The Teferi is most certainly fake. In addition to the set being larger, 35 appearing far too early in the list when colorless, non-artifacts and white cards always supersede blue cards (as well as T being much later in the alphabet for where blue would start). The bottom right corner "Wizard of the coast" Coast isn't capitalized and Wizards isn't made plural. Should be Wizards of the Coast, like on every other magic card.
If they are going to keep Companions around, here is what I would like to see corrected.
If you reveal a Companion then:
Draw your 7 cards, one card is revealed at random and put on the bottom of your deck after you take your last Mulligan. (It could also be shuffled into the deck as a possibility.)
The companion takes away variance, the random card put on the bottom adds variance right back in. No one starts with an 8 card hand then.
OR
If you reveal a Companion then:
Draw your 7 cards, After all mulligans, pick a card at random from your starting hand and exchange it for your Companion, that card goes to the sideboard.
Again, companion is taking away variance, but the random card placed into the sideboard increases variance AND the opponent now has a means to interact with that Companion card, being in hand instead of out there is exile somewhere.
A couple of thoughts, nothing more.
I would argue that the "pros" of having access to a guaranteed companion in a zone that's not your actual hand is part of the allure of the mechanic. Putting the card in hand and making it susceptible to hand disruption in addition to the measures you mentioned, would not be worth the risk. Additionally, it would all but force decks to run black for things like Thoughtseise as one of the few ways to answer the card before it hits the battlefield.
If anything, I imagine the solution will be somewhere in the middle, where constructed formats will have the companion player mulligan to what amounts to a keep-able hand, and either skips their first draw or puts an additional card of their choice on the bottom of the deck. There's 0 chance it'll be a random card or have the companion put into hand. Both results would amount to a ban "in effect", as the high risk nature of building a deck around the mechanic AND having to increase the amount of hoops for the guaranteed card, would be unpalatable. People might sooner include multiples of the card in deck vs relying on the companion mechanic, which flies in the face of why the card has the mechanic in the first place.
I don't see why decks should have to run super inefficient tutor effects like Flute, Ring and Portal to combat overefficient removal (were tuck to be a thing again), in 3cmc counters/removal, when the format is based around commanders. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, the format is certainly better for the rules change. Forcing someone to take 2x turns off to be able to play something as awful as Flute for a 4+ mana commander is scummy, even for a comparison. All it does is let the opposition line up more removal in a timed manner, which is certainly less enjoyable for those at the table when someone's running "You don't get to play, only I do".
Removal is often cheap, so effects that get rid of Imprisoned in the Moon and the like are potentially abundant. That's not even to mention the broader answers that remove multiple/all of a given type that get rid of those answers as collateral damage. Decent tutor effects aren't abundant in all colors, and tuck effects serve as a 2 for 1 against commanders; the tutors are resource intensive to cast (at times), use a card to recur it, and then to recast it. Commander Tax alone is sufficient and simple enough, and doesn't serve to invalidate the intended purpose or use for a deck.
It really does seem like the wording for this card is incomplete. By comparison, the Mythos of Snapdax card specifies that you get to choose what each player gets to keep if the RB is part of the total cost paid for it. This card should have been worded differently. Something like "Destroy target nonland creature. If GW was spent to cast this spell, destroy target nonland permanent instead."
Shouldn't have to infer what the card is trying to convey. As is, the whole "reading the card, explains the card." isn't clear with the current wording...
Also, for those interested in the Lutri, the Spellchaser topic, from the RC:
"Updates and Community content
UPDATE
Banning Lutri, the Spellchaser
We’ve never banned a card before its street release date, but we feel strongly compelled to do so for Lutri, the Spellchaser. It is a card unlike any other in Magic’s history. While we are firm believers in giving cards their opportunity in the format, it’s clear that Lutri would be banned almost immediately. It doesn’t have an opportunity cost; you don’t have to sacrifice a spot in the 100 in order to play it—meaning if you have the card and are playing the right colors, you can simply include it. It becomes a thing we’re not fans of, namely a “must play.” A big part of this decision is that we don’t want players to acquire the card thinking it might remain legal. There was consideration for letting it loose for a quarter with the likely plan to ban it later just in case it was as bad as we thought, because from where we sit, Lutri as a 101st card is intensely problematic. In the end, this is a special case, and we think that the conservative approach is the better option."
