WOTC has heard and listened. FNM promos are going back to being real cards from Standard legal sets. The shift back starts with Dominaria. Go Opt FNM promo!
A good and wise decision, worth going to FNM once in a while now to get sweet, playable promos, as well as sets of prmos.
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
Awesome news. I'm really glad they listened eventually, even though the decision was met with near-universal disdain immediately after it was announced...
I kind of liked the tokens but I wish we could get foil tokens just like..... in normal doing things rather than replacing something like the FNM promos. Like.... if I could get a foil token in place of a regular token in a pack now and then not as a replacement for foil cards but lets be honest, most foil commons are junk anyways so maybe I would be ok with foil tokens in packs as the foil pickup.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Well it's like in comics when they kill a character off (Wolverine for instance) and you could just telegraph when they are going make the change back. Seems like WotC is following suit. I'm generally indifferent, because I'm an EDH player but, it probably helps FNM attendance if nothing else.
It's good to see them go back on bad decisions but it's still kind of troubling that they were able to make such an obviously bad decision in the first place. Seriously, is there anyone outside of Wizards who thought this was a good idea?
There's certainly seems to be a disconnect with what they think people want, what sorts of people that go to FNM, and the people who actually absorb their announcements.
Letz hope the people who made the choice to switch to tokens were shuffled around and can no longer make such asinine decisions for the company
I hope that is a euphemism for sacked.
To be honest, it is a horrible thing to call for a sacking, it has real implications on real people. But given the state of design over the past two years, coupled with decisions like these, some people really should have left WOTC's employment.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
"Step 1, let's unscrew one of the stupid things we've done."
"Step 2.... uh, we don't know what to do now."
"Let's move FNM to Tuesday nights!"
"Won't that compete with Taco Tuesday?"
"It doesn't matter, it's a great idea."
Good thing they went back on this. Now the next step is making sure they don't give some terrible commons/uncommons. It shouldn't be too hard to give some decent ones consistently.
Good thing they went back on this. Now the next step is making sure they don't give some terrible commons/uncommons. It shouldn't be too hard to give some decent ones consistently.
I'm curious if they miss on doing great promos on purpose, or if they are just bad at evaluating cards that will be played.
It's called zero effort by marketing department.
Zero.
They were just generating crap shiny cards.
They finally put a touch of effort in with Fatal Push and Aether Hub before they quit since participation in FNM was awful.
Right now participation is worse than when they dropped the promos so we shall see if they pull their heads out.
Happy to see the return of actual magic cards. Hopefully, we'll see something half decent.
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Avatar by Disappointing Signet Inc
EDH Decks UWB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic's spring of life RUG Animar, Soul of the Elements and friends... lots of them WBG Karador king of two worlds (value and attrition) WRKalemne's Angels BRUG Yidris's Wild Party UWBR Breya's Terrifying Tinker Toys UBRThe Pretender
Im happy to see potentially playable cards return.
At first I thought the showdown packs were a way to start teasing out competive crowds from the friendly intro FNM level, but that is clearly not the case. The showdowns packs were a way to stem bleeding sales in lieu of bannings more than likely. The shift to tokens were probably an exercise in retaining secondary market value for chase common/uncommon cards that may have ended up as FNM promos (opt, spell pierce, and baffling end would have all been good targets). This is probably the first step in returning to the norm, and I'd be surprised if dominaria keeps the showdown packs around. The buy a box packs may hang around if box sales are starting to slide, but I have no insight for that. Alt art chase cards as buy a box promos are freaking lame though. I like to be able to reasonably be able to trade for just about anything...that makes it incredibly hard to get those versions.
I do miss the promos though. Looking through my RB zombie/copter madness list from soi/kld I had unliscensed disentigration, firey temper, aether hub, and the Eldritch Moom zombie token from prerelease. It was a cool deck to show off my reps and effort in building something unique and competitive over a few months. I had to set it aside after copter bit the hammer. Now I have like 1-2 vampire tokens or a city's blessing at any given time and it's just not as cool or exciting.
Good thing they went back on this. Now the next step is making sure they don't give some terrible commons/uncommons. It shouldn't be too hard to give some decent ones consistently.
I'm curious if they miss on doing great promos on purpose, or if they are just bad at evaluating cards that will be played.
Hopefully with that playtest team they brought on they can better target the better commons/uncommons. Right now Opt would be a good choice for sure.
Letz hope the people who made the choice to switch to tokens were shuffled around and can no longer make such asinine decisions for the company
I hope that is a euphemism for sacked.
To be honest, it is a horrible thing to call for a sacking, it has real implications on real people. But given the state of design over the past two years, coupled with decisions like these, some people really should have left WOTC's employment.
i'd be happy if they were just moved to other departments that didn't have such drastic effects on the game.
promos might not seem like they have much of an impact, but they do, they so do. as you mentioned, the state of design over the past two years especially has arguably jeopardized the game, and it wouldn't be unjustifiable to hold those accountable for those decisions to a little bit higher level of scrutiny than they currently are. if that meant moving someone to a new position, say at another company, i wouldn't exactly shed tears.
i will say the rate at which i buy product has increased slightly over the past two years, but my participation in events has dropped to almost zero. there's a very clear pattern that demonstrates no one is taking a good long hard look at where they want the game to go, and how they can bring it there. the baffling promo changes being a symptom of that.
i'd go so far as to say maro's 5 year plan was a resounding success, and i miss that kind of direction in design... but when it ended no one made a new plan and we're left with this continued mess.
i'd go so far as to say maro's 5 year plan was a resounding success, and i miss that kind of direction in design... but when it ended no one made a new plan and we're left with this continued mess.
