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  • wallycaine's avatar
    Oct 2, 2022
    wallycaine posted a message on [BOT] Transformers Universes Beyond, available in Brother's War packs and bundles
    Quote from Grixh »
    Quote from lookingupanddown »
    Quote from Dontrike »
    Quote from Grixh »
    Why are they using the term "convert" for transformers when the normal magic term is transform?

    I had that same question, especially when the IP they are using literally has the word transform in its name and the primary character says "TRANSFORM and roll out!" near constantly.
    It's a Transformers branding thing, way older than Grimlock, Dinobot Leader. They try to not say "transform" because if that becomes common vernacular, they lose the ability to trademark it. Seeing as Hasbro has already lost a ton of trademarks on individual Transformers' names to other companies and the common vernacular argument (hi Octane), they try not to lose that one word.


    Surely they'd never be able to win a lawsuit over the word anyway. Spaceball 1 is a "transformer," so it seems to me like that ship has sailed.
    I would advise looking up trademark law. It's very different from copyright law, and they absolutely could win a case for someone else creating toys named Transformers. A single example that pre-dates them enforcing the trademark in a seperate category does not represent the ship "having sailed"
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Jul 25, 2022
    wallycaine posted a message on Rumor…return….of…priceless treasures (very huge “if”)
    Quote from Tormented »
    Quote from SecretInfiltrator »
    Quote from Grixh »
    Quote from the n00b king »


    Anyways, now that we know its confirmed to be Legends, most folks only think about the RL stuff, but don't realize that Legends was a gargantuan set with an insane amount of chaff. Plus I heard a rumour that they were boxes that had been sent back to WotC for being defective back in the day (either containing cards from Sheet A or B but not both).


    They confirmed exactly which cards will be available. There's a list of cards they just didn't open due to print run weirdness: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/lost-legends-2022-07-21

    Good to see some transparency. Smile


    I am more interested in the cards not included - there can't be some sort of licensing issue as they are just repackaging the cards (It seemed that Harold McNeil was left out for one - possibly because of his political leanings). Gwendlyn because of her profession? But craw giant, pyrotechnics? It's not artist (they would have mentioned crookshank kobolds, spinal villain, etc)

    And what of the cards they didn't include - did they just bonfire Cleanse/pradesh gypsies/imprison cards - cards that were much more questionable bannings than say invoke prejudice (I mean seriously - we all knew that card was wrong in 94).
    I can guess at a couple possibilities. On one hand, there's a few of the cards that might have been revoked for similar reasons to Pradesh et al, even if they didn't hit the threshold for banning from the card image gallery entirely. Stuff like Barbary Apes and Pyrotechnics (due to featuring the name Navajo, which may not the be preferred naming for the tribe) strike me as likely candidates for that. On the other hand, for a promotion where they know players are going to probably compare notes/post stories on line, they may have set a minimum number of a card opened to include it? If (due to similar print run weirdness) they only opened say, 3 Sylvan Libraries, leaving it on the list of cards in the set might get them blasted later if none of those 3 are opened by someone who posts it online. ...That said, I only just noticed that all the money cards on the list of "opened but left out" are Harold's, so I'm leaning away from the second reason.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    May 27, 2022
    wallycaine posted a message on [CLB][CUBE] Undermountain Adventurer
    Quote from asmallcat »
    Can I just say I hate that the templating on this card is "Add GG" then "Add six G." Why isn't it "Add GGGGGG"?! That would look so much better.
    It's because of Kaladesh/Energy. While it's nice looking to have GGGGGG in a vacuum/isolated card, it becomes extremely confusing when you've got cards with EEEEEEEE and cards with EEEEEE next to each other, and you're trying to parse quickly exactly how much energy you need. So when you need to create more than 5 of a resource, they short hand it because that many symbols in a row can be hard to read.
    Posted in: Cube Card and Archetype Discussion
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Feb 7, 2022
    wallycaine posted a message on [NEC] Upgrades Unleashed precon — Jumbo Commander preview
    Quote from Ryperior74 »
    Smoke sprits' aid seriously will they stop making Dockside Extortionist more broken than it is?
    Smoke Spirits' Aid has exactly 0 interaction with Dockside Extortionist? They're still your enchantments, even if they're on your opponents creatures.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Feb 4, 2022
    wallycaine posted a message on [NEO] Mindlink Mech — Games Academy Brescia Preview
    Quote from Sloop »
    Nice! Thanks a lot!