The rules committee pre-banned the Elemental Otter.
PLEASE TAKE OVER THE BANLIST WOTC! THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!!
...You're joking right? This is really a surprise to you?
Let's go over the reasons why this card, if it would work as they're suggesting in commander, would be problematic:
1. The "Companion" clause is literally a restriction already imposed by the Commander format - so there's absolutely zero downside to running this.
2. It's the 8th card "in hand" without it effecting your deck size, because it's "not a sideboard card", but it's in exile and you can cast it with normal timing restrictions.
3. Functions as card 101 in literally every Red/Blue and Red/Blue/+ deck ever. It's the definition of an "auto-include." It's solid enough as a 3/2 with flash that doesn't impact your hand size.
4. Your opponent's can't make you discard it.
5. It's never a dead card in hand.
6. It's ripe for abuse excluding the above.
Making really good lands just "common" would help push down the value of almost any deck in existence by a big margin.
Lands tank so much value, that a lot of Commander decks are filled with cheap cards and have super expensive lands.
If they really wanted to, they could make lands much easier to access, its just too easy for them to have a slot of easy expensive rares available to them, if they ever push lands to a constructed level for old formats, they spike up in demand tremendously.
That's... never going to happen. They're never going to print a "good" fetch land at common. Common is reserved for the Graypelt Refuge and Naya Panorama's of the world. Honestly, the closest they could have gotten to an "uncommon" fetch would have been Fabled Passage, but it's a rare instead. It's as expensive now, if not more so, because of Standard and Pioneer. Meanwhile, an actual fetch in Wooded Foothills is the same cost or less.
The majority of the lands that tank in value are the ones that are universally mediocre and only see play in standard (and now pioneer). You can usually spot them from a mile away. They just need to reprint the fetchlands in a standard environment without dual lands with the basic land types (looking at you shocklands). They shouldn't be as expensive as they are and WotC is unlikely to print better options than them. They're the gold standard for color fixing and deck thinning.
The prices for cards in this set have tanked really bad. I figured the foils would drop, but Sen Triplets is 16 bucks! A friend was really excited he pulled two Expropriates, and it was a decent pull for sure, but not at all what he expected. On the flipside, this is a really fun draft environment and I look forward to doing it as much as possible!
Selvala already lost two thirds of the value from conspiracy
Selvala's price was always at the $30+ range. She might have dropped for now versus what she was pre-Mystery Box, but she's still a super strong card and will remain desirable. It most certainly wasn't more than $60 non-foil before this - so saying it lost 2/3 of it's value is an exaggeration.
The Foil Selvala price isn't going anywhere but up. Being printed in non-foil here just means that it's not going to see a reprint again anytime soon, let alone a foil version. The same can be said of Queen Marchesa.
This person gets it! Of that entire list, Harmonic Sliver is the only thing I want a foil of. They're very hard to find in NM/M condition Foil and are quite pricey, so any avenue we have for hard to find foils is welcome... Now I just need Root Sliver, Shifting Sliver, Sedge Sliver and Synapse Sliver to get Foil reprints and everything minus Queen will be foil.
I think you might be missing the point. While they haven't come out and addressed the secondary market (due to legal reasons), Original Theros came out 7 years ago. Unlike many of the cards in the previous secret lairs, these are all mythics, and we still don't know if there will be additional bonus cards in them to further increase their value.
WotC clearly saw an opportunity to double down on the Theros Constellation God art and got all of them done. We as the consumer, whether new player, veteran or collector, have a chance to get a limited edition premium product. It's not going to appeal to everyone. Case and point, this is MY first secret lair drop purchase. The previous ones didn't appeal to me enough to make me pull the trigger. The best value for these things is often in buying the bundle to save money and flipping the ones you don't want/care for to recoup some of the cost of what you did want. Would I have bought the bundle if it was $200 with no discount? No, probably not. At a $10 discount on each (making them all $30) with $10 in tax and free shipping? It was a bargain considering the cost of acquiring all of the foil originals at today's prices.
Would these things be bothering you if they were $30 flat with no discount or incentive to purchase the bundle? ...That's how businesses work. Sam's Club, Costco... hell, the food you buy in the grocery store incentivizes you to buy the bigger packs from a value perspective. You don't get to go to the store and buy the nice product at the bundled price and only get a single.
