Read some history and look at the context about the format of the time it was made. Look at who made the format. Look at why. It will enlighten your perspective and give you some basis to form an argument. Right now you are not making coherent arguments regarding the format. We here are seeing complaints about your LGS, in this thread's current form.
I think there is an intentional coinciding with the Secret Lairs and the new Pioneer format. Imagine a scenario with me
1. Eternal format players have been asking for a solution to the reprint problem for years
2. WoTC thought it could pay lip service to this need and tossed us the overpriced Masters products, trying to at least appear to save face by claiming to be addressing the reprint issue.
3. In reality it was just another way to sell non-standard Magic sets with maximized profit margins to keep the presses/supply chain of products running throughout the year
4. WoTC without saying as much, clearly had not figured out how to address the reprint issue, and it was becoming a development nightmare for future sets both Standard and Eternal.
5. The solution it turns out, according to WoTC's thinking, was to start over. To give up on the model that has failed Modern and the other Eternal formats.
Imagine how the secret lairs would have been received by Modern or other Eternal format players, if Pioneer had never existed and these products came out...
Especially after WoTC having publicly failed at addressing reprints through sets... there would have been hell to pay! The backlash would have been MASSIVE. We would have been talking about the same structural and ethical dilemmas then, as are being discussed today.
But all that is avoidable if WoTC pulls the rug out from under the expected outrage... and just kills a format or two
Hence the birth of the Pioneer format, with the always intended Secret Lairs following shortly after.
All eternal formats and their longstanding prior models for reprint supply needed a re-alignment. How do you steer that ship? Take away all that was familiar and leave no option for an alternative.
We are all along for the ride on WoTC's subversion and manipulation train. The blinders are on and we are not to look out the windows or at the past. Keep all eyes forward in the unassuming position, passengers.
Secret Lairs are here to stay, they always have been intended to stay - and their existence/profit model is the reason WoTC has justified permanent harm to the other Eternal formats. That was all a calculated hit, and WoTC already took that blow to the chin. It won't make all that for naught, and stop making Secret Lair products. They are the new paradigm.
@Rosy Dumplings, I think WoTC has had the psychologist on staff for longer than you're giving them credit for..
Wait til we start seeing copies of Mana Crypt with one of the test-card stickers over it. Peel it off and rip the face off the Crypt.... peel it and leave sticky residue behind.... ultimate bad customer feedback there LOL
That is really a goldmine of information you just wrote. I have copied it on a notebook file on my PC and printed it also.
I will consult it often to help me start on the right track.
Thanks again
Pat
No problem, glad it is helpful to you
Also, I forgot to mention! Sealed pre-release kits also come with at least one foil date-stamped rare or mythic card (date stamp looks like gold leaf). These are always great collectibles for the chase rares/mythics, if you're so lucky to pull one.
Say for example, the Commander Format, where the decks are 100 cards and only 1 copy of each card is allowed in the deck-design (as opposed to 60 card decks with x4 copies per card allowed in all of the other formats) - the decks are designed around a legendary creature in that only the colors of that creature are allowed to be used in the deck. If you get lucky and pull a date stamped legendary creature, there's a good chance it is a highly sought after card.
I personally go out of my way to get my Commander as a date stamped foil if I can (some really old cards before foils became a thing there is no option for this). I also never deconstruct any of my decks, which is unusual, so when I decide on building something - I want the best looking version of that legendary creature possible and will cough up the $ for it. In my mind each deck is a unique creation in itself that I spent the time to homebrew and put the love into making. Sometimes I build decks in moments of inspiration that are significant to me and represent a special moment or memory in time. For this reason I also don't pull cards from one deck to fill into another... This is not normal. I have 30 some EDH decks and 30 some copies of Sol Ring. Not cheap to do that. But it is a thing that happened over a long time so the costs were mitigated.
Check out some decks in my signature if the Commander format interests you, you can playtest them too. Last I checked a year ago some 25k people viewed my decks. I also own those exact decks in person and they are what I play my friends with. Even the couple thousand dollar cards each, I own those.
ALSO! EDH = Commander, it's just the old name for the format (Elder Dragon Highlander) before WoTC made the Commander product to piggyback off sales
Not sure how I want to play yet. I indeed have been pondering either to focus on specific decks or just going all out and buy a lot of everything.
Right now I just want to enjoy getting some cool cards then as I learn I will probably start focusing on specific cards.
I am probably going to buy a big bulk but I am going to study the sellers feedback and item description on Ebay to get a good lot.
