Wizards of the Coast – Page 2

What Just Happened? – Scooby Dooing the Evidence

“I was there.”

You read things like that online all the time.

“Dude, my friend said he saw that happen.”

“I know that guy, why would he make things up? Why does no one believe him?”

Because that’s the internet. No one believes anything on the internet. You can’t believe everything you read on the internet; that’s how WWI got started.

In case you haven’t heard, Wizards of the Coast is putting old Vintage cards into packs of Zendikar. Yes, seriously. Yes, this is really awesome. At the moment, we don’t know what cards they are (Someone has pulled an Ancestral Recall), and I’m not here to talk about the rules. I’m here to say Wizards were telling us all along this was happening.

Wait, back up. Wizards told us this was coming? I didn’t read any rumors until like two days ago. This was clearly a well kept secret.

Sure, they kept the fact that this was happening a secret, but they dropped hints in plain sight for everyone to read. It’s called marketing. They why they haven’t hired the guys who keep trying to create their commercials. Wizards is a gaming company, and this was a really big game. Like Ace Ventura, I’m going to unravel the whole thing that no one saw coming…

(Deep Breath) Continue reading “What Just Happened? – Scooby Dooing the Evidence”

Too Rare or Not Too Rare, That is the Question

Alas poor Darksteel, I knew him Horatio...

As we begin the second block with the Mythic Rarity included into the game of Magic, it’s time to take a look and see how’s it been so far and how’s it going into Zendikar block. It’s been a source of controversy and a source of tension between developers and players.

MaRo first announced the Mythic rarity June 02, 2008. What most players remember is this quote:

This now leads us to the next question: How are cards split between rare and mythic rare? Or more to the point, what kind of cards are going to become mythic rares? We want the flavor of mythic rare to be something that feels very special and unique. Generally speaking we expect that to mean cards like Planeswalkers, most legends, and epic-feeling creatures and spells. They will not just be a list of each set’s most powerful tournament-level cards.

And from Aaron Forsythe’s Twitter account in the past few weeks here:

My definition of mythic rare: cards that are jaw-dropping to some part of the audience.

And here:

The mythic definition should be broad, not “planeswalkers + cards that aren’t very good.”

By taking these two definitions (Epic-feeling creatures/spells, non-staples/most powerful tournament, jaw-dropping), let’s take a look back at what’s been printed so far and how they fair to these definitions. But to make one more definition of our own: What is a staple card? Cards that are staples can be used in a variety of decks, not a very narrow deck that is very good. Staple cards include: Cryptic Command, Tarmogoyf, Bitterblossom, Reflecting Pool. Non-staple cards are Mistblind Clique, Doran the Siege Tower, Arcbound Ravager. Continue reading “Too Rare or Not Too Rare, That is the Question”

Follow Me at PAX, The Day After

The pic that changed the world — The pic that changed the Magic world

My experiment was a success for the most part. See the pic to the right? I took that from my phone (hence the quality of the pic (there was a light right below it shining up)) and twitpiced it. People who were following me on Twitter, found out first besides the party participants, that there would be Enemy Duel Sac Lands in Zendikar. Evan Erwin (The Magic Show) took the photo and put it on the “rumor site” and the place went nuts from what I saw in the aftermath. Lesson?

Follow me on Twitter.

I don’t want to bore you with some of the details when I was at PAX (played some cards, won and lost some games) but I do want to say a couple things about my experience that Wizards did, good and bad.

The “Planeswalker Challenge”
This is what you had to do to get into the party. Five challenges for five colors. Get a stamp of each color to get in.

Red – A mat that looked like fire and you had to put your hands on it where warm stones would reveal a word. The password is “FLASH”

Black – You were handed a card that says a mythical creature and supposed to dig through a chest and find the pieces to make that creature. Mine was Vampire! (Bat+Human).

White – Four jumbled words with art of them. Unjumble 3 out of the 4 pictures to get your stamp. All were angels. (The arts were Angel of Mercy (Xth), Angel of Retribution, Angel of Salvation, and one I couldn’t identify and can’t find online. Does that mean new angel, I don’t know. I didn’t unscramble the name so I couldn’t tell you that.)

Blue – In an actual pool, identify two toy sharks that were exactly the same (out of 50), including the way the sharks floated. I really don’t remember the answer.

Green – On a wall of 9 arts with P/T, switch three P/T to make the sum of each row the same power and the sum of all columns the same toughness. This was the longest one for me as somehow adding didn’t work for me that day.

Good – It got gamers to walk around the convention center. Walking is good. Though, I didn’t have a map with me so I got lost in the beginning (That place is huge). Apparently the organizers didn’t realize that players would naturally work together so they encouraged it after it started happening. See, gaming does make you want to help out other players (I can’t believe I’m linking to a Cracked.com article for support).

Bad – Not on this exercise. Some of the challenges were easy (Black) and some were hard (Green/Blue). But in all, it was a good time. Continue reading “Follow Me at PAX, The Day After”

Introduction Post

I’ve posted this as my first post, though it’s on a page as well (Hint: it’s called About M:tG Color Pie). I’ll have some posts up here soon, once I get back from my vacation. Yes, I know I started a new blog before I leave for a week… [More on page]

Urza's Saga Catalog, by Berrt I’ve posted this as my first post, though it’s on a page as well (Hint: it’s called About M:tG Color Pie). I’ll have some posts up here soon, once I get back from my vacation. Yes, I know I started a new blog before I leave for a week. I’ll have plenty of time to think about topics and get outlines for them. If you design your own sets, or anything to that effect, I would love for you to write on this page as well. My e-mail is at the bottom if you want to contact me.

The RSS Feed is to the right; please sign up for it. It will tell you when I’ve (or anyone else) has posted on here.

And now, here’s the page, so you don’t have to click on the link to the right:

Damnation This is a blog about designing Magic: the Gathering cards. If you don’t know what Magic cards are, I suggest you visit this site.

You will not find rumors here (MTGSalvation should be your source). Want help with your limited game? Maybe constructed? Who won what with what type of deck? Brainburst, Starcitygames, ManaDeckVortex, and even Magicthegathering.com might all be good places to go.

The reason for this site is to talk about the design aspect of Magic. What is Wizards doing right, what should we be expecting from them in the future? All of those things will be covered right here. Why? Because like everyone on the internet, they think they can do as good of a job, or better, than the professionals (don’t believe me, search YouTube for stupid stunts). Am I better than the design team headed up by Mark Rosewater? We’ll see…

Magic: The Gathering is owned by Wizards of the Coast which is owned by Hasbro. Any art used on this site is property of its owner (most likely WotC). If they are upset that I’m using it, a nice e-mail telling me to take it down, I will (MtGColorPie_@_Gmail_Dot_com). The Color Pie pic was found on the Magic site.