Addressing a later comment you made about the cost of things rising. I will agree that masters products should be closer to the $7-8 per pack range like they used to be, but that's due more to the epic misses they have in the set to balance it. I won't agree with you if your position is that they should be the same cost as regular packs. While that would be nicer on the wallet, they're making different products for different audiences. If you're expecting something like one of these secret lairs to be the same cost as the *Explosion sounds* goblin drop, you're a little crazy (as that thing was the equivalent of a dumpster fire).
Even if the value of this Secret Lair drops initially, it's still got a lot going for it:
Premium, limited release product (what? 2-3 days of availability?)
Foil
Alternate Art
New Legendary Frame
Original cards haven't been printed in some time, and at the very least, this makes it less likely that they'll show up anytime again in the near future (+ we were just in Theros)
- And that doesn't even account for something like the extra War of the Spark stained glass planeswalkers that were in previous products. If there's an additional thing in each of them, that's just MORE value to be had.
Do I personally like some of the original art better than the constellation art (ex. Xenagos)? Absolutely.
Is the current cost of purchasing the originals all in foil a daunting one, at today's prices, for new and tenured players? Yeah, I would say you could probably bet your ass it is. $465? Hard pass.
The odds of these cards going to or below the value of the original non-foils, even in the short term, is so low because of the factors I listed above. They'll hold a premium for that and because people want to pimp out their decks with shiny foils. The longer they go without a 'true' reprinting that's more widely available, the more expensive they'll become.
Kaleidoscope Killers drop was also tribal specific, where many of the Gods are generically good across a wider span of decks. They also don't require 5 colors to run, which often taxes a budget. That drop is more of a corner case exception than the rule.
Novemember/December Secret Lairs: (5) at $29.99, (2) at $39.99. $200 for a bundle. January Secret Lairs: (1) at $39.99. (no $29.99 products) February Secret Lairs: (5) at $39.99. $150 for a bundle. (no $29.99 products)
really... and there are people still defending this product
Have you checked the prices of the original art Gods in foil? If you bought each one in foil, as of TCG prices today, it would be ~$465 for 15 cards... or you can get cards that haven't been available or reprinted, as a newer player or a fan of the new art style for a fraction of the cost...
Your high horse sir/madam, please dismount it. These products aren't for everyone, and that's ok. You have plenty of other things to look forward to this year as far as other products go.
One issue that you will need to figure out with your playgroup is the likelihood of you owning the authentic card at any point. The few metas I play in all allow champ/collectors/international cards only if you plan to actually eventually own the card for that deck, or if you own a copy but don't have duplicates for multiple decks. We wouldn't allow a worlds gaea's cradle if you had zero intent on ever obtaining the real thing.
This is the stance my play group has as well, partially because I championed it. It's all too easy now for people to get stylized proxies (foil or otherwise) of super expensive cards like Gaea's Cradle for $4-5 per card. It's one thing to proxy a card because you want to see how it plays out, but let's be real, reserved list cards are only going to get more expensive. If you're not planning on buying or trading up for one now, it's only going to get harder to do so in the future.
That being said, I'm not trying to be a jerk about it, but the card's power level and what it can do to a game has to be respected. Of the 15 decks I've built over the past decade, I have 6-7 that have green in them. I own a single copy of cradle and am not proxying it in any other deck, despite how easy it would be to do so. The gold-bordered cradle in this example is at least a step in the right direction, being a legit wotc product and it having the same recognizable image to mark what it is from across a table.
One player in my group actually went out and bought one after trying to use the $4 foil cradle, because we had that conversation. It's not right to proxy all of the most expensive cards that are out there because you want the best version of something but never plan to obtain them. It's disrespectful to those who have spent their time, money and effort to obtain those cards because you either:
A. had some chinese company print counterfeits
or
B. decided that a slip of paper with pen/sharpie would be sufficient for long term play
I run between 6 and 12 decks at any given time, but overall I've probably made more than 30 commander decks.
Not really, I've had a store group that is not fixed, and groups of friends that eventually stop meeting up over the years. Right now I have a sort of stable group but they have one deck each and the power level is very out of balance.
For the first few years of edh, pretty substantial. Lately? Almost no variance. Broken cards are stronger than general synergy, so the list rarely changes.
It sounds like we have a similar enough experience to compare notes.
~14-15 decks currently, Built/co-built a ton more for friends and ended up retiring ~10 of my own decks along the way to get where I am.