Thanks for your help
Pat
As a person who's played for nearly two decades, and given the situation you're describing, I would recommend buying some pre-constructed decks (if you don't care for deckbuilding) or some pre-release kits of sets currently in the Standard Format (that have seeded packs) if you like the idea of building your own decks.
There are different formats of Magic, where the rules for deck-building vary among them. So not all decks can be used interchangeably from one format to the next - but you could still pick up a Standard Format pre-release kit, which would provide the tools to learn how to deckbuild and at least net you cards that are legal in Standard.
A "pre-release kit" is a box of booster packs and sometimes a "seeded pack" which is cards in a particular theme that is related to the themes of the particular set of magic cards. Some sets, say Ravnica themed ones, usually have prerelease kits tailored to a specific guild and the themes of that guild. Other sets it might be a less obvious theme and instead of a seeded pack, you'll get extra boosters from which to build a prerelease deck.
I would recommend getting a few prerelease kits that have seeded packs/themed packs to find where your interests lie. From there you'll have some direction for building decks/getting a sense of what it is you want to collect.
older more experienced players will feast on you if you don't have an in-depth knowledge of mechanics, interactions and meta. I personally love hosing netdeckers with my homebrew decks designed to take advantage of them. I'm not alone!
@OP, you should definitely ignore any comments of derision about 'net-decking' or whatever. There is no best way to build a deck for a casual variant like commander, and most people don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of every card ever printed, so using online sources for example decks and card recommendations to help you find cards that work for your deck that you never even knew existed without those sources is perfectly fine.
@OP
Despite the obvious emotional backlash to the facts I present, it would be bad advice to not acknowledge the reality of the aspects I mentioned in the EDH format, namely meta.
Meta not only relates to card selection but the mentality around their use
So regardless of the emotional reaction my statement of fact has provoked, to disregard the notion that older players will pick up on netdecking new players, and to not try to gain a better understanding of your card selection to avoid this scenario (aka to have a better playing experience) - is bad advice.
Ultimately, we all do as we please and hopefully you have some fun
older more experienced players will feast on you if you don't have an in-depth knowledge of mechanics, interactions and meta. I personally love hosing netdeckers with my homebrew decks designed to take advantage of them. I'm not alone!
I have a hilarious near-creatureless O-Kagachi 5 color enchantment tribal deck that is especially effective at breaking netdecking spike's brains. A link to it is in my signature. I've got plenty more vicious decks but this one is consistently the one that gets them flustered. I suppose its the part about losing to one creature that makes them snap
I'd suggest just having enough decks with themes to allow for any occasion - and a deck or two that has a scaling power level. Scion of the Ur-Dragon is the quickest example of a deck that comes to mind with a scaling power level
There is literally an article that came out yesterday by the NYT titled "Beach Body Tyranny Hurts Men Too"
Seems relevant to this conversation about the oversexualization of male characters
I would post a link but I don't want this post deleted. Shouldn't be hard to find.
A thought regarding the thread title - Maybe WoTC has seen the shapeshifter typing as an opportunity to present visually androgynous humanoids? I ask you to consider a scenario with me.
Maybe someone high up at WoTC made an equation in their minds and thought that "if one can shapeshift at will, into whatever gender they so choose as a result of their transformation, then maybe this physical change also constitutes a change in their sexuality as well - and therefore we will represent shapeshifters to be recognizable as androgynous".
I'm not saying this scenario was the logical steps taken to arrive at this representation of shapeshifters, but the scenario does point out the slippery slope of bad logic that is associating the shapeshifting mechanic with an equally fluid sexuality.
Without a background of how a given shapeshifter acquired this ability (magic or genetic) how are we to know how there ever becomes more shapeshifters? If it's genetic manipulation that allows the transformation, it begs the question of "how does this species reproduce?" And if WoTC's explanation for the shapeshifting ability is indeed based in genetics, then there would be an assumption of sexuality placed on this species - but we know well that WoTC won't delve into whether they reproduce asexually, sexually or anything else under the sun. WoTC would still not go into that detail, and would therefore continue the disconnect of information regarding whether this species even has a sexuality at all.
And if we can't know how this species reproduces, how then can WoTC confer our own human interpretation of sexuality onto these characters just because they shapeshift?
I do welcome the ability to answer other permanent types in the colors that can't, that's an outdated color pie ideal that makes the game worse.
I just wish they would add it for red, the color they seem to hate the most.
haphazard bombardment remains one of the worst designs they've ever printed, they went out of their way to NOT give red a flavorful way to destroy enchantments.
