The strategy inserts in the Planeswalker decks starting with Ixalan are a joke. I am assuming these decks will have these same strategy inserts too. Compared to the strategy inserts from the original Ravnica theme decks, these strategy inserts, based on the ones from Ixalan up to Core 2019, they do not have a decklist, they do not have a strategy, and they do not have tips to improve on the deck.
You know what's even more stupid about these strategy inserts? The theme deck strategy inserts have a full strategy, a decklist, a storyline blurb, and some other stuff in a smaller surface area than the strategy inserts from more recent planeswalker decks. The ad for FNM would take up a small percentage of the strategy insert, while in the current ones, it takes up the entire back side of the strategy insert. The picture of the planeswalker on the strategy insert could have been best used for a decklist, or an actual strategy.
Reeks of greed on WotC's part unfortunately. I still have the book from the beatdown box, its like a treasure trove of information in comparison. I can only guess that the reasoning was something along the lines of: Charts, focus groups, poll numbers, and a means to shave off 10c from the cost.
Do you know what I think? There is a reason why we have Planeswalker decks now. Remember names like Pressure Cooker, or maybe Bait and Switch, or perhaps Sliver Evolution, or maybe Grave Power. We also had things like Armada, Sky Slam, Dead Again, and Molimo's Might. By changing them to planeswalker decks, they could just make a piece of crap look good by adding a cherry on top. The planeswalker means that each set cannot have more than 2 decks, whereas before, there were 4 theme decks per set, or 5 intro packs per set. Planeswalker decks mean that they do not have to pay someone to come up with cool deck names, so they can skimp on the cost right there. Why call it Izzet Ingenuity when you call it the Ral Zarek deck.
I've said this as a youtube comment when someone opened an Ixalan Planeswalker deck. Whoever had the bright idea to omit the decklist from the strategy insert needs to be fired. If they can't come up with a strategy for the deck, at least they should just include the decklist. That isn't hard to do, and the whole, look it up online doesn't cut it, considering all that wasted space that the current strategy inserts have.
I don't see you having to look online for a parts list to check if you are missing any parts when you are building furniture.
Aside from the Core Set 2019 which had more than 2 PW decks.
They used to have those types of names for the PW decks by just using the planeswalker's title as the equivalent. Like the first Nissa one for Kaladesh was "NISSA: Nature's Artisan". Now even that is gone from more recent products where even Ral Zarek's isn't: "RAL: Caller of Storms" its "RAL: Planeswalker Deck"
Also Whose bright idea it was not even to include a list of upgrades for the deck. Like it really sounds self-defeating if you ask me. "We want players to buy our products, but we won't include what those upgrades for this product are. They should just go look it up themselves."
The strategy inserts in the Planeswalker decks starting with Ixalan are a joke. I am assuming these decks will have these same strategy inserts too. Compared to the strategy inserts from the original Ravnica theme decks, these strategy inserts, based on the ones from Ixalan up to Core 2019, they do not have a decklist, they do not have a strategy, and they do not have tips to improve on the deck.
You know what's even more stupid about these strategy inserts? The theme deck strategy inserts have a full strategy, a decklist, a storyline blurb, and some other stuff in a smaller surface area than the strategy inserts from more recent planeswalker decks. The ad for FNM would take up a small percentage of the strategy insert, while in the current ones, it takes up the entire back side of the strategy insert. The picture of the planeswalker on the strategy insert could have been best used for a decklist, or an actual strategy.
Reeks of greed on WotC's part unfortunately. I still have the book from the beatdown box, its like a treasure trove of information in comparison. I can only guess that the reasoning was something along the lines of: Charts, focus groups, poll numbers, and a means to shave off 10c from the cost.
Dimir got many of the fun toys and feels complete.
Boros unfortunately is boros and boros is about that windmill slamming.
Golgari felt lukewarm aside from a couple cards.
Izzet felt so underpowered.
Selsenya I am just like "that is it? Wheres the rest?"
It looks like most of the creative juices went to Dimir. Which necessarily isn't a bad thing, but then agian the other guilds didn't wow me as much, especially Selesnya and Izzet.
As it is, you pay a lot for "nothing" and then extra mana to get the spells your opponent already used.
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This simply NEEDS instant speed to be really interesting.
As it is, a pretty big stinker card.
And why doesn't it make the cards free to cast, and why isn't uncounterable, and why doesn't cantrip, and why doesn't it give the creatures and sorceries flash, and why does it have exile itself, and-
It would be better than a Walking Ballista if this didn't have the tap clause. As you would get a 5/5 for 5 with Sentry, instead of a 5/5 for 10 with Ballista. Especially singe you can just recur it from the graveyard which is a function that Ballista lacks.
Someone probably saw how Ballista was performing when working on GER and was like "NUH UH! NOT AGAIN!".
What a terrible card and waste of design space. We already have Future Sight, and this card is infinitely worse. I get that jank is a big part of red’s color pie, but the flavor seems very un-red and this card ia just straight unplayable. Very disappointing.
I read this and I had an immediate long-time-ago flashback. Ice Age just came out. "Necropotence?! Who the hell would use this? You don't even draw cards anymore? You don't even get one card a turn for free, you even have to pay life just to get your first card? You don't even get it right away? On top of all that you can't even discard things to get reanimated? Unplayable!".
There is also the matter of your opponent now having to deal with how the draw-3 and jumpstart interact. As they now have to weigh in the fact that they just supplied fuel for Risk Factor's jumpstart ability for a second cast of the same card if they chose to give you gas. As the Risk player only needs to pitch at minimum a mountain for jumpstart to work.
Because, fundamentally, it's a preposterous AWC Johnny card, and those cards are always more fun when they are bad. Taking a steaming pile of pewp and winning with it is The Johnny Way. The worse it is, the more fun it is to win with it. When it's still kinda playable, as this card is, it doesn't really feel like you've committed a coup when you get that third hit counter.
I don't really understand who this card is for. Somebody who wants to show off how quickly and deeply they can surveil for copies of this card? Might be fun for a game or two, but surveil lends itself to fishing out so many other Johnny combos, I can't see this card headlining that kind of deck for too long. The whole affair just feels odd and unfortunate. Disappointed.
They used to have those types of names for the PW decks by just using the planeswalker's title as the equivalent. Like the first Nissa one for Kaladesh was "NISSA: Nature's Artisan". Now even that is gone from more recent products where even Ral Zarek's isn't: "RAL: Caller of Storms" its "RAL: Planeswalker Deck"
Also Whose bright idea it was not even to include a list of upgrades for the deck. Like it really sounds self-defeating if you ask me. "We want players to buy our products, but we won't include what those upgrades for this product are. They should just go look it up themselves."
Boros unfortunately is boros and boros is about that windmill slamming.
Golgari felt lukewarm aside from a couple cards.
Izzet felt so underpowered.
Selsenya I am just like "that is it? Wheres the rest?"
[/sarcasm]
Someone probably saw how Ballista was performing when working on GER and was like "NUH UH! NOT AGAIN!".