As others have mentioned, unfortunately, the nature of the game is such that stronger cards or functional reprints of worthwhile ones (ex. Cultivate and Kodama's Reach) need to occur to incentivize people purchasing the new products. Sometimes people chase new arts, foils, promos, alt. languages, etc. But the act itself of "Upgrading" one's deck, whether it's strictly on a power level basis or for the sake of a theme, it's a completely natural part of the game and the deckbuilding process.
Some people happen to have more disposable income than others and it allows them to circumnavigate the trials of saving up, trading, cracking, etc. It's unfortunate when it allows for a larger power jump than a playgroup is ready for, because the arms race often follows.
I won't claim to know what the financial circumstances are like for you or those around in your current group, but I'd like to try to recommend a few things.
Try to get the group to be on board with a different deck idea with a budget of $30-50 ($100 if everyone's down) and see what they say. Obviously exclude foil costs if people have them and cut the cost for basic lands out entirely.
Try to get your LGS to run a Commander League with points. They often have merits/demerits for playing fast mana early, knocking people out before a certain turn, looping a combo more than a few times in a turn, etc.
Maybe offer up one of your other decks for them to run instead of the one they have. They might be curious about running a different archetype (ex. Voltron, tribal, lifegain, etc.), but lack the funds or card collection to make one they think would have a shot in the current meta there. This goes back to the TL;DR I mentioned - Budget, CMC average, No cards over a certain CMC in deck, Color restrictions, Less popular theme, Play bigger games with more people and opportunity for interaction, etc. Get them to give something like that a shot?
Try a game type variant. Planechase, Star Magic, Cowboy/Bang, King (whatever you want to call it), something.
Rules
The game needs 5-7 people total.
Cards to denote the given roles are sleeved and shuffled face down and picked at random.
Plains = Sheriff/King (There's only ever 1)
Island = Deputy (starts at quantity 1 and then gets another at odd player intervals - 5, 7, 9, etc.)
Swamp = Outlaw/Assassin
Mountain = Renegade/Usurper (There's only ever 1)
The Sheriff is the only role to be revealed at the start of the game.
Sheriff starts with 20 life + 10 for each other player. Everyone else is at 40.
Sheriff goes first (and draws)
If anyone kills an outlaw, they get to draw 3 cards as a bounty.
If the Sheriff kills their Deputy, they discard their hand.
The Renegade often plays the fence.
Everyone is trying to convince the Sheriff that they are the Deputy, until they aren't.
Win conditions:
Sheriff and Deputy(s) win when the Outlaws and the Renegade are dead.
Outlaws win when the Sheriff dies.
Renegade wins when they and the Sheriff are the last 2 standing and the Sheriff dies.
**Alternate win conditions don't function at all**
It adds a very political element to the game, and it helps muddy the waters for power levels.
The King variant just has the Usurper take the King's place as King if they manage to kill them.
We play the Bang variant probably 75% of the time with the other 25% being a mix of free-for-all and 2-headed giant.
I suggest these things because I have had to do the same at the request of my play group. I have some 8-9's in my collection that positively go nuts, but I only break them out every once in a while, because of how degenerate they can get. Maybe get a couple lower power games in before breaking out the haymakers for a quick game at the end of the night?
After reviewing the contents of the thread, I wanted to pose a couple questions to Carthage (OP).
1. How many decks are you running?
2. Do you have a tried and true regular play group?
3. Of all the decks you have, how much variance do you see across the colors you're using with regard to card choice?
I ask from a point of trying to understand where you're coming from and relate as best I can. So I suppose I'll go first:
1. I have ~15 decks, some of which are more tuned than the others
2. I am fortunate to have a regular play group locally and one about an hour away from college that gets together every 1-2 months. I also have a LGS nearby to scratch the itch if need be.
3. I have some "staples" I go to, if I can, in color - Krosan Grip for the split second removal, Heroic Intervention for the anti-removal or boardwipe tech. Beast Within for unrestricted permanent removal. Often a Cultivate or Kodama's Reach variant or both. Sure, but I'm not running the exact same suite of cards in every deck. Some cards see more play than others, but what the deck is trying to do is really where everything starts for me.
