I am of the opinion that rumourmonger's damage a new sets release and artificially inflate the price of new cards. They should be referred to as "ruin"mongers (Ho ho ho... I'm hilarious).
Ok, ok. Calm down people, lets get serious now, ok? Ok.
Spoilers are aptly named due to the fact they spoil the prerelease they spoil.
And by that I mean everyone who has read and studied the spoiler have an advantage over those who did not. These "Spoiled Brats" have come to the prerelease to win the tournament (taking all the prizes) and to rip off the casual crowd of "chase rares".
I would like to point out that the only people "chasing" these rares are the "Spoiled Brats" whose online hype created another Sarkhan Vol (if you catch my drift). An expensive card that has little constructed application and loses 2/3's of its value in 3 months.
Is this good for players? I say no.
Is it good for players who want to rip off new/casual magic players? Yes.
When Wizards announces and explains why they want to recruit new players, I completely agree. And cracking down on rumourmongers and spoilers is a good place to start. As far as spoilers go, I think their effects create unfair tournaments, exploits new/casual players, and creates overinflated costs on unproven cards. Wizards hasn't cracked down enough on the rumourmongers in my opinion.
I would like to point out that the only people "chasing" these rares are the "Spoiled Brats" whose online hype created another Sarkhan Vol (if you catch my drift). An expensive card that has little constructed application and loses 2/3's of its value in 3 months.
I don't know if you've realized this, but you've kindof dug your own grave with the citing of Sarkhan Vol. It was either Mark Rosewater or Flores that first spoiled this card, not this site. Long before the set was released, I believe Maro had him in an article without text. This generated massive hype as it was not only the first multicolor plansewaker that we knew of, but it was also a very early glimpse into a future set. This was huge. Then, when the actual card's text was spoiled, on the wizards site, the writer of the article was simply gushing about it's undeniable might.
So, perhaps you're correct about the overhyping of Sarkhan Vol, but at least realize who overhyped it.
Having a cold sucks. It means waking up at odd hours in the Western Hemisphere, only to here someone come down on us with a waved finger, "shame on you, naughty naughty..."
Seriously, rumors hype a product. It gets our gears moving to find decks, synergies, & combos early on. I, for one, do not go to the pre-releases anymore. I used to, but now have a g/f & a regular game night on Saturdays.
And when I did go to the pre-releases in the greater Los Angeles/Orange county, California, USA area, y'know who would win most of the time? Pro-Tour drafters, that's who. Winning a draft is based on skill, not knowing cards ahead of time. At the pre-releases I did go to, everyone, I repeat, EVERYONE would have a list of the cards. We'd wait on line 1/2 hour before the gates open discussing strategies and what to avoid. We all discussed what's good in the set & what's garbage. No one had an upper hand because of the spoiled cards from this site. Know your arguement before stating it.
Actually WotC spoils ALL cards before the prerelease by putting them in gatherer. Unless you live in Australia, you can read all the cards officially before attended the prerelease.
Also, spoiling the set gives me time to write my card evaluations/set reviews, and I have received a LOT of positive feedback from new players (the ones you claim will be ripped off) who have never been to a tournament before and were looking for advice so they don't get steamrollered immediately.
I take it that the OP was ripped off at a prerelease, but suck it up and get over it. Spoiling the cards beforehand makes it easier for new players to protect themselves as they know what the chase rares will be, and it gives them more time to prepare themselves (Time that experienced players don't need as much, as we're able to evaluate cards more quickly and accurately).
And as for saying the WotC is going to crack down on rumourmongering, that's just wrong. Maro has praised rumour sites on multiple occasions, and the only real problem (if I recall) was when the Timeshifted rarity was spoiled about a year ahead of time.
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Let's look at the spoilers from the point of view of the colors:
WHITE is the one that is against spoilers. It wants to play by rules, and it wants to be fair.
BLUE wants spoilers simply because it's information it doesn't know. It might not even care for the set, it just wants to know it.
BLACK wants spoilers to win the tournaments. Not only black wants to know the spoilers, it also wants to prevent anyone else from knowing them
RED loves spoilers, as they generate intense feelings. But Red doesn't mind if there are only a few spoilers, it just takes them as they go, doesn't complain that there are too many or too few.
GREEN is indifferent to spoilers. It uses them if they are available, but it doesn't mind if they are not.
I don't really care either way honestly - though I agree WotC goes out of their way to bully those that do spoil.
If you want to talk "fair" - how about they give you more time to build a deck when new cards are in the mix - this would cut down on the urge to read a spoiler. I've sat and watched judges yell at people for 'reading' cards during deckbuilding and registration. What do you expect? Even if I am registering and passing the cards - I'd be an idiot to not study what I might face later.
All the arguments I've heard so far still don't equate to any financial impact on WotC. If the cards suck, they suck after release just as much as after being spoiled early. Being unaware of the details until release date doesn't influence if I buy cards from them or not.
