1) If you're drafting green, expect to see not one but two unplayable cards in every large set: Flying hate and lifegain, which will be Bountiful Harvest-quality. (Apparently Angel's Mercy is "too good" for green. Also, for some reason, Divine Offering hasn't been colorshifted.)
3) Somehow green was left behind in the creature power creep. We see creatures from Alpha (which were worthless then, let alone now) reprinted in green to this day. How many Alpha creature reprints do you see in other colors? Savannah Lions (knocked down a rarity) and I can't think of any others. Except the lions are a good card.
4) Anything green can do, white, blue, or black can do better, and all three (plus red) have access to at least tertiary. Flash? Allegedly GU, Restoration Angel. Hexproof? Invisible Stalker Mana generation? Artifacts do it better, and Naturalizes aren't maindecked the way the current Standard's Wrath effects are. Land searching? Every color gets it.
5) It's the color of fatties OR trample, rather than the color of fatties AND trample. There are 58 common green (mono or hybrid) creatures with power ≥ 5. How many have trample? 18, including a hybrid and a creature with ϕ in its mana cost. At the same time, they give us ****ty designs in the tramplers like Defiant Elf (seriously, a 1/1 with trample? And not the only one.) and Archweaver (could seriously use vigilance, and costing 5G rather than 5GG). At the same time, again, every color can use it, so white, blue, black and red tend to get trample whenever it might be useful, though red does occasionally get **** trample too, though green gets the exact same **** trample card.
6) Finally, green's flavor changes every couple months. Nature? Tradition? Biological determinism, or determinism in general?
No. Once your opponent has decided to pay for your counterspell, then the spell will be removed from the stack and the Elemental will be unable to exile it.
Part of the problem is that Mark ROsewater has admitted that they really only test for draft. They just a little for standard, but not at all for other formats. This is because draft is the big money-maker and super-super-popular format, but ignoring the other formats so intentionally is going to have consequences both direct and indirect.
Design tests draft and constructed to different levels, but solely to see if a mechanic or theme is fun. Drafts is done with a flat power level to search for fun, not power. Development handles the power level and tests standard to a good deal. They do not have the time to extensively test older formats.
Not being able to walk into a store and purchase the duel deck the month it came out is also a common occurrence when the duel deck has high value (see Elspeth v. tezz).
It not being on the shelves at your local store =/= it being a limited print run.
Also, it's worth noting that there is only one of each duel deck, but there is five commander decks. So the products can have the exact same run numbers, but will be in different supplies for a single commander deck vs. a duel deck.
I find it puzzling WOTC hasn't implemented MAP pricing....they would benefit more from it and consumers would greatly appreciate it..LGS wouldn't like it as the couldn't sell above MSRP.....
MAP pricing can not only violate antitrust law legislation in the US, but it stands for Minimum Advertised Price, so they can still sell above MSRP.
I'll say this: That green deck is just boring. Yes, I understand you want to make learning the game as easy as possible, but she has to actually enjoy playing as well. None of those cards are all that exciting. You can introduce a little complexity to spice things up and don't worry about making sure she understands every single nuance just yet. Just make the game fun to play.
The deck could probably benefit by having more 1 and 2 ofs to increase excitement.
He designed Urza's Saga, he did not develop it.
Design tests draft and constructed to different levels, but solely to see if a mechanic or theme is fun. Drafts is done with a flat power level to search for fun, not power. Development handles the power level and tests standard to a good deal. They do not have the time to extensively test older formats.
Also, it's worth noting that there is only one of each duel deck, but there is five commander decks. So the products can have the exact same run numbers, but will be in different supplies for a single commander deck vs. a duel deck.
MAP pricing can not only violate antitrust law legislation in the US, but it stands for Minimum Advertised Price, so they can still sell above MSRP.
I think that warlords will fit the sets flavor.
The deck could probably benefit by having more 1 and 2 ofs to increase excitement.
Why is my standard equipment deck not tearing up the tournament scene?
Initial mana was 9.