Why would fans of Zhalfir be annoyed....Africa is hardly a mono culture. And they did an Egypt knockoff anyway
Because Jamuraa isn't mono culture either. It was ruled by the Zhalfir, the Femeref, and Suq'Ata nations. There was also the city states Bryce, Tirras, Palmyra. Also home to people whose ancestors came from Rabiah the Infinite.
Its like hearing that there is an ancient greek plane in the works and its not Theros.
I thought Zhalfir was gone forever. Wasn't this Teferi's point of tension in the story line? Insofar as the Time Spiral story was the beginning of modern MTG story continuity, it should be noted that WOTC hasn't rewritten the 'rules' of this too much. Or have they?
I partly want to believe they are trying to have more reasons for returning to Dominaria at a later date. Aside from an external threat (Eldrazi, Phyrexians, Nicol Bolas), they want an internal reason from Dominaria to return. So perhaps as one of the shake-ups in the world of Dominaria, they plan on bringing Zhalfir back which would create worthwhile tension and story telling. Its also been 11 world years since that event, possibly 12 or 13 when the set gets actually released like maybe 2019 or 2020.
Other thing to note is that the only cards in standard at the moment that have strong ties to the continent of Jamuraa are:
The first half of that list being cards from Teferi's planeswalker deck.
Now these cards could have gone either way based on sales and popularity for Dominaria. If Dominaria went badly, it would be the same boat as Kamigawa or Lorwyn where according to their data they collected its not a worthwhile prospect to pursue and the cards would be that much more final. Yet due to Dominaria being very well received overall and had good sales, WOTC is looking at it in a similar prospect to how they view planes like Ravnica.
As they are willing to explore different geographical areas in future visits to Dominaria like Jamuraa. Which is important as while Jamuraa, and by extension Zhalfir, don't negate the possibility of a separate African themed plane they could use Jamuraa for that type of plane instead as it already has a rich culture and history based on Africa and Mirage block was also well-liked.
Dominaria now being the "History Plane" and there could be some interesting history if Zhalfir phasing into Dominaria would be equivalent like the city of Atlantis showing up but everything and everyone from Atlantis was intact and fine. That the Zhalfirin people are still ready to fight the Phyrexian threat. That how convenient it is that a new Phyrexian threat has shown up in the multiverse.
That while Mark Rosewater has been asked if they would consider doing an African-themed plane, he replied with "I think it would be cool but would the fans of Jamuraa be upset?"
That when asked about "wasn't Jamuraa a paradise turned into a wasteland?", he makes note of Zhalfir specifically being phased out and wasn't destroyed.
These blog posts aren't that far out either, like only late 2017 and early 2018.
I *think* you don’t experience time while phased out... like, there is no such thing as “phasing space” - phased beings skip directly to some future point in time.
Citation needed ofc - sorry, I can’t remmeber where/why I know that. I used to read every single associated fiction back in the 90s/00s
The way I know phasing is how it was described back in mirage as like a time tunnel of sorts as it flings the creature or object through time.
Teferi and Jhoira have been around, they were in the new Dominaria set and were present for the Time Spiral Block. The key thing to note with Jhoira and Teferi is they age slower, like much slower.
One of the main things that kept Zhalfir out of the story for so long is that Teferi phased all of that land and people out because he didn't want his people to suffer the brunt of the phyrexian invasion like how Urza was planning would have happened.
Now make no mistake, Zhalfir isn't a weak country, far from it actually. Before it was phased out, Zhalfir was the strongest in all of Dominaria in terms of military and magical might; think the strongest boxer in a tournament that instead of fighting the first guy gets to sit back and stay fresh until much later.
Now because of Jeska who used Radha to seal the temporal rift at Zhalfir, Teferi couldn't bring back in Zhalfir. As by this time, Teferi had become weakened due to losing a fight against Nicol Bolas AND losing his spark when sealing the Shivan temporal rift. So by the time he found out what happened to Zhalfir, he didn't have the power to undo what had happened.
the-knowledge-eater-spirit asked: Zhalfir, if or when?
MaRo: If, but the success of Domnaria inches it towards when.
So we might have a future storyline involving Zhalfir even though it is phased out by Teferi's magic and was thought sealed off by Jeska. Also unlike other questions one would think would be frequently sent in, this is the first time this has been answered and it was post-Dominaria.
