According to a solicit I saw, the Mystery Boosters come 24 packs to a display. Release date is 3/13/2020. I haven't seen a price for displays/cases yet though.
It Wizard's madness it makes sense, because with 24 boosters it's a perfect draft product for a group of 8 people, a normal draft pod. They don't care at all about the value of the cards, so let them do what they think is right, they'll always find fanboys to buy anything they do regardless.
It's sad to say, but WotC is diving deeper and deeper into a very dangerous pool. Stating that they're incentivizing people to fall prey of ludopathy is maybe a stretch, but not a big one. Beeing a CCG doesn't mean you can do things like that without evaluating the consequences for the audience...
What bothers me more than anything is that this product will still sell out and they'll (rightfully, from an economic standpoint) think of it as a huge success, which we all know breeds repetition. Humans: how silly we are... and the homo ludens is sometimes the silliest of us all.
I'm not the kind of person that complains every day for every decision Wizards makes, but this deck seems like a very big failure to me.
First, the very decision of the theme in this color combination, even with all the problems they had as they clearly underlined at Gencon, is probably shaded by the existence of cards like Kess, Dissident Mage that will always be far better in a far superior color combination for this kind of strategy. Nevertheless, they could have built the deck in a new and interesting fashion avoiding such a great precedent to shadow their new deck. Sevinne was good enough to raise some good faith on the product, after all... and what do they give us? A list without any meaningful core, with so many "stupid" cards in it that even a new player can recognize are bad or mostly unuseful here (Fervent Denial? Dusk // Dawn with only three targets for Dawn? Come on!) and a group of reprints that I still don't understand why are here instead of simple and good effects like Swords to Plowshares (that they almost always reprint!), Lightning Helix or other good things with flashback.
Speaking about flashback and graveyard mechanics, just a little Scryfall action left me with these cards that could have been here instead of all this mess:
No "money" card here, no Jump Start too, even if one is already showing up. Just some good utilities to help a new player have a good experience with the deck immediatly after opening it, instead of hoping some 1/1 tokens stick around and let you win the game without a strategy. I won't even go on to search for other wincons because there are so many good ones that it's unbelievable they didn't consider any of them. I'll just mention Soulfire Grand Master, which starts under 1€ on MKM and is a solid card with both Sevinne and Elsha. Wasn't is as obvious as Hooded Hydra and Deathmist Raptor for morph?
Even the Command Zone video is a clear statement of the failure of this deck: I've never seen a precon where you're really, really incentivized to switch the main commander with another one, but this one can possibly be saved only by Elsha of the Infinite. Some of the other new cards are interesting, but are they worth of a 40€ investment when you can wait a handful of days and grab them as singles on the secondary market for a couple bucks each? I don't think so. I only hope the last two decks are more similar to the Morph one than this pile of heterogeneous rubbish.
Yes 2€ planeswalker is the value reprint we have been waiting for.
Who would you pick instead?
Vivien, champion of the wilds would be very interesting in a morph deck because you can play a creature at instant speed and then morph them at instant speed. Also, it works very well with seedborn muse.
True, but I don't remember them putting cards printed in the last 9-12 months in these precons, at least meaningful ones, which Vivien surely is.
Yes 2€ planeswalker is the value reprint we have been waiting for.
They can't put value in PWs because that would mean a new TBN-style failure. Vraska is a nice addition and fits the playstyle of the color combination, seems fine to me.
just wait after the deck releases, then.
Or just buy the deck itself.
Presale prices are always extremely high for some cards, especially if the card has been spoiled just a few hours/minutes prior.
Correct. The real price of this card is around 0.40€ assuming a price ~40€ per deck if you buy the precon, which could really be interesting by itself.
As brawl decks don't appear to have the same "low-complexity-new-player-product" restrictions that Planeswalker decks have, I imagine that the cards being pushed forward and being granted extended standard time might feel a little odd.
I can imagine a standard environment where there is 1 legal card with Jump-Start, for example, or a single legal card with amass. If any standard cards with keywords become "iconic" enough, it could theoretically be reprinted in multiple rounds of brawl decks and randomly keep a mechanic in standard (in very limited supply) far after it "should have" died.
While I don't know if wizards would try that, it just feels very odd for me.