You do realize that black still cannot deal with artifacts, right? Put simply, Naturalize will never be printed in black for the same reason it will never be printed in red. Each color needs to have strengths and weaknesses, or there's no point in having colors at all.
Can't deal with artifacts? Heresy! There are some options available, albeit older than most of the people I play against
BR human tribal sounds kind of random though...tough to say if it's worth doing without looking at the Gatherer.. though there are endless humans in every color it seems....
just thinking of ways to cheat creatures from the hand and still give them haste
Lots of brew potential with the new Chainer. RB needed the love its getting in C19 desperately. I've been unsatisfied with almost all the RB commander options since Grusilda, Monster Masher came out (and yes I do have a Grusilda deck that my playgroup is fine with me playing). Since those few years ago, RB has gotten much more variety in directions to brew. Thank goodness
I dont recall how it goes this year, but I'm really hoping this is a foil... or has a foil at some point. The art on the Weatherlight characters would pop in foil. Especially this and the new Gerrard art
I'm getting a lot of brew inspiration with the new RB legends in C19. Glad the alternate tri-color commanders and the ancillary legends aren't as narrow as the flagship legends.
I'm not at all bothered by WoTC's revisiting old cards from an era and just slapping the effect on a new imagining of a related legend from that era. It feels refreshing actually. I'm liking the idea of a creature in play having abilities that used to be on enchantments or spells.
I am so glad that WoTC is using the Commmander product in this way of revisiting old legends. Now let's get onto making Hypnox a legend and we'll be good! We need more nightmare horror legends. I want nightmare and horror tribal by now! lol
I’m really not feeling it this year. As a vorthos I could care less about mechanics, and these commanders really are ultra specialized. It’s fine though, last year was amazing for me and I’ve had a lot of cards for my decks get released recently. So I could use a break and for others to get what they want. I do want the new Gerrard but I suspect I won’t be intrigued until Throne of Eldraine
For the 2nd year in a row I'm wondering if the $140-$160 for the 4 boxes would be better used on singles. Last year I bought 2 playsets of a rare card for $8. That card was listed at $1/ea initially, like within 10 min of the listing - and by the end of the next day was at $12 ea elsewhere. 12x multiplier in 24hrs. A lot of money can be saved if you can snatch up stuff in the initial hours of singles going on sale.. Regarding your first two sentences, I'm agreeing with your sentiment completely. Feels like another very focused batch of product is coming. After seeing 3 of 4 of the flagship commanders already, I'm not seeing much that compels me as a brewer. I hope there's a backup 3-color legend in each box, that are each a bit less focused than the flagships, to replace what we're seeing as the first options. I don't expect it, but a person can hope!
Right? I don't understand people who get so irrationally irritated at something like this. Just go to a spoiler compiler and let other people enjoy it their own way. Woof.
On your first point - Outrage is soooo so easy, and most people would rather walk away from ugliness rather than engage and call out someone.. I appreciate you're calling out the irrational outrage
On your second point - The outrage seems to be a function of laziness
But I'm lazy too in that I very much enjoy coming here to see everything in one place
And I do want to say thank you to all the folks who do that leg work of sharing the content here with us. Thank you folks for enabling my laziness, the centralized spoilers here on this forum were the initial reason I found this site some years ago.
The fact that content creators get the opportunity to benefit on the back end of all their work and WoTC's combined is good business - and I don't find that reason for the dispersion of the spoilers as anything but good business. It's not a detractor, it just comes with the territory. It's baked into the bread.
Read some history and look at the context about the format of the time it was made. Look at who made the format. Look at why. It will enlighten your perspective and give you some basis to form an argument. Right now you are not making coherent arguments regarding the format. We here are seeing complaints about your LGS, in this thread's current form.
1. Eternal format players have been asking for a solution to the reprint problem for years
2. WoTC thought it could pay lip service to this need and tossed us the overpriced Masters products, trying to at least appear to save face by claiming to be addressing the reprint issue.
3. In reality it was just another way to sell non-standard Magic sets with maximized profit margins to keep the presses/supply chain of products running throughout the year
4. WoTC without saying as much, clearly had not figured out how to address the reprint issue, and it was becoming a development nightmare for future sets both Standard and Eternal.
5. The solution it turns out, according to WoTC's thinking, was to start over. To give up on the model that has failed Modern and the other Eternal formats.
Imagine how the secret lairs would have been received by Modern or other Eternal format players, if Pioneer had never existed and these products came out...
Especially after WoTC having publicly failed at addressing reprints through sets... there would have been hell to pay! The backlash would have been MASSIVE. We would have been talking about the same structural and ethical dilemmas then, as are being discussed today.
