Continue reading “Monthly Mailbag – Magic: The Twittering”