Pit fight is a great inclusion and let's you not have to tap your creature to fight. Not sure I'd include the Plate Mail. You're almost always going to have a creature on the field, making him not very useful outside of a fat equip. IN that case might as well use Aspect of Hydra since it's less mana intensive. Only other thing I'd mention is that Chord of Calling is really fun, since you can instant speed drop in a Reckoner or Hornet Nest as a blocker to cause some stress. Might want at least 1 more Queen too, and Carytids are a must in any green deck, allowing for things in the sideboard no one expects (and smooth out mana for your Reckoners).
I don't know guys this doesn't seem legit. These cards are from m14 and rtr respectively, why would we be getting them as promos now? They don't even have the new frame. I think someone is trolling us.
The funniest part is that he said they made a "mistake" of bringing the duel deck and opening it. They would know exactly what they were doing...
EDIT:
If you look at the Chandra's fury image, the copy right is for 2013. Stealer of secrets is 2014, but I still doubt the legitimacy of these promos.
Sorry, going to have to debunk you. Many times they overprint promotional material that they use for these conventions, and these are likely leftovers from previous years. This is a new convention for WOTC, and they likely wanted to bring as much as they could for the fans, and getting rid of a couple of cases of extra old promos that are sitting in the back room is a pretty logical and common thing to see.
Don't be paranoid about the sets or the dates or the card frame, because honestly this is likely all that this is... getting rid of extra crap in the back room from old cons.
MaRo sai the thing they are bringing back hash;t been done in a long time. fetches are too recent (unless they reprint onslaught ones).
my money is on snow lands, tho Orcs would be awesome
People like to read into what MaRo says often. It's also important to note that "in a long time" isn't very long in the scope of Magic. A huge chunk of players didn't start playing the game till ISD/RTR era and are in their early 20's to late teens... so to them anything older than ISD is "a long time."
Pretty let down by this set, and that hasn't happened in years for me. I enjoyed THS enough, and certainly I enjoy some of the cards we see here for my personal decks and cube, but the only major positive I see from this set is the overwhelming power in Uncommons. This however means I will be skipping prerelease and spending that $25 to buy playsets of what I need, and then wait for the tanking value of stuff like Kiora to pick up the rest.
It's nice that we won't have to fork over millions to get the chase cards, but it won't be good for local shops and WOTC. Here's hoping it pulls a Dark Ascension and pulls out it's greatness later in life.
Wow, I'm really not looking forward to the day I'm trading on mtgsalvation and someone say's to me "how do I know all of your cards are... real?"
As long as there is a minimal possibility that a card a person bought is fake, they will post... and post... and post. Literally 30 mins after the news broke we started seeing the "I think my Garruk is a fake!!!!!" threads.
I think we need to educate people that these aren't nearly as impressive as feared, and it might help the people who will freak out about any card they get that isn't out of a booster.
Dude obviously never suffered through (Saviors of) Kamigawa or opened packs of Fallen Empires. The entire Kamigawa block was weak, and forced an odd theme but at least Betrayers had ninjas while Saviors had nothing whatsoever. I quit quickly after that set.
I didn't play during Fallen Empires, but during the Onslaught block, a friend of mine scored a box of Fallen Empires for cheap. We quickly found out why.
Always bugs me when people lump CHK into the same field as Fallen Empires, Homelands, and Saviors. CHK alone is a very solid set, and has plenty of cards that are chased today. Theme or no theme and not looking at the art, it was a set filled with extremely unique ideas and was very fun to play. Problem was they couldn't follow it up very well with the next two sets and ruined the block as a whole. IMO, that's the problem we're seeing here in Theros. Very unique first set, dropping the ball in the last two. I don't see it as the WORST EVER, but people throw around Homelands and Fallen Empires as examples and many of those folks really had ZERO idea why they were bad.
After tonight's spoils, I do feel slightly better. There are some nifty and unique cards in there... and Vortex Elemental is my fave card of the set. But I'm not going to bother going to prerelease or buy boxes this time. I'll pick up my playsets of what I need and be happy with that. Thankfully 99% are uncommons and commons.
