MTG Salvation

Watched this earlier as well. Was getting a real sense of dread for furture MTG. Though MaRo's tumblr post asking players how they'd like to see future crosovers, and the resounding response of "silver bordered only", gives me hope

Oh my god yes finally new artwork for Worldy Tutor

If that's another human walker ew

So we've got one full deck list out now, and there isn't a single badly needed reprint in the whole list. Sure, Command Zone states the overall reprint value is high, but that's any deck when you're adding up a bunch of bulk cards. The best reprint we get is Seedborn Muse, which you can get easily for less than $10 already. It's looking a little better than last year I suppose.

I'm curious what other people are thinking and feeling about this. The reprints so far are almost entirely not sought after bulk cards. And this is also considering the still absurd $40 price tag, which already causes tons of new players that don't have a ton to spend to shy away from a precon.

With no badly needed reprints for experienced players, and the high $40 price tag that keeps a lot of newer players away, who is this product even for?

Quote from SonofaBith75 »

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0DUGg9PDnIY&t=835s

In which Gavin Verhey claims to have heard players dissatisfaction with the reprints of Commander 2018, and then proceeds to show that (at least after the first deck) no, no he didn’t.

“Hey kids, you want better reprints? Enjoy your $7 Seedborn and don’t say I never did anything for ya!”

I'm glad somebody else brought it up because this was exactly what I thought about looking at today's decklist haha.

Quote from JuiceBOX »

For anyone absolutely entrenched in the format, these products will always be disappointing... that is just how it is. These decks have never been what I hoped they would be for a $40 price tag, but they are nice to see anyways. Players deep into the format are likely just going to pick up singles anyways, this product isn't geared towards them - it is geared towards people who likely don't have a commander deck or who don't spend a whole lot of money on a secondary market.

I agree with most of what you're saying. Until last year, I always happily picked up a full set of the decks and was very satisfied. I truly do miss playing the decks for a little while before striping them apart for singles to use elsewhere, and it was always just worth it 2017 and prior. I do agree that WotC seems to be targeting players who don't buy singles, but it just seems like that's not even a decent option for those people whereas it used to be a great one. This is, of course, somewhat bold to state about the entire product this year since we've only seen one deck. However, this is an entire deck revealed now, and therefore does set some precedent of what we can expect in the coming week of spoilers.

Quote from cyberium_neo »

Calling precons a bust base on the price of reprints is rather skewed, don't you think?

The primary function of commander precons are there to be a gateway for players new to this format, $40 for a cohesive deck with potential for expansion isn't that high. If they include more pricy reprints then individual LGS might also sell them for higher cost, make it truly unapprochable by new players. As it is, I think the deck is fine for amateurs, it has a theme, good mana base and removal, versatile legends, and easy to learn.

Precons are tasked for supporting older deck ideas and/or inventing new one, to stimulate deckbuilding. Morph is an old concept requiring new blood, which this deck provided quite a few. It's a good deck and looks fun to play, I will definitely pick it up and playtest it.

This is the exact scenario so far as to why last year's decks did so poorly. As in, they were a "bust." $40 is pretty expensive for a brand new player to want to invest in something they have no idea whether or not they'll enjoy when it comes to paper magic, where you're limited to when and where you can play much more so then say a video game.

The only way scalping has ever become an issue in the past with Commander products, was when WotC incompetently printed a vastly insufficient amount of the product in 2016.

Hopefully the populate decks have at least 2 of the token doubling enchantments in them since they're all way over priced

Quote from Colt47 »

... so they didn't just have two sets planned, they had three? And they are so desperate to recoup losses they are charging over 300 dollars a box, with the justification being the buyer gets a masterpiece?

Oh gods they probably just showed what the high end cards are for this set.

I mean to be fair, the value of the cards shown alone vs the msrp is already an absurdly better bang for your buck vs any other masters set. Though it would've been really nice to see this just be a normal masters set that they finally got completely right.

The top 50 list on this forum is an okay resource for general good stuff, but it's a bit outdated and neglected these days. EDHrec.com is a good place to find good cards for specific commanders. You can also look up tappedout.net or this site you're posting on for deck lists of specific commanders to get an idea of what you might want to play in a specific deck. As far as cards from specific sets go, you could look up the Command Zone podcast. They do a set review every set catered to Commander.

I'm personally under the impression that rotating formats are a waste of money. So this format seems like a waste of money.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0DUGg9PDnIY&t=835s

In which Gavin Verhey claims to have heard players dissatisfaction with the reprints of Commander 2018, and then proceeds to show that (at least after the first deck) no, no he didn’t. Talking out of your ass, Verhey.

“Hey kids, you want better reprints? Enjoy your $7 Seedborn (soon to be $4) and don’t say I never did anything for ya!”

Great card but name fail. Should have called it Baboonaconda.

Even if Anaconda's are South American and not from Thailand. This is Tarkir anyway.

So far yep. Total bust.

Low value lazy reprints. Dont forget theyll go lower after this.

Uninspired legends so far. Theyre neat i guess but they dont inspire me to explore that design space. Theyre also not highly supported so even if you do explore that space everyone else is going the same exact route.

The new cards arent very strong, and they give way too many resources to the opponents, while providing minimal benefit.

Everyone is going to argue against me but time will prove me right. In 3 months all of these cards will be forgotten and cut.

For anyone absolutely entrenched in the format, these products will always be disappointing... that is just how it is. These decks have never been what I hoped they would be for a $40 price tag, but they are nice to see anyways. Players deep into the format are likely just going to pick up singles anyways, this product isn't geared towards them - it is geared towards people who likely don't have a commander deck or who don't spend a whole lot of money on a secondary market.

I’m neither feeling the new cards nor the reprints and especially not the themes this year. It’s a hard pass for me so far.

Always felt like this was going to be one of the more lackluster decks of this set. Morph is just not that interesting and is poorly supported despite having an entire block, for some reason, dedicated to it and its sister mechanics. The most interesting take on the mechanic (manifest) was completely wasted by not letting you flip over and cast the manifested instants and sorceries. Megamorph was not only the name of a Yugioh card, but literally the dumbest and least interesting direction to go with the mechanic. Individually, morph doesn't work well with a regular playgroup outside of a few specific cards simply because Willbender stops being a good trick after everyone knows you only run the one morph card. They did a pretty piss poor job of making people want to run morph and the much requested morph deck didn't fix the issues for those that did. The crap reprints don't help either.

Yawn. Hard pass.

Looks stronger than we're use to but the reprints are mediocre at best. Theres nothing here that needed to be reprinted, and the new cards just arent that interesting to warrant the price tag.

The things that needed to happen here just didnt. I dont want to play morph which is also poorly supported, i dont want to get it for reprints, and i certainly dont want to tweak it into something viable somewhat viable.

Next.

Reading through this whole thread I've yet to see a justification for the price increase of this set and its packs. A one-per-box promo ain't it, chief.

Seems pretty obvious that WOTC knew through every last masters set which cards players want most in these products and now that they've decided to put most/all of them into their last set they want to milk it.

"But WOTC is a business they need to make money". WOTC made money off every past Masters set that was released at the same old Masters set price of $10/pack. They didn't have to increase the price of packs for any reason visible within what we know about the set so far because, as was stated earlier, printing [card}Liliana of the Veil[/card], Snapcaster Mage, and Dark Confidant in these sets costs as much in ink and paper as Grizzly Bears, Ironclaw Orcs, and Dingus Egg.

For 4 mana, he can become Lazav, Dimir Mastermind