Huh? Please explain what part of Maro's plan was a success. Am I missing the sarcasm?
The problem wasn't even just switching to tokens, it was switching to such boring tokens. If they had super cool art and would've been something people would actually go after, they might have been better received.
They SHOULD simply give out TOKENS AND FNM Promos, so everyone gets something.
Just doing one or the other is doing nothing better than it was, its just back to how it was, but hardly any improvement, its like they learned nothing from it ...
Its a panic move and just shows how terrible the "experiments" are they do and how short sighted they act (its like they look 6 months in the future, but thats about it and completely aboard ship with the feedback they get , which is good as some moves are so downright insultingly stupid, that you have to question who actually thought they are even remotely good ideas).
at this point we have to be grateful they dont mess up even more ...
----
If they have an idea, simply post that idea on a Twitter message before doing it, and look for responses , much cheaper than doing experiments in production ...
Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/friday-night-magic-nontoken-promo-cards-return-dominaria-2018-02-05
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
I Stream MTGO on Twitch: broodwarjc
I also post recordings of those streams on Youtube: broodwarjcavidgamer
Standard Deck:
BUPirates
Modern Deck:
B8-Rack
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
I hope that is a euphemism for sacked.
To be honest, it is a horrible thing to call for a sacking, it has real implications on real people. But given the state of design over the past two years, coupled with decisions like these, some people really should have left WOTC's employment.
On the other hand: Why does WOTC keep making obviously bad decisions in the first place?
-Chandra Nalaar
"Step 2.... uh, we don't know what to do now."
"Let's move FNM to Tuesday nights!"
"Won't that compete with Taco Tuesday?"
"It doesn't matter, it's a great idea."
I'm curious if they miss on doing great promos on purpose, or if they are just bad at evaluating cards that will be played.
Zero.
They were just generating crap shiny cards.
They finally put a touch of effort in with Fatal Push and Aether Hub before they quit since participation in FNM was awful.
Right now participation is worse than when they dropped the promos so we shall see if they pull their heads out.
EDH Decks
UWB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic's spring of life
RUG Animar, Soul of the Elements and friends... lots of them
WBG Karador king of two worlds (value and attrition)
WRKalemne's Angels
BRUG Yidris's Wild Party
UWBR Breya's Terrifying Tinker Toys
UBR The Pretender
At first I thought the showdown packs were a way to start teasing out competive crowds from the friendly intro FNM level, but that is clearly not the case. The showdowns packs were a way to stem bleeding sales in lieu of bannings more than likely. The shift to tokens were probably an exercise in retaining secondary market value for chase common/uncommon cards that may have ended up as FNM promos (opt, spell pierce, and baffling end would have all been good targets). This is probably the first step in returning to the norm, and I'd be surprised if dominaria keeps the showdown packs around. The buy a box packs may hang around if box sales are starting to slide, but I have no insight for that. Alt art chase cards as buy a box promos are freaking lame though. I like to be able to reasonably be able to trade for just about anything...that makes it incredibly hard to get those versions.
I do miss the promos though. Looking through my RB zombie/copter madness list from soi/kld I had unliscensed disentigration, firey temper, aether hub, and the Eldritch Moom zombie token from prerelease. It was a cool deck to show off my reps and effort in building something unique and competitive over a few months. I had to set it aside after copter bit the hammer. Now I have like 1-2 vampire tokens or a city's blessing at any given time and it's just not as cool or exciting.
Hopefully with that playtest team they brought on they can better target the better commons/uncommons. Right now Opt would be a good choice for sure.
i'd be happy if they were just moved to other departments that didn't have such drastic effects on the game.
promos might not seem like they have much of an impact, but they do, they so do. as you mentioned, the state of design over the past two years especially has arguably jeopardized the game, and it wouldn't be unjustifiable to hold those accountable for those decisions to a little bit higher level of scrutiny than they currently are. if that meant moving someone to a new position, say at another company, i wouldn't exactly shed tears.
i will say the rate at which i buy product has increased slightly over the past two years, but my participation in events has dropped to almost zero. there's a very clear pattern that demonstrates no one is taking a good long hard look at where they want the game to go, and how they can bring it there. the baffling promo changes being a symptom of that.
i'd go so far as to say maro's 5 year plan was a resounding success, and i miss that kind of direction in design... but when it ended no one made a new plan and we're left with this continued mess.
Huh? Please explain what part of Maro's plan was a success. Am I missing the sarcasm?
Just doing one or the other is doing nothing better than it was, its just back to how it was, but hardly any improvement, its like they learned nothing from it ...
Its a panic move and just shows how terrible the "experiments" are they do and how short sighted they act (its like they look 6 months in the future, but thats about it and completely aboard ship with the feedback they get , which is good as some moves are so downright insultingly stupid, that you have to question who actually thought they are even remotely good ideas).
at this point we have to be grateful they dont mess up even more ...
----
If they have an idea, simply post that idea on a Twitter message before doing it, and look for responses , much cheaper than doing experiments in production ...
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