I was only going to order one russian box of Conflux on account of it being a small set. After seeing most of the cards spoiled early, I ended up getting two boxes at my local shops preorder discount. That's a decent chunk of product I'd not have bothered with otherwise and both me and wizards are better for it (was going for foreign playsets of notable UCs, ended up with 4xKnight of the Reliquary and 3xNoble Hierarch as well).
There is going to be a lot of hype and rampant speculation regardless of when a set is spoiled. Releasing the information early means it's more apt to be accurate. New players very likely have friends who are veterans at the game and should ask those they trust who are in-the-know about cards before throwing them away for $2 jank.
Full knowledge of cards likely to be seen in a draft pool is also a huge advantage, but Wizards has explicitly stated that superior knowledge of the game is a legitimate quality to wield against your opponents. If you want to be surprised by every card in every pack - and slow down the draft by an order of magnitude poring over them - go for it. If you want a good guess as to which cards actually work ahead of time, read up. If you choose the path of least thinking you'll suffer for it, as it should be for Magic is a rather technical endeavor.
Actually WotC spoils ALL cards before the prerelease by putting them in gatherer. Unless you live in Australia, you can read all the cards officially before attended the prerelease.
Also, spoiling the set gives me time to write my card evaluations/set reviews, and I have received a LOT of positive feedback from new players (the ones you claim will be ripped off) who have never been to a tournament before and were looking for advice so they don't get steamrollered immediately.
I take it that the OP was ripped off at a prerelease, but suck it up and get over it. Spoiling the cards beforehand makes it easier for new players to protect themselves as they know what the chase rares will be, and it gives them more time to prepare themselves (Time that experienced players don't need as much, as we're able to evaluate cards more quickly and accurately).
And as for saying the WotC is going to crack down on rumourmongering, that's just wrong. Maro has praised rumour sites on multiple occasions, and the only real problem (if I recall) was when the Timeshifted rarity was spoiled about a year ahead of time.
it's interesting that you mention rosewater's praise of rumorsites, considering his company screwed over Zesty recently. I find it weird that they praise rumormills in one breath, and then punish the rumormongers the next.
Take your monoblack deck, then set aside 14 swamps. Add 4 Creeping Tar Pits, 4 Darkslick Shores, 4 Drowned Catacombs, and 2 Jwar isle Refuge and add 4 Jace, the Mindsculptors. Your monoblack deck is instantly better. Better yet, drop those refuges, throw in some islands and some mana leaks, and lo and behold, you're now playing a real deck. Congratulations. Welcome to the world of competitive M:TG.
Here's the greater problem: Rumors exist. Leaks exist. Rumors, in and of themselves, generate hype. I could highlight dozens of threads in the forum archives which saw hundreds upon hundreds of posts about cards that we weren't certain would be printed, probably just as many of which never materialized as those that did.
MTGSalvation is a mostly responsible and mature community (though unfortunately less so during rumor seasons) of, I'd say, casual-leaning players who like to get excited about the game. The leadership and administration of the site and the forums have taken upon themselves the difficult task of maintaining that responsible and mature community, to the extent that which such a task is possible on the Internet. However, it gives rise to a forum in which rumors can be exchanged with an air of legitimacy.
Imagine that zesty's (or, in days past, hydro's or R_Elf's) wealth of rumors had been posted by unfamiliar anonymous names; many, if not most of us would have called "fake" time after time after time. Wizards knows that as much as it tries to plug up its leaks, some tidbits inevitably get out. When the rumors come from unfamiliar sources (very early mentions of Nicol Bolas as Planeswalker, radically redesigned Future Sight frames), we collectively laugh and ignore, but when rumor personalities are allowed to develop, Wizards feels compelled to act.
Would this site exist without the Rumor Mill? Maybe, but it almost certainly would not be the same. On the flip side, could rumors exist without MTGS? Definitely, but who would believe someone posting "wow you guys check out what i found" on some random image board?
unrelated: ... the "Quick Reply" button is horribly misnamed.
I went into the prerelease for Conflux having ZERO experience with either set in the block. I hadn't ever touched any of the cards. I won the 30 person tournament against the PTQ-warriors in our area who have been playing the format regularly. Why? Spoilers online let me see the cards. I already knew what cards were going to be good and which looked bad. Spoilers made the game playable, and winnable for me.
As for the OP, apparently you're not a competitive tournament player, or you would love every piece of information you can get your sticky little hands on.
I play to win. Only to win. Anything less than that is a failure.
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Let's look at the spoilers from the point of view of the colors:
WHITE is the one that is against spoilers. It wants to play by rules, and it wants to be fair.
BLUE wants spoilers simply because it's information it doesn't know. It might not even care for the set, it just wants to know it.