    So the copied Scute Swarm Vehicle token won‘t „return“ to being something else at the end of Turn right? (as it doesn‘t „remember“ being the Original Scute Swarm or Mindlink Mech before)
    Correct. As far as the Vehicle tokens are concerned, they copied a 4/3 flying artifact vehicle Scute Swarm, so that's what they are. It's the same rule that makes it so that when you Clone a Clone you get a copy of whatever the clone was copying, not another Clone.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Feb 4, 2022
    wallycaine posted a message on [NEO] Mindlink Mech — Games Academy Brescia Preview
    Quote from Sloop »
    So I have both Scute Swarm and Mindlink Mech on the Battlefield and at least five Lands in play.
    Now I crew the Mech with the Scute Swarm and play another Land.

    Will I now get 2 normal Scute Swarm tokens or 1 normal and another one that's a 4/3 flying artifact creature vehicle?
    And if I do get the vehicle version, will that token stay that way and can it duplicate through its Landfall ability like the other Scute Swarm tokens/copys?
    The second. Normally, making a copy of a crewed vehicle would get you a third option you didn't consider (an uncrewed version of the Vehicle), but Mindlink Mech has a copy ability built into it. So you'd copy the copy, which in this case would be a 4/3 flying artifact vehicle Scute Swarm, and since it would have all the relevant text from Scute Swarm, it would continue making copies in other turns when you play a land.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Jan 30, 2022
    wallycaine posted a message on [NEO] Awakened Awareness — Kyle Hill preview
    Quote from Grixh »
    Quote from KickinChicken »
    Guess if you don't dump mana into this, it does shrink the creature by a lot... Also is good for lands like Mishra's Factory, where the manland isn't that big to begin with (Faerie Conclave Love this!!! )


    It enchants artifacts or creatures, so it'll fall off manlands, unfortunately.
    That's actually beneficial for you, though. You get to keep the +1/+1 counters, but the part that locks it into being a 1/1 drops off.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Jan 28, 2022
    wallycaine posted a message on [NEO] Asari Captain — Deathsie preview
    Quote from foam_dome »
    I wonder why they didn’t just reuse exalted as the samurai/warrior mechanic. I guess they wanted the “attacks alone” thing to only affect samurai and warriors, instead of just any old creature on the same team?
    Additionally, they mentioned that they wanted there to be a variety of payoffs, rather than just +1/+1. For example, we've already seen "cheap equip", tap down a creature, and tribal firebreathing, all of which play differently than exalted would.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Dec 16, 2021
    wallycaine posted a message on [NEO] Kaito, Atsushi, Hidetsugu, and Ukiyo-e basics— Weekly MTG previews
    Quote from KickinChicken »
    What is interesting is that Kamigawa was and still is an 8 on the Rabiah scale. This just shows that whomever created the scale (was it Rosewater?), does not have final say of what plane is visited. Very hopefully (and probably right) that it takes the whole team to determine what planes to revisit.

    Attached are screenshots of the scale, itself, and where Kamigawa stands on it.
    As with a lot of Mark's scale, it's A) based off what Mark *thinks* is the likelihood, not personal preferences, and B) only 10 really represents "never going to happen". As the scale notes, an 8 is "unlikely to return, but possible if the stars align". While I'm sure we'll find out more as previews go on, this strikes me as similar to Madness' comeback from also being an 8, where things lined up just right to make this an appealing call.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Dec 2, 2021
    wallycaine posted a message on [MTG Alchemy] New Arena-Exclusive Format --"Rebalanced Cards."
    Quote from Ryperior74 »
    Here’s the new cards

    https://imgur.com/a/kvq7z8B

    come on wizards why couldn’t,t Ishkanah and gitrog get new cards in either horizon sets and not this digital exclusive

    for a fix (you better reprint the paper versions (not from this) with those arts those are eons better.)
    Maro has mentioned that they were put in Alchemy because they *weren't* put in the Innistrad sets. It was this or nothing for them this visit.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Nov 30, 2021
    wallycaine posted a message on [UNF] Mothership 11/29 — Unfinity sneak peek
    Quote from Dale Dan Tony »
    Quote from MrMoustacheMM »
    Quote from DL_Ojutai »
    Un-sets, while cool, sell pretty poorly

    Unstable was printed 4 times. That's pretty good sales.