Personally I hope that Zhalfir gets phased back into Dominaria. As there is a lot of story potential behind having an entire race of people, their culture, their lands, their wildlife, their records, etc that have basically been put into temporal stasis and then that reemerging to the new world that Dominaria has become.
Think of Teferi as Superman as Zhalfir is to Kandor.
While the two-packs are quaint, they more likely have off-color / off-guild cards that provide a more subpar experience with it. How about instead, if a new player is meant to go form a Welcome Deck to a Planeswalker Deck, showoff a more cohesive and functional deck in order to get the player more interested.
Planeswalker Decks will end up discontinued like Intro Decks if they don't step up their deck building when trying to appeal to new or old customers.
The whole plan is actually to get the new player interested in booster packs, not the deck.
Or you know, remove the three Halberdier, include 1x Piston-Fist Cyclops, 1x Crackling Drake, 1x Beamsplitter Mage . You will have now just shown off to the new player a few cards they will want to buy more of by introducing it to them in the first place instead of a janky vanilla that has the only purpose to be removed.
They don't want to spoon-feed "easy upgrades" into the deck, they want to associate it with booster packs to the new player.
Which can be accomplished with what I said before.
You know how we (jaded) experienced players can immediately identify "Intro Pack Rares" from a mile away? Well, there's also the concept of "Intro Pack Commons" like Halberdier existing solely because a new player is way more likely to open the Cyclops than the likes of Firemind's Research to replace the Omnispell Adept.
That wouldn't stop them from buying packs, it just means they need more copies. Also those cards tend to go south really fast in price value espeically for new players who show up later for that set.
But of course, WotC will just run it in all rarity levels (Whelp to Drake for uncommon) to maximize the overall possibility regardless.
Or you know, not include that sort of off-theme jank in the first place.
Sure, literally anybody with enough experience with similar tactics (including mobile games) would see through the whole scheme pretty quickly, let alone already-invested players like us and chances are any new player brought directly in by another player had our disclaimers pasted right in front of them before they even began, but there will always exist a group of new "naive" players that WotC wants to maximize profit out of out there.
Which is still skeezy.
Long story cut short, these are deliberately made bad to make boosters look good (to new players) and when I say that I mean "even the commons in the booster pack".
Which is why they have a bad rap and are considered bad products. They are going to go the way of the Intro Deck because of that very shoddy design.
Some of these are just putting in more copies of cards that are already in there. And I think as an end goal this is fine, but I think this is an example where they want to give the player the ability to improve the deck by going through these steps - adding redundant Wee Dragonauts is a good idea. I haven't had a manual for a preconstructed theme-deck/planeswalker-deck in my hands in a while, but back in... Nemesis -I think?- they had an insert that gave you just such a list of "suggested upgrades". Do they still have those inserts?
Oh I've seen those manuals, they are a single double-sided page. They are really minimalistic on how to play and what to upgrade.
I think, they really help to explain the idea behind the decks being less streamlined (2-ofs of cards that you would want to be 4-ofs in your FNM deck - encourage both the act of deckbuilding as well as just plain buying additional cards: whether as singles/boosters both WotC and the LGS don't want these decks to be complete, because the player who turns around and buys stuff to get the 3rd or 4th copy of obviously strong cards is a player that buys more merchandise).
Which is a nice sentiment, but they could do with less jank and 1-off cards. They would probably sell more if the deck, aside from rares, were 2-3x if they are aiming to get people to buy the same product multiple times.
I think, it is unrealistic to expect of Wizards to provide 4-ofs of cards that they actually want the players to spend their money on - this deck is supposed to be your entrance into becoming a repeat customer, so leaving you wanting those additional carsd for a playset is part of the strategy. Remember the business side involves selling product that wants the customer coming back for more.
maybe not 4x, but definitely 2-3x of.
Other suggestions like replacing Direct Current with Gravitic Punch hit closer to actually realistic suggestions to improve the deck without straight up hurting their business model.
Like just replace the 1x Direct Current and 1x Sonic Assault with 2x Gravitic Punch to showoff a unique combat trick that red can do. It would even make Ral's Staticaster better as with Ral out you could punch a big threat and then swing into your opponent for (3+X) damage. That would be a cool thing to teach new players.
I can only hope that people complaining about the quality of these decks aren't thinking along your lines of "turn all good 2-ofs into 4-ofs" and more along the lines of "make important 1-of commons 2-ofs or 3-ofs and switch around commons for more synergistic effects"
I would say its a mix of both.