BLACK wants spoilers to win the tournaments. Not only black wants to know the spoilers, it also wants to prevent anyone else from knowing them
RED loves spoilers, as they generate intense feelings. But Red doesn't mind if there are only a few spoilers, it just takes them as they go, doesn't complain that there are too many or too few.
GREEN is indifferent to spoilers. It uses them if they are available, but it doesn't mind if they are not.
I'm a tad confused as to how people actually wind up getting caught for rumor mongering. I mean, I realize that they have to actually get their information from somewhere, so that's probably how they're tracked down, but still. It seems to me that connecting the dots between a poster here and the source of the spoilers would require quite a lot of not-exactly-legal investigation on Wizards part.
Edit 2: Follow up question to my original. How exactly does Wizards enforce a DCI ban? I've never been banned, but I also am completely incapable of keeping track of my DCI number. I believe I got my sixth last month. If one were banned, which of course they arent, what would stop me from playing with a different one?
Edit:
And by that I mean everyone who has read and studied the spoiler have an advantage over those who did not.
By your logic, I should not have to play against anyone with a higher ranking. Or anyone who has played longer than I have. Or anyone who's simply better than I am. After all, they have an advantage over me, do they not?
This website has 40,000 registered members, and about ten times that many regular guests. Our community arose around rumours and rumours continue to be the lifeblood here.
Wizards couldn't buy that kind of publicity and they know it. Sure, their actions against me damaged my business, contributed to my separation from my ex-wife and 2 sons, tarnished my spotless online reputation, and caused me three straight months of sleepless nights and anxiety-filled days. But I'm convinced they did it because they loved me and what I was doing for them. :):thumbsup:
Speaking of Rumors... isn't about time for some Alara Reborn spoilers? We're just shy of two months until the release and by this time after Shards, we had some solid COnflux info.
Speaking of Rumors... isn't about time for some Alara Reborn spoilers? We're just shy of two months until the release and by this time after Shards, we had some solid COnflux info.
This time after Shards, we had the entire set of card names. I doubt we'll be that lucky again though.
Ok, ok. Calm down people, lets get serious now, ok? Ok.
Spoilers are aptly named due to the fact they spoil the prerelease they spoil.
And by that I mean everyone who has read and studied the spoiler have an advantage over those who did not. These "Spoiled Brats" have come to the prerelease to win the tournament (taking all the prizes) and to rip off the casual crowd of "chase rares".
I would like to point out that the only people "chasing" these rares are the "Spoiled Brats" whose online hype created another Sarkhan Vol (if you catch my drift). An expensive card that has little constructed application and loses 2/3's of its value in 3 months.
Is this good for players? I say no.
Is it good for players who want to rip off new/casual magic players? Yes.
When Wizards announces and explains why they want to recruit new players, I completely agree. And cracking down on rumourmongers and spoilers is a good place to start. As far as spoilers go, I think their effects create unfair tournaments, exploits new/casual players, and creates overinflated costs on unproven cards. Wizards hasn't cracked down enough on the rumourmongers in my opinion.
What do you think?
I don't know if you've realized this, but you've kindof dug your own grave with the citing of Sarkhan Vol. It was either Mark Rosewater or Flores that first spoiled this card, not this site. Long before the set was released, I believe Maro had him in an article without text. This generated massive hype as it was not only the first multicolor plansewaker that we knew of, but it was also a very early glimpse into a future set. This was huge. Then, when the actual card's text was spoiled, on the wizards site, the writer of the article was simply gushing about it's undeniable might.
So, perhaps you're correct about the overhyping of Sarkhan Vol, but at least realize who overhyped it.
Seriously, rumors hype a product. It gets our gears moving to find decks, synergies, & combos early on. I, for one, do not go to the pre-releases anymore. I used to, but now have a g/f & a regular game night on Saturdays.
And when I did go to the pre-releases in the greater Los Angeles/Orange county, California, USA area, y'know who would win most of the time? Pro-Tour drafters, that's who. Winning a draft is based on skill, not knowing cards ahead of time. At the pre-releases I did go to, everyone, I repeat, EVERYONE would have a list of the cards. We'd wait on line 1/2 hour before the gates open discussing strategies and what to avoid. We all discussed what's good in the set & what's garbage. No one had an upper hand because of the spoiled cards from this site. Know your arguement before stating it.
What a naive thought.
Also, spoiling the set gives me time to write my card evaluations/set reviews, and I have received a LOT of positive feedback from new players (the ones you claim will be ripped off) who have never been to a tournament before and were looking for advice so they don't get steamrollered immediately.
I take it that the OP was ripped off at a prerelease, but suck it up and get over it. Spoiling the cards beforehand makes it easier for new players to protect themselves as they know what the chase rares will be, and it gives them more time to prepare themselves (Time that experienced players don't need as much, as we're able to evaluate cards more quickly and accurately).