But all that is avoidable if WoTC pulls the rug out from under the expected outrage... and just kills a format or two
Hence the birth of the Pioneer format, with the always intended Secret Lairs following shortly after.
All eternal formats and their longstanding prior models for reprint supply needed a re-alignment. How do you steer that ship? Take away all that was familiar and leave no option for an alternative.
We are all along for the ride on WoTC's subversion and manipulation train. The blinders are on and we are not to look out the windows or at the past. Keep all eyes forward in the unassuming position, passengers.
Secret Lairs are here to stay, they always have been intended to stay - and their existence/profit model is the reason WoTC has justified permanent harm to the other Eternal formats. That was all a calculated hit, and WoTC already took that blow to the chin. It won't make all that for naught, and stop making Secret Lair products. They are the new paradigm.
@Rosy Dumplings, I think WoTC has had the psychologist on staff for longer than you're giving them credit for..
Wait til we start seeing copies of Mana Crypt with one of the test-card stickers over it. Peel it off and rip the face off the Crypt.... peel it and leave sticky residue behind.... ultimate bad customer feedback there LOL
No problem, glad it is helpful to you
Also, I forgot to mention! Sealed pre-release kits also come with at least one foil date-stamped rare or mythic card (date stamp looks like gold leaf). These are always great collectibles for the chase rares/mythics, if you're so lucky to pull one.
Say for example, the Commander Format, where the decks are 100 cards and only 1 copy of each card is allowed in the deck-design (as opposed to 60 card decks with x4 copies per card allowed in all of the other formats) - the decks are designed around a legendary creature in that only the colors of that creature are allowed to be used in the deck. If you get lucky and pull a date stamped legendary creature, there's a good chance it is a highly sought after card.
I personally go out of my way to get my Commander as a date stamped foil if I can (some really old cards before foils became a thing there is no option for this). I also never deconstruct any of my decks, which is unusual, so when I decide on building something - I want the best looking version of that legendary creature possible and will cough up the $ for it. In my mind each deck is a unique creation in itself that I spent the time to homebrew and put the love into making. Sometimes I build decks in moments of inspiration that are significant to me and represent a special moment or memory in time. For this reason I also don't pull cards from one deck to fill into another... This is not normal. I have 30 some EDH decks and 30 some copies of Sol Ring. Not cheap to do that. But it is a thing that happened over a long time so the costs were mitigated.
Check out some decks in my signature if the Commander format interests you, you can playtest them too. Last I checked a year ago some 25k people viewed my decks. I also own those exact decks in person and they are what I play my friends with. Even the couple thousand dollar cards each, I own those.
ALSO! EDH = Commander, it's just the old name for the format (Elder Dragon Highlander) before WoTC made the Commander product to piggyback off sales
As a person who's played for nearly two decades, and given the situation you're describing, I would recommend buying some pre-constructed decks (if you don't care for deckbuilding) or some pre-release kits of sets currently in the Standard Format (that have seeded packs) if you like the idea of building your own decks.
There are different formats of Magic, where the rules for deck-building vary among them. So not all decks can be used interchangeably from one format to the next - but you could still pick up a Standard Format pre-release kit, which would provide the tools to learn how to deckbuild and at least net you cards that are legal in Standard.
A "pre-release kit" is a box of booster packs and sometimes a "seeded pack" which is cards in a particular theme that is related to the themes of the particular set of magic cards. Some sets, say Ravnica themed ones, usually have prerelease kits tailored to a specific guild and the themes of that guild. Other sets it might be a less obvious theme and instead of a seeded pack, you'll get extra boosters from which to build a prerelease deck.
I would recommend getting a few prerelease kits that have seeded packs/themed packs to find where your interests lie. From there you'll have some direction for building decks/getting a sense of what it is you want to collect.
@OP
Despite the obvious emotional backlash to the facts I present, it would be bad advice to not acknowledge the reality of the aspects I mentioned in the EDH format, namely meta.
Meta not only relates to card selection but the mentality around their use
So regardless of the emotional reaction my statement of fact has provoked, to disregard the notion that older players will pick up on netdecking new players, and to not try to gain a better understanding of your card selection to avoid this scenario (aka to have a better playing experience) - is bad advice.
Ultimately, we all do as we please and hopefully you have some fun
older more experienced players will feast on you if you don't have an in-depth knowledge of mechanics, interactions and meta. I personally love hosing netdeckers with my homebrew decks designed to take advantage of them. I'm not alone!