It would be intersting to know what people think about that though. I'd really like to see some more people go through the effort you did here and actually suggest a straight solution.
I know a lot of suggestions sound reasonable, but I'd like to collect the community suggestions e. g. over the course of a block and then review the ideas so people can decide whether the community actually can make "better" Planeswalker decks/theme decks (to me there is no reason to not consider a Planeswalker deck a theme deck that just happens to contain a planeswalker and some cards that follow some mechanical guidelines while still being part of a theme deck). That could be a nice learning experience and put some perspective on the question whether WotC is actually bad at making these, or whether the structure of these decks inherently makes them undesirable even as an entry-level product.
I wish they were better, I usually see them collect dust in the LGS. I don't say anything but I tend to see other experienced players at the shop steer new players away from Planeswalker Decks since they tend to be bad value and poor teaching tools. If the products were better built, they may not have gained the stigma they have inherited from Intro Decks.
I build custom welcome decks like, for example, like this one I handed out did during Hour of Devastation:
Ugh, who designs and playtests these things? Seriously. How about instead:
Because the point of these decks isn't to be "functional" decks, as weird as that is to say. The goal isn't to build the best possible deck out of a bunch of commons/uncommons. The actual goals are A) get people with no previous knowledge of MTG to try the game, and B) demonstrate the types of things the color(s) are capable of.
Then it fails as a product.
That's why, for example, there are so many 1-ofs or 2-ofs instead of 4-ofs.
Scattershot is a poor teacher. Most players I taught toss out the irrelevant cards anyway on their own, they tend to be smart for what works and doesn't work.
It is more important to show new players the different effects these colors can do so that they can go toward whatever they like the most. That's why, for example, there are singletons of Muse Drake, Passwall Adept, and Vedalken Mesmerist. They demonstrate to new players -- who have no concept of the color pie -- the kinds of abilities they can expect from Blue.
Or you know, why not go full ham with the izzet themeing and show off just a few facets of blue and red's color pie while emphazing those strengths? Its a deck after all about synergizing with your instants and sorceries.
Similarly, by building the deck this way it allows new players the ability to modify the deck as they see fit with some easy upgrades.
or you know, put actually relevant cards into the deck so they know what to upgrade from instead of misleading them with jank like the 3x Fearless Halberdier? Like if its meant to showoff easy upgrades, wheres the 2x Crackling Drake that could easily take the place of the 2x Hellkite Whelp?
Remember that these products come with 2 booster packs (assuming I'm remembering correctly myself), and a new player is likely to open at least some of these cards from the common slot. It demonstrates an easy way for a new player to tweak the deck and make it their own, which will also make them more invested because it is something they (partially) made by themselves.
While the two-packs are quaint, they more likely have off-color / off-guild cards that provide a more subpar experience with it. How about instead, if a new player is meant to go form a Welcome Deck to a Planeswalker Deck, showoff a more cohesive and functional deck in order to get the player more interested.
Planeswalker Decks will end up discontinued like Intro Decks if they don't step up their deck building when trying to appeal to new or old customers.
Gravitic Punch: Why would you want double colored costs for Electromancer and Jumpstart synergy? Also better Dragonaut/Piston/Urchin synergy. Piston-Fist Cyclops: Better body for basically the same cost and rarity also has synergy with the deck to remove "drawback". Wee Dragonauts: Better than frog, has innate flying, synergy with Electromancer, capitalizes off multiple spells a turn, aerial finisher. Goblin Electromancer: Arguably the best card of the deck. Fire Urchin: Much cheaper cost, synergy with deck, has trample, can make excellent use of Gravitic Punch like Ral's Staticaster. Firemind's Research: Isn't a useless winmore card in the deck, actually provides synergy and the ability to close a game.
I like Dimir, but that really shouldn't be surprising, as its the guild of this set with the most love and care put into it both mechanically and aesthetically.
Selsenya I wanted to root for, but it looks a bit weaker.
Izzet has promise, but what drags it down are overcosted jumpstart cards and spells like Beacon Bolt.
Boros has a lot of potenial and I would say is one of the more realized guilds of this set.
Golgari while aesthitically interesting, more of the voodoo Elf motif, the undergrowth mechanic doesn't seem that wild to me.