And as for saying the WotC is going to crack down on rumourmongering, that's just wrong. Maro has praised rumour sites on multiple occasions, and the only real problem (if I recall) was when the Timeshifted rarity was spoiled about a year ahead of time.
Wizards could put $100 bills in packs and people would complain about how they were folded.
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WHITE is the one that is against spoilers. It wants to play by rules, and it wants to be fair.
BLUE wants spoilers simply because it's information it doesn't know. It might not even care for the set, it just wants to know it.
BLACK wants spoilers to win the tournaments. Not only black wants to know the spoilers, it also wants to prevent anyone else from knowing them
RED loves spoilers, as they generate intense feelings. But Red doesn't mind if there are only a few spoilers, it just takes them as they go, doesn't complain that there are too many or too few.
GREEN is indifferent to spoilers. It uses them if they are available, but it doesn't mind if they are not.
What is your approach to spoilers?
If you want to talk "fair" - how about they give you more time to build a deck when new cards are in the mix - this would cut down on the urge to read a spoiler. I've sat and watched judges yell at people for 'reading' cards during deckbuilding and registration. What do you expect? Even if I am registering and passing the cards - I'd be an idiot to not study what I might face later.
All the arguments I've heard so far still don't equate to any financial impact on WotC. If the cards suck, they suck after release just as much as after being spoiled early. Being unaware of the details until release date doesn't influence if I buy cards from them or not.
There is going to be a lot of hype and rampant speculation regardless of when a set is spoiled. Releasing the information early means it's more apt to be accurate. New players very likely have friends who are veterans at the game and should ask those they trust who are in-the-know about cards before throwing them away for $2 jank.
Full knowledge of cards likely to be seen in a draft pool is also a huge advantage, but Wizards has explicitly stated that superior knowledge of the game is a legitimate quality to wield against your opponents. If you want to be surprised by every card in every pack - and slow down the draft by an order of magnitude poring over them - go for it. If you want a good guess as to which cards actually work ahead of time, read up. If you choose the path of least thinking you'll suffer for it, as it should be for Magic is a rather technical endeavor.
it's interesting that you mention rosewater's praise of rumorsites, considering his company screwed over Zesty recently. I find it weird that they praise rumormills in one breath, and then punish the rumormongers the next.
MTGSalvation is a mostly responsible and mature community (though unfortunately less so during rumor seasons) of, I'd say, casual-leaning players who like to get excited about the game. The leadership and administration of the site and the forums have taken upon themselves the difficult task of maintaining that responsible and mature community, to the extent that which such a task is possible on the Internet. However, it gives rise to a forum in which rumors can be exchanged with an air of legitimacy.
Imagine that zesty's (or, in days past, hydro's or R_Elf's) wealth of rumors had been posted by unfamiliar anonymous names; many, if not most of us would have called "fake" time after time after time. Wizards knows that as much as it tries to plug up its leaks, some tidbits inevitably get out. When the rumors come from unfamiliar sources (very early mentions of Nicol Bolas as Planeswalker, radically redesigned Future Sight frames), we collectively laugh and ignore, but when rumor personalities are allowed to develop, Wizards feels compelled to act.
Would this site exist without the Rumor Mill? Maybe, but it almost certainly would not be the same. On the flip side, could rumors exist without MTGS? Definitely, but who would believe someone posting "wow you guys check out what i found" on some random image board?
unrelated: ... the "Quick Reply" button is horribly misnamed.
I went into the prerelease for Conflux having ZERO experience with either set in the block. I hadn't ever touched any of the cards. I won the 30 person tournament against the PTQ-warriors in our area who have been playing the format regularly. Why? Spoilers online let me see the cards. I already knew what cards were going to be good and which looked bad. Spoilers made the game playable, and winnable for me.
As for the OP, apparently you're not a competitive tournament player, or you would love every piece of information you can get your sticky little hands on.
I play to win. Only to win. Anything less than that is a failure.
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Edit 2: Follow up question to my original. How exactly does Wizards enforce a DCI ban? I've never been banned, but I also am completely incapable of keeping track of my DCI number. I believe I got my sixth last month. If one were banned, which of course they arent, what would stop me from playing with a different one?
Edit: By your logic, I should not have to play against anyone with a higher ranking. Or anyone who has played longer than I have. Or anyone who's simply better than I am. After all, they have an advantage over me, do they not?
Wizards couldn't buy that kind of publicity and they know it. Sure, their actions against me damaged my business, contributed to my separation from my ex-wife and 2 sons, tarnished my spotless online reputation, and caused me three straight months of sleepless nights and anxiety-filled days. But I'm convinced they did it because they loved me and what I was doing for them. :):thumbsup:
.
[Clan Flamingo]
This time after Shards, we had the entire set of card names. I doubt we'll be that lucky again though.
The Izzet