I don't think they'll change their design philosophy for the Brawl decks: they are only useful if they can be an interesting starting point for the format in general, and people don't have to stumble on strange templatings when they can simply avoid keywords that don't match the Standard mechanics. Maybe with some ability words they can be a little more generous, since they don't have any rules attached to them, but I wouldn't expect single cards with Jump Start in Standard at all. They'll use the special slots to enable the Commander's theme (for Chulane, value ETB and bounce I suppose) or give the players general utilities that can't be printed in Draft Boosters like Arcane Signet.
Since Gavin stated that there are two cards that appear in each deck, I suppose the second one will be either an utility land (Command Tower-like?) or a generic Geode Golem-esque Artifact Creature. The card shared in two decks can be something that benefits controlling the Commander even without the ability word "Lieutenant" written on it.
Has anyone come up with a nickname or moniker for this cycle of lands yet? We have shocklands, fetchlands, checklands, fastlands, so I'm suggesting "canlands" because they were obviously inspired by Horizon CANopy and can be cashed in to draw a card, like a CANtrip. When you start adding more and more syllables to the nickname, it gets harder and harder to pronounce and understand in normal conversation.
Either Canopy Lands or Horizon Lands is fine for me, but I'd rather go with Cashlands!
I want BR to be Sword of Fast and Furious so bad...
Jokes aside, this seems good but not overpowered: more in War and Peace camp than in Feast and Famine or Fire and Ice, but the demand will still be high simply for the color combination itself.
What bothers me more than anything is that this product will still sell out and they'll (rightfully, from an economic standpoint) think of it as a huge success, which we all know breeds repetition. Humans: how silly we are... and the homo ludens is sometimes the silliest of us all.
First, the very decision of the theme in this color combination, even with all the problems they had as they clearly underlined at Gencon, is probably shaded by the existence of cards like Kess, Dissident Mage that will always be far better in a far superior color combination for this kind of strategy. Nevertheless, they could have built the deck in a new and interesting fashion avoiding such a great precedent to shadow their new deck. Sevinne was good enough to raise some good faith on the product, after all... and what do they give us? A list without any meaningful core, with so many "stupid" cards in it that even a new player can recognize are bad or mostly unuseful here (Fervent Denial? Dusk // Dawn with only three targets for Dawn? Come on!) and a group of reprints that I still don't understand why are here instead of simple and good effects like Swords to Plowshares (that they almost always reprint!), Lightning Helix or other good things with flashback.
Speaking about flashback and graveyard mechanics, just a little Scryfall action left me with these cards that could have been here instead of all this mess:
- Burning Oil
- Conflagrate
- Engulfing Flames
- Feeling of Dread
- Firebolt (!!!!!)
- Flash of Insight
- Geistflame
- Quiet Speculation
- Recoup (!!!)
- Call the Skybreaker (nah, let's put Zetalpa instead...)
- Flame Jab
No "money" card here, no Jump Start too, even if one is already showing up. Just some good utilities to help a new player have a good experience with the deck immediatly after opening it, instead of hoping some 1/1 tokens stick around and let you win the game without a strategy. I won't even go on to search for other wincons because there are so many good ones that it's unbelievable they didn't consider any of them. I'll just mention Soulfire Grand Master, which starts under 1€ on MKM and is a solid card with both Sevinne and Elsha. Wasn't is as obvious as Hooded Hydra and Deathmist Raptor for morph?
Even the Command Zone video is a clear statement of the failure of this deck: I've never seen a precon where you're really, really incentivized to switch the main commander with another one, but this one can possibly be saved only by Elsha of the Infinite. Some of the other new cards are interesting, but are they worth of a 40€ investment when you can wait a handful of days and grab them as singles on the secondary market for a couple bucks each? I don't think so. I only hope the last two decks are more similar to the Morph one than this pile of heterogeneous rubbish.
I wouldn't be surprised if Naya got Garruk, Primal Hunter and Jeskai something like Narset Transcendent.
Since Gavin stated that there are two cards that appear in each deck, I suppose the second one will be either an utility land (Command Tower-like?) or a generic Geode Golem-esque Artifact Creature. The card shared in two decks can be something that benefits controlling the Commander even without the ability word "Lieutenant" written on it.
Jokes aside, this seems good but not overpowered: more in War and Peace camp than in Feast and Famine or Fire and Ice, but the demand will still be high simply for the color combination itself.