What if they brought back tournament decks, but secretly seeded them? For example, having a higher tendency to build into a two-color deck if it were for Guilds of Ravnica. Those color pairing tendencies would be . That it wouldn't purely be a deck and would still have some off color cards that may or may not work for. That the deck might have 2 more islands and swamps but 4 less of other lands.
It's like WotC forgot Selesnya is a mind-controlling cult.
Actually they didn't forget that. Members of the Selensynan Conclave from OG Ravnica were lynched at the end of block and murdered in other manners with some members escaping. In Ravnica 2: Electric Boogaloo, the Selensynan Conclave literally had a reformation to not be corrupt like its former self.
What you see on the outside Rav 2.0 and 3.0 for Selesnyan Conclave is what you get on the inside. 3.0 is just when the guild paruns for Selesnya are not on speaking terms with each other.
The problem with this card is that ONLY exists as a combo enabler. It shouldn't be a uncommon, unless the set has common methods of using it.
What if the cost was increased, but it was a generic mana rock?
I kind of like the idea of something weird like
Eternal Powerstone 4
Artifact
T: Add C.
~~Recursion Effect~~
This card has a lot of weird applications now that it can make mana also.
The ability to make mana would give it other applications. The first attachement is based on that idea. The second is based on it also having no mana cost.
Its like hearing that there is an ancient greek plane in the works and its not Theros.
Other thing to note is that the only cards in standard at the moment that have strong ties to the continent of Jamuraa are:
- Niambi, Faithful Healer
- Teferi, Timebender
- Teferi's Sentinel
- Kwende, Pride of Femeref
- Zhalfirin Void
- Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
The first half of that list being cards from Teferi's planeswalker deck.Now these cards could have gone either way based on sales and popularity for Dominaria. If Dominaria went badly, it would be the same boat as Kamigawa or Lorwyn where according to their data they collected its not a worthwhile prospect to pursue and the cards would be that much more final. Yet due to Dominaria being very well received overall and had good sales, WOTC is looking at it in a similar prospect to how they view planes like Ravnica.
As they are willing to explore different geographical areas in future visits to Dominaria like Jamuraa. Which is important as while Jamuraa, and by extension Zhalfir, don't negate the possibility of a separate African themed plane they could use Jamuraa for that type of plane instead as it already has a rich culture and history based on Africa and Mirage block was also well-liked.
Dominaria now being the "History Plane" and there could be some interesting history if Zhalfir phasing into Dominaria would be equivalent like the city of Atlantis showing up but everything and everyone from Atlantis was intact and fine. That the Zhalfirin people are still ready to fight the Phyrexian threat. That how convenient it is that a new Phyrexian threat has shown up in the multiverse.
That while Mark Rosewater has been asked if they would consider doing an African-themed plane, he replied with "I think it would be cool but would the fans of Jamuraa be upset?"
That when asked about "wasn't Jamuraa a paradise turned into a wasteland?", he makes note of Zhalfir specifically being phased out and wasn't destroyed.
These blog posts aren't that far out either, like only late 2017 and early 2018.
One of the main things that kept Zhalfir out of the story for so long is that Teferi phased all of that land and people out because he didn't want his people to suffer the brunt of the phyrexian invasion like how Urza was planning would have happened.
Now make no mistake, Zhalfir isn't a weak country, far from it actually. Before it was phased out, Zhalfir was the strongest in all of Dominaria in terms of military and magical might; think the strongest boxer in a tournament that instead of fighting the first guy gets to sit back and stay fresh until much later.
Now because of Jeska who used Radha to seal the temporal rift at Zhalfir, Teferi couldn't bring back in Zhalfir. As by this time, Teferi had become weakened due to losing a fight against Nicol Bolas AND losing his spark when sealing the Shivan temporal rift. So by the time he found out what happened to Zhalfir, he didn't have the power to undo what had happened.
So we might have a future storyline involving Zhalfir even though it is phased out by Teferi's magic and was thought sealed off by Jeska. Also unlike other questions one would think would be frequently sent in, this is the first time this has been answered and it was post-Dominaria.
Personally I hope that Zhalfir gets phased back into Dominaria. As there is a lot of story potential behind having an entire race of people, their culture, their lands, their wildlife, their records, etc that have basically been put into temporal stasis and then that reemerging to the new world that Dominaria has become.
Think of Teferi as Superman as Zhalfir is to Kandor.
Which can be accomplished with what I said before.