I recently had a friend complain about my Chulane, Teller of Tales deck, saying it's the same as all my other decks. I specifically powered this one down though. Tribal golems... let that sink in. There are some generic staples for the colors, enablers like Parallel Lives, Anointed Procession, Doubling Season, Mirari's Wake... sure. But I'm playing a less than optimal way to play the commander, and it's something I had fun building and I know no one will expect. That "suite" of cards I mentioned? Those are there to prevent the deck from getting trounced by the more easily focused/tuned decks. I'm playing with a crutch, but I imposed that on myself.
I played 3 games friday night with the deck.
Game 1: 1v1, barely won versus Kumena. It came down to a turn.
Game 2: 3 player game. Went ham, 100%. wasn't even close. Talking Precursor Golem + Garruk's Packleader + Parallel Lives + Rite of Replication = "I draw over 50 cards in a turn between that and the rest of my board" crazy.
Game 3: 4 player game. The Yarok and Korvold players ran away with the game and my deck and the Elsha ones barely got off the ground.
TL;DR - Impose some limitations on yourself. Budget, CMC average, No cards over a certain CMC in deck, Color restrictions, Less popular theme, Play bigger games with more people and opportunity for interaction, etc.
These are the restrictions I have for myself:
Chulane = Golem tribal(for the most part) Golos = Colorless combo/value (With only a few ways to make colored mana for his ability) Balan = Mono-white voltron Kalemne = Boros voltron + Sunforger package Feather = Boros spellslinging Mina and Denn = Gruul Landfall Karlov = Orzhov lifegain (also no spell is over 6cmc, and there's only 1 6cmc card) Ezuri 1.0 = Elf tribal + elf warrior tokens (concessions were made to allow for that synergy) Odric 1.0 = Soldier tribal (everything is either a soldier, make soldiers, or supports/pumps them) Syr Gwen = Knight tribal Sliver Overlord = Sliver tribal/combo (toolbox) Selvala 2.0 = Big green beats/mana combo (knowingly isn't the most optimized build for it) Captain Sisay = Legendary.deck (toolbox) Valduk = Mono-red equipments/auras (biggest value, lowest cmc equipments and synergistic red stuff) Marath = Naya token combo + planeswalkers (Not quite Breya levels of "Oops, this falls into combos without trying", but it's not too far off)
** Additional note, there's probably 7 or so boardwipes total between all of the decks. Because I would rather play the game, and let others worry about it. It works out for me most of the time and serves 2 purposes:
1. Lets me run more single-target responses
2. Lets me run more of the cards I like, but would have to cut for mass removal.
I would argue that the "pros" of having access to a guaranteed companion in a zone that's not your actual hand is part of the allure of the mechanic. Putting the card in hand and making it susceptible to hand disruption in addition to the measures you mentioned, would not be worth the risk. Additionally, it would all but force decks to run black for things like Thoughtseise as one of the few ways to answer the card before it hits the battlefield.
If anything, I imagine the solution will be somewhere in the middle, where constructed formats will have the companion player mulligan to what amounts to a keep-able hand, and either skips their first draw or puts an additional card of their choice on the bottom of the deck. There's 0 chance it'll be a random card or have the companion put into hand. Both results would amount to a ban "in effect", as the high risk nature of building a deck around the mechanic AND having to increase the amount of hoops for the guaranteed card, would be unpalatable. People might sooner include multiples of the card in deck vs relying on the companion mechanic, which flies in the face of why the card has the mechanic in the first place.
I don't see why decks should have to run super inefficient tutor effects like Flute, Ring and Portal to combat overefficient removal (were tuck to be a thing again), in 3cmc counters/removal, when the format is based around commanders. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, the format is certainly better for the rules change. Forcing someone to take 2x turns off to be able to play something as awful as Flute for a 4+ mana commander is scummy, even for a comparison. All it does is let the opposition line up more removal in a timed manner, which is certainly less enjoyable for those at the table when someone's running "You don't get to play, only I do".
Removal is often cheap, so effects that get rid of Imprisoned in the Moon and the like are potentially abundant. That's not even to mention the broader answers that remove multiple/all of a given type that get rid of those answers as collateral damage. Decent tutor effects aren't abundant in all colors, and tuck effects serve as a 2 for 1 against commanders; the tutors are resource intensive to cast (at times), use a card to recur it, and then to recast it. Commander Tax alone is sufficient and simple enough, and doesn't serve to invalidate the intended purpose or use for a deck.