    People keep saying this without evidence to back it up. The unstable set did excellent! Maybe the original Un-Set didn't do well, but since then they have been gold.
    Unhinged also didn't do great on sales metrics (hence the long gap between it and Unstable), but the Marks were able to show that it wasn't because it wasn't selling, they just overprinted it to start with. They printed it like a 3rd set of the block, which sell *way* more than supplemental sets, and Wizards ended up with a bunch of unsold Unhinged.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Nov 5, 2021
    wallycaine posted a message on [VOW] Welcoming Vampire— Weekly MTG preview
    Quote from Rosy Dumplings »
    So... I think that I kickstarted some of the recent discussion regarding the "triggers once per turn" discussion that was recently going on over on blogatog. As far as I can tell, there are three different wordings that have three different implications.

    1. "Whenever you *insert text* the first time each turn" (look at bloodhaze wolverine and the like for the general template).
    2. "At the beginning of combat on your/each turn" OR "At the beginning of your/each end step" OR "At the beginning of your postcombat main phase". (look at Luminarch Aspirant, Neheb, the Eternal, or Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist)
    3. "This ability triggers only once each turn."

    For version 1, if you met the condition before you cast the spell, it is too late for it to trigger that turn. While I don't think that it has been outright stated, I am guessing that this quirk of such abilities causes it to be misplayed by some newer players.
    For version 2, you trigger regardless of whether you met the condition before or after you played the card, though you must have met the condition AND played the card before the noted trigger time. The trigger time can also make some effects awkward (it's hard to have a trigger that can produce a surprise blocker in mid-combat, for example, if the ability only checks whether or not you get a token at the start of combat).
    For version 3, meeting the condition before casting the spell doesn't give you the trigger but doesn't stop you from meeting the trigger later on that turn (a mistake some people would likely make for #1). It is also more flexible in utilization than option #2 as it does not have to be gated to triggering at a specific time in the turn. Linguistically, however, this is the only version where the limitation has to be listed at the very end of the ability, which can make it feel much worse than abilities that introduce functionally similar limitations up-front.

    If there was a way to template the wording so you could get the mechanics of Version #3 while organically putting the limitation at the start of the ability, I think that would be the best option. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be an option.
    I'd point out an additional limitation on version 2: gating it to a specific time means the opponent can wait to see if you trigger it, then remove it before you get the actual benefit. Or you can lose the opportunity to benefit if the creature dies before the appointed time. For example, a Morbid Opportunist that triggered on the end step would be much much weaker, as it would miss out on drawing cards from Wraths or trading in combat if it doesn't survive them.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Nov 4, 2021
    wallycaine posted a message on [VOW] Welcoming Vampire— Weekly MTG preview
    Quote from lookingupanddown »
    Quote from Flisch »
    Feel like they should've kept the template "Whenever <condition> the first time each turn, <effect>.". That way it'd read less like a nerf and more like a natural part of the ability and it'd be less disappointing reading the awkward rider at the very end.
    That would cause sequencing issues. Using that template, if you played Welcoming Vampire after a 2-drop enters the battlefield, you can't get a card anymore for the rest of the turn.
    It's really amusing to me how many people are calling for strictly worse versions of templating, just because "this ability triggers once each turn" is at the end?
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Oct 23, 2021
    wallycaine posted a message on WOTC Confirmed we will give the TWD cards in MTG universe version of cards on the list
    Quote from WarMachinePrime »
    They either need to pare down the list (eliminating the chaff) or put a list card in EVERY set booster. Their stinginess is far beyond welcome.
    As far as we can tell, the frequency of these cards will be seperate from The List's size. If they're guarenteeing one in every 8 set boosters, they'd have to be either 50% of The List (unlikely), or they're effectively a seperate "slot" from the normal The List. The latter seems far more likely to me. So the main question mark to me is whether they'll be supplating "normal" pulls, meaning that the frequency of other The List cards will go down to 1/8 (to make it 1/4 packs having "The List" cards in them), or if they'll be supplemental. Either way, there should be plenty in circulation.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • wallycaine's avatar
    Sep 15, 2021
    wallycaine posted a message on Commander Banned and unbanned announcemnt
    Quote from Evil Never Dies »
    I think that what they are trying to say is that World of Fire end games, Sway of Star doesn't.


    Yes I get it. And this is against the social philosophy of the format, as I tried to explain. Sway of the Stars could lead to interesting games. Worldfire never.
    And that's why it's still banned. People will put Sway into lists as a "well maybe it'll make for an interesting story" card, and end up making everyone at the table miserable. Worldfire is a card that clearly communicates "use this to win immediately", Sway doesn't.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
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