That wouldn't stop them from buying packs, it just means they need more copies. Also those cards tend to go south really fast in price value espeically for new players who show up later for that set.
Or you know, not include that sort of off-theme jank in the first place.
Which is still skeezy.
Which is why they have a bad rap and are considered bad products. They are going to go the way of the Intro Deck because of that very shoddy design.
Which is a nice sentiment, but they could do with less jank and 1-off cards. They would probably sell more if the deck, aside from rares, were 2-3x if they are aiming to get people to buy the same product multiple times.
maybe not 4x, but definitely 2-3x of.
Like just replace the 1x Direct Current and 1x Sonic Assault with 2x Gravitic Punch to showoff a unique combat trick that red can do. It would even make Ral's Staticaster better as with Ral out you could punch a big threat and then swing into your opponent for (3+X) damage. That would be a cool thing to teach new players.
I would say its a mix of both.
Like if you want more straight solutions, lets remove those 2x Hellkite Whelp and replace it with 2x Crackling Drake. Color intensive yet more rewarding overall. Also how about -1 Passwall Adept and -1 Vedalken Mesmerist for 2x Murmuring Mystic?
I wish they were better, I usually see them collect dust in the LGS. I don't say anything but I tend to see other experienced players at the shop steer new players away from Planeswalker Decks since they tend to be bad value and poor teaching tools. If the products were better built, they may not have gained the stigma they have inherited from Intro Decks.
I build custom welcome decks like, for example, like this one I handed out did during Hour of Devastation:
3x Fan Bearer
3x Binding Mummy
3x Mummy Paramount
3x Sacred Cat
2x Those Who Serve
3x Time to Reflect
1x Unconventional Tactics
12x Plains
Scattershot is a poor teacher. Most players I taught toss out the irrelevant cards anyway on their own, they tend to be smart for what works and doesn't work.
Or you know, why not go full ham with the izzet themeing and show off just a few facets of blue and red's color pie while emphazing those strengths? Its a deck after all about synergizing with your instants and sorceries.
or you know, put actually relevant cards into the deck so they know what to upgrade from instead of misleading them with jank like the 3x Fearless Halberdier? Like if its meant to showoff easy upgrades, wheres the 2x Crackling Drake that could easily take the place of the 2x Hellkite Whelp?
While the two-packs are quaint, they more likely have off-color / off-guild cards that provide a more subpar experience with it. How about instead, if a new player is meant to go form a Welcome Deck to a Planeswalker Deck, showoff a more cohesive and functional deck in order to get the player more interested.
Planeswalker Decks will end up discontinued like Intro Decks if they don't step up their deck building when trying to appeal to new or old customers.
-1 Direct Current
-1 Maximize Altitude
+3 Gravitic Punch
-1 Leapfrog
-3 Fearless Halberdier
+4 Piston-Fist Cyclops
-1 Rubblebelt Boar
-1 Muse Drake
+2 Wee Dragonauts
-1 Passwall Adept
-1 Vedalken Mesmerist
+2 Goblin Electromancer
-2 Hellkite Whelp
+2 Fire Urchin
-1 Omnispell Adept
+1 Firemind's Research
Gravitic Punch: Why would you want double colored costs for Electromancer and Jumpstart synergy? Also better Dragonaut/Piston/Urchin synergy.
Piston-Fist Cyclops: Better body for basically the same cost and rarity also has synergy with the deck to remove "drawback".
Wee Dragonauts: Better than frog, has innate flying, synergy with Electromancer, capitalizes off multiple spells a turn, aerial finisher.
Goblin Electromancer: Arguably the best card of the deck.
Fire Urchin: Much cheaper cost, synergy with deck, has trample, can make excellent use of Gravitic Punch like Ral's Staticaster.
Firemind's Research: Isn't a useless winmore card in the deck, actually provides synergy and the ability to close a game.
Selsenya I wanted to root for, but it looks a bit weaker.
Izzet has promise, but what drags it down are overcosted jumpstart cards and spells like Beacon Bolt.
Boros has a lot of potenial and I would say is one of the more realized guilds of this set.
Golgari while aesthitically interesting, more of the voodoo Elf motif, the undergrowth mechanic doesn't seem that wild to me.
The foil basics are very nice.
What you see on the outside Rav 2.0 and 3.0 for Selesnyan Conclave is what you get on the inside. 3.0 is just when the guild paruns for Selesnya are not on speaking terms with each other.