Shouldn't have to infer what the card is trying to convey. As is, the whole "reading the card, explains the card." isn't clear with the current wording...
"Updates and Community content
UPDATE
Banning Lutri, the Spellchaser
We’ve never banned a card before its street release date, but we feel strongly compelled to do so for Lutri, the Spellchaser. It is a card unlike any other in Magic’s history. While we are firm believers in giving cards their opportunity in the format, it’s clear that Lutri would be banned almost immediately. It doesn’t have an opportunity cost; you don’t have to sacrifice a spot in the 100 in order to play it—meaning if you have the card and are playing the right colors, you can simply include it. It becomes a thing we’re not fans of, namely a “must play.” A big part of this decision is that we don’t want players to acquire the card thinking it might remain legal. There was consideration for letting it loose for a quarter with the likely plan to ban it later just in case it was as bad as we thought, because from where we sit, Lutri as a 101st card is intensely problematic. In the end, this is a special case, and we think that the conservative approach is the better option."
...You're joking right? This is really a surprise to you?
Let's go over the reasons why this card, if it would work as they're suggesting in commander, would be problematic:
1. The "Companion" clause is literally a restriction already imposed by the Commander format - so there's absolutely zero downside to running this.
2. It's the 8th card "in hand" without it effecting your deck size, because it's "not a sideboard card", but it's in exile and you can cast it with normal timing restrictions.
3. Functions as card 101 in literally every Red/Blue and Red/Blue/+ deck ever. It's the definition of an "auto-include." It's solid enough as a 3/2 with flash that doesn't impact your hand size.
4. Your opponent's can't make you discard it.
5. It's never a dead card in hand.
6. It's ripe for abuse excluding the above.
How is all of that not enough to ban it?
That's... never going to happen. They're never going to print a "good" fetch land at common. Common is reserved for the Graypelt Refuge and Naya Panorama's of the world. Honestly, the closest they could have gotten to an "uncommon" fetch would have been Fabled Passage, but it's a rare instead. It's as expensive now, if not more so, because of Standard and Pioneer. Meanwhile, an actual fetch in Wooded Foothills is the same cost or less.
The majority of the lands that tank in value are the ones that are universally mediocre and only see play in standard (and now pioneer). You can usually spot them from a mile away. They just need to reprint the fetchlands in a standard environment without dual lands with the basic land types (looking at you shocklands). They shouldn't be as expensive as they are and WotC is unlikely to print better options than them. They're the gold standard for color fixing and deck thinning.
Selvala's price was always at the $30+ range. She might have dropped for now versus what she was pre-Mystery Box, but she's still a super strong card and will remain desirable. It most certainly wasn't more than $60 non-foil before this - so saying it lost 2/3 of it's value is an exaggeration.
The Foil Selvala price isn't going anywhere but up. Being printed in non-foil here just means that it's not going to see a reprint again anytime soon, let alone a foil version. The same can be said of Queen Marchesa.
WotC clearly saw an opportunity to double down on the Theros Constellation God art and got all of them done. We as the consumer, whether new player, veteran or collector, have a chance to get a limited edition premium product. It's not going to appeal to everyone. Case and point, this is MY first secret lair drop purchase. The previous ones didn't appeal to me enough to make me pull the trigger. The best value for these things is often in buying the bundle to save money and flipping the ones you don't want/care for to recoup some of the cost of what you did want. Would I have bought the bundle if it was $200 with no discount? No, probably not. At a $10 discount on each (making them all $30) with $10 in tax and free shipping? It was a bargain considering the cost of acquiring all of the foil originals at today's prices.
Would these things be bothering you if they were $30 flat with no discount or incentive to purchase the bundle? ...That's how businesses work. Sam's Club, Costco... hell, the food you buy in the grocery store incentivizes you to buy the bigger packs from a value perspective. You don't get to go to the store and buy the nice product at the bundled price and only get a single.
Addressing a later comment you made about the cost of things rising. I will agree that masters products should be closer to the $7-8 per pack range like they used to be, but that's due more to the epic misses they have in the set to balance it. I won't agree with you if your position is that they should be the same cost as regular packs. While that would be nicer on the wallet, they're making different products for different audiences. If you're expecting something like one of these secret lairs to be the same cost as the *Explosion sounds* goblin drop, you're a little crazy (as that thing was the equivalent of a dumpster fire).