Repercussion +
Chandra's Ignition
Star of Extinction
Wave of Reckoning
Burning Sands
Circle of Flame
AEther Flash
Grim Feast
Lightmine Field
Powerstone Minefield
War's Toll
Isn't it in the lore anyways that O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami eats armies single handedly? Hmm
I'd suggest just having enough decks with themes to allow for any occasion - and a deck or two that has a scaling power level. Scion of the Ur-Dragon is the quickest example of a deck that comes to mind with a scaling power level
Seems relevant to this conversation about the oversexualization of male characters
I would post a link but I don't want this post deleted. Shouldn't be hard to find.
A thought regarding the thread title - Maybe WoTC has seen the shapeshifter typing as an opportunity to present visually androgynous humanoids? I ask you to consider a scenario with me.
Maybe someone high up at WoTC made an equation in their minds and thought that "if one can shapeshift at will, into whatever gender they so choose as a result of their transformation, then maybe this physical change also constitutes a change in their sexuality as well - and therefore we will represent shapeshifters to be recognizable as androgynous".
I'm not saying this scenario was the logical steps taken to arrive at this representation of shapeshifters, but the scenario does point out the slippery slope of bad logic that is associating the shapeshifting mechanic with an equally fluid sexuality.
Without a background of how a given shapeshifter acquired this ability (magic or genetic) how are we to know how there ever becomes more shapeshifters? If it's genetic manipulation that allows the transformation, it begs the question of "how does this species reproduce?" And if WoTC's explanation for the shapeshifting ability is indeed based in genetics, then there would be an assumption of sexuality placed on this species - but we know well that WoTC won't delve into whether they reproduce asexually, sexually or anything else under the sun. WoTC would still not go into that detail, and would therefore continue the disconnect of information regarding whether this species even has a sexuality at all.
And if we can't know how this species reproduces, how then can WoTC confer our own human interpretation of sexuality onto these characters just because they shapeshift?
Can't deal with artifacts? Heresy! There are some options available, albeit older than most of the people I play against
Phyrexian Tribute
Gate to Phyrexia
BR human tribal sounds kind of random though...tough to say if it's worth doing without looking at the Gatherer.. though there are endless humans in every color it seems....
just thinking of ways to cheat creatures from the hand and still give them haste
Lots of brew potential with the new Chainer. RB needed the love its getting in C19 desperately. I've been unsatisfied with almost all the RB commander options since Grusilda, Monster Masher came out (and yes I do have a Grusilda deck that my playgroup is fine with me playing). Since those few years ago, RB has gotten much more variety in directions to brew. Thank goodness
I'm getting a lot of brew inspiration with the new RB legends in C19. Glad the alternate tri-color commanders and the ancillary legends aren't as narrow as the flagship legends.
I'm not at all bothered by WoTC's revisiting old cards from an era and just slapping the effect on a new imagining of a related legend from that era. It feels refreshing actually. I'm liking the idea of a creature in play having abilities that used to be on enchantments or spells.
I am so glad that WoTC is using the Commmander product in this way of revisiting old legends. Now let's get onto making Hypnox a legend and we'll be good! We need more nightmare horror legends. I want nightmare and horror tribal by now! lol
For the 2nd year in a row I'm wondering if the $140-$160 for the 4 boxes would be better used on singles. Last year I bought 2 playsets of a rare card for $8. That card was listed at $1/ea initially, like within 10 min of the listing - and by the end of the next day was at $12 ea elsewhere. 12x multiplier in 24hrs. A lot of money can be saved if you can snatch up stuff in the initial hours of singles going on sale.. Regarding your first two sentences, I'm agreeing with your sentiment completely. Feels like another very focused batch of product is coming. After seeing 3 of 4 of the flagship commanders already, I'm not seeing much that compels me as a brewer. I hope there's a backup 3-color legend in each box, that are each a bit less focused than the flagships, to replace what we're seeing as the first options. I don't expect it, but a person can hope!
On your first point - Outrage is soooo so easy, and most people would rather walk away from ugliness rather than engage and call out someone.. I appreciate you're calling out the irrational outrage
On your second point - The outrage seems to be a function of laziness
But I'm lazy too in that I very much enjoy coming here to see everything in one place
And I do want to say thank you to all the folks who do that leg work of sharing the content here with us. Thank you folks for enabling my laziness, the centralized spoilers here on this forum were the initial reason I found this site some years ago.
The fact that content creators get the opportunity to benefit on the back end of all their work and WoTC's combined is good business - and I don't find that reason for the dispersion of the spoilers as anything but good business. It's not a detractor, it just comes with the territory. It's baked into the bread.
Congrats to all those content creators