- Premium, limited release product (what? 2-3 days of availability?)
- Foil
- Alternate Art
- New Legendary Frame
- Original cards haven't been printed in some time, and at the very least, this makes it less likely that they'll show up anytime again in the near future (+ we were just in Theros)
- And that doesn't even account for something like the extra War of the Spark stained glass planeswalkers that were in previous products. If there's an additional thing in each of them, that's just MORE value to be had.Do I personally like some of the original art better than the constellation art (ex. Xenagos)? Absolutely.
Is the current cost of purchasing the originals all in foil a daunting one, at today's prices, for new and tenured players? Yeah, I would say you could probably bet your ass it is. $465? Hard pass.
The odds of these cards going to or below the value of the original non-foils, even in the short term, is so low because of the factors I listed above. They'll hold a premium for that and because people want to pimp out their decks with shiny foils. The longer they go without a 'true' reprinting that's more widely available, the more expensive they'll become.
Kaleidoscope Killers drop was also tribal specific, where many of the Gods are generically good across a wider span of decks. They also don't require 5 colors to run, which often taxes a budget. That drop is more of a corner case exception than the rule.
Have you checked the prices of the original art Gods in foil? If you bought each one in foil, as of TCG prices today, it would be ~$465 for 15 cards... or you can get cards that haven't been available or reprinted, as a newer player or a fan of the new art style for a fraction of the cost...
Your high horse sir/madam, please dismount it. These products aren't for everyone, and that's ok. You have plenty of other things to look forward to this year as far as other products go.
This is the stance my play group has as well, partially because I championed it. It's all too easy now for people to get stylized proxies (foil or otherwise) of super expensive cards like Gaea's Cradle for $4-5 per card. It's one thing to proxy a card because you want to see how it plays out, but let's be real, reserved list cards are only going to get more expensive. If you're not planning on buying or trading up for one now, it's only going to get harder to do so in the future.
That being said, I'm not trying to be a jerk about it, but the card's power level and what it can do to a game has to be respected. Of the 15 decks I've built over the past decade, I have 6-7 that have green in them. I own a single copy of cradle and am not proxying it in any other deck, despite how easy it would be to do so. The gold-bordered cradle in this example is at least a step in the right direction, being a legit wotc product and it having the same recognizable image to mark what it is from across a table.
One player in my group actually went out and bought one after trying to use the $4 foil cradle, because we had that conversation. It's not right to proxy all of the most expensive cards that are out there because you want the best version of something but never plan to obtain them. It's disrespectful to those who have spent their time, money and effort to obtain those cards because you either:
A. had some chinese company print counterfeits
or
B. decided that a slip of paper with pen/sharpie would be sufficient for long term play
It sounds like we have a similar enough experience to compare notes.
~14-15 decks currently, Built/co-built a ton more for friends and ended up retiring ~10 of my own decks along the way to get where I am.
As others have mentioned, unfortunately, the nature of the game is such that stronger cards or functional reprints of worthwhile ones (ex. Cultivate and Kodama's Reach) need to occur to incentivize people purchasing the new products. Sometimes people chase new arts, foils, promos, alt. languages, etc. But the act itself of "Upgrading" one's deck, whether it's strictly on a power level basis or for the sake of a theme, it's a completely natural part of the game and the deckbuilding process.
Some people happen to have more disposable income than others and it allows them to circumnavigate the trials of saving up, trading, cracking, etc. It's unfortunate when it allows for a larger power jump than a playgroup is ready for, because the arms race often follows.
I won't claim to know what the financial circumstances are like for you or those around in your current group, but I'd like to try to recommend a few things.
Rules
The game needs 5-7 people total.
Cards to denote the given roles are sleeved and shuffled face down and picked at random.
Plains = Sheriff/King (There's only ever 1)
Island = Deputy (starts at quantity 1 and then gets another at odd player intervals - 5, 7, 9, etc.)
Swamp = Outlaw/Assassin
Mountain = Renegade/Usurper (There's only ever 1)
The Sheriff is the only role to be revealed at the start of the game.
Sheriff starts with 20 life + 10 for each other player. Everyone else is at 40.
Sheriff goes first (and draws)
If anyone kills an outlaw, they get to draw 3 cards as a bounty.
If the Sheriff kills their Deputy, they discard their hand.
The Renegade often plays the fence.
Everyone is trying to convince the Sheriff that they are the Deputy, until they aren't.
Win conditions:
Sheriff and Deputy(s) win when the Outlaws and the Renegade are dead.
Outlaws win when the Sheriff dies.
Renegade wins when they and the Sheriff are the last 2 standing and the Sheriff dies.
**Alternate win conditions don't function at all**
It adds a very political element to the game, and it helps muddy the waters for power levels.
The King variant just has the Usurper take the King's place as King if they manage to kill them.
We play the Bang variant probably 75% of the time with the other 25% being a mix of free-for-all and 2-headed giant.
I suggest these things because I have had to do the same at the request of my play group. I have some 8-9's in my collection that positively go nuts, but I only break them out every once in a while, because of how degenerate they can get. Maybe get a couple lower power games in before breaking out the haymakers for a quick game at the end of the night?
1. How many decks are you running?
2. Do you have a tried and true regular play group?
3. Of all the decks you have, how much variance do you see across the colors you're using with regard to card choice?
I ask from a point of trying to understand where you're coming from and relate as best I can. So I suppose I'll go first:
1. I have ~15 decks, some of which are more tuned than the others
2. I am fortunate to have a regular play group locally and one about an hour away from college that gets together every 1-2 months. I also have a LGS nearby to scratch the itch if need be.
3. I have some "staples" I go to, if I can, in color - Krosan Grip for the split second removal, Heroic Intervention for the anti-removal or boardwipe tech. Beast Within for unrestricted permanent removal. Often a Cultivate or Kodama's Reach variant or both. Sure, but I'm not running the exact same suite of cards in every deck. Some cards see more play than others, but what the deck is trying to do is really where everything starts for me.
I recently had a friend complain about my Chulane, Teller of Tales deck, saying it's the same as all my other decks. I specifically powered this one down though. Tribal golems... let that sink in. There are some generic staples for the colors, enablers like Parallel Lives, Anointed Procession, Doubling Season, Mirari's Wake... sure. But I'm playing a less than optimal way to play the commander, and it's something I had fun building and I know no one will expect. That "suite" of cards I mentioned? Those are there to prevent the deck from getting trounced by the more easily focused/tuned decks. I'm playing with a crutch, but I imposed that on myself.
I played 3 games friday night with the deck.
Game 1: 1v1, barely won versus Kumena. It came down to a turn.
Game 2: 3 player game. Went ham, 100%. wasn't even close. Talking Precursor Golem + Garruk's Packleader + Parallel Lives + Rite of Replication = "I draw over 50 cards in a turn between that and the rest of my board" crazy.
Game 3: 4 player game. The Yarok and Korvold players ran away with the game and my deck and the Elsha ones barely got off the ground.
TL;DR - Impose some limitations on yourself. Budget, CMC average, No cards over a certain CMC in deck, Color restrictions, Less popular theme, Play bigger games with more people and opportunity for interaction, etc.
These are the restrictions I have for myself:
Chulane = Golem tribal(for the most part)
Golos = Colorless combo/value (With only a few ways to make colored mana for his ability)
Balan = Mono-white voltron
Kalemne = Boros voltron + Sunforger package
Feather = Boros spellslinging
Mina and Denn = Gruul Landfall
Karlov = Orzhov lifegain (also no spell is over 6cmc, and there's only 1 6cmc card)
Ezuri 1.0 = Elf tribal + elf warrior tokens (concessions were made to allow for that synergy)
Odric 1.0 = Soldier tribal (everything is either a soldier, make soldiers, or supports/pumps them)
Syr Gwen = Knight tribal
Sliver Overlord = Sliver tribal/combo (toolbox)
Selvala 2.0 = Big green beats/mana combo (knowingly isn't the most optimized build for it)
Captain Sisay = Legendary.deck (toolbox)
Valduk = Mono-red equipments/auras (biggest value, lowest cmc equipments and synergistic red stuff)
Marath = Naya token combo + planeswalkers (Not quite Breya levels of "Oops, this falls into combos without trying", but it's not too far off)
** Additional note, there's probably 7 or so boardwipes total between all of the decks. Because I would rather play the game, and let others worry about it. It works out for me most of the time and serves 2 purposes:
1. Lets me run more single-target responses
2. Lets me run more of the cards I like, but would have to cut for mass removal.