I think people are generally bad at judging what cards end up being good for constructed in the end. However I would say that people generally are looking for something to shake up what we have. We're seeing a couple of formats that are very "comfortable" and don't seem to offer anything to people brewing new ideas. By throwing some real obvious competitive cards in a set, it becomes more of a "I can't wait to see what that card will do for the meta" than anything.
I would say there are a couple of cards that seem very competitive here... but they just don't have obvious homes. It will take some creativity to make them work, but it will happen. We likely have at least one or two $30 Mythics on our hands with BofG 6 months from now. The real question is which ones.
Point taken, I should be more aware of people's post counts when replying. I'm still relatively a newbie in these forums and I will admit when I'm wrong about something. However, I think it is hard to judge ANY new set without full spoilers at the very least. IMO true judgement should be reserved until a month after the release date when everyone had a chance to playtest the new cards in all formats.
And normally I 100% agree with the "wait and see" method as it's just logical, even if I'm not feeling the set right off the bat. However, BotG is just rubbing me the wrong way and I'm not feeling any real strong desire to play with what we have here outside of a couple of cards and it will effect how I spend my money on it.
On the positive, I am absolutely thrilled that the power level seems to come from uncommons so far, and I'm hoping that we see a couple of them shake up standard for the sake of seeing some new ideas take shape that won't break banks.
It's a small expansion set though so you can't expect a ton of format warping Standard staple cards.
That's absolutely NOT what I'm saying. As someone who's been through every spoiler season since this site began back during Mirrodin block... I sure as heck know what spoiler season looks like, and how it plays out. I've been on both sides of the "bad set/good set" team and have been a big cheerleader for new sets 9/10 times, using many of the same retorts you're making now.
With any set, there are some great cards I'll be happy to own (Kiora's going in my cube for sure). However, when I look at a set on the whole, it factors if I will buy boxes, attend prerelease, build casual decks, attend FNM's more frequently, draft the set, etc. It's not about Standard, which is not a format I'm even playing right now.
For me, it's not about reprints or broken cards, it's about what's fun to play for ME. Personally, I'm not having a ton of fun with Theros, but that's my opinon. I certainly don't mind someone having to disagree... but I will not be lumped into the group that fires off irrational thoughts for the sake of trolling. My comment above was in line with "you know, I'm seeing people who normally are more optimistic being critical of this set." You went right to "OMG SHUT UP YOU PEOPLE HATE EVERYTHING."
There are way too many knee-jerk reaction naysayers here that really need to get some perspective.
While there are always those types, we also are seeing plenty of established players who have been through this plenty of times saying that they don't like what we've seen. As one of those, I dislike it because it feels uninspired and like a bunch of leftovers that didn't make the cut for Theros. It's one thing to have 99% limited fodder like normal... another to see cards that feel like rehashed ideas that do less expanding of theme, and more cluttering.
This block looks like a blast. Tribute, scrying, and inspired are all "next level" MTG critical thinking compared to metalcraft/battlecry/etc like we've gotten from the last few blocks. What is there not to like? Looks like fun!
Magic is one of those "each their own" games. Part of the beauty of it is that it changes all of the time, and there is always something that will pleasantly shock people that they undervalued. For example, while I personally think Theros is MUCH better than Scars was, there were some people who LOVED that set.
We will ALWAYS have people disapointed with new sets, and every now and again that person is you. This time I'm a hater, and you're a lover. Next time it may just swap. It's part of the thing that makes this game so great. It's always different and there will always be room for change.
We should be happy about this, and celebrate. As those who aren't enjoying it will take a break, come back later refreshed, and enjoy the game with a new gusto. I've been playing for over ten years, and have taken SEVERAL breaks. You just learn to enjoy it as a mini vacation, and savor jumping back in once something appeals.
I'm normally a pretty big cheerleader when it comes to new sets and saying "wait to play with the cards first." But I have zero interest in playing at prerelease this time. It's been a while since that's happened for me, but I can't help but be completely underwhelmed here. It's a fun set for casual players with some interesting interactions, but I personally have no interest in creating new decks from this block. I'll be picking up some singles for the cube, but otherwise I'm happy sitting on the sidelines for a year.
Gifts Ungiven. You can build so many interesting decks with it, and we've seen several that were tournament viable. Watching pros play that deck during CHK Standard taught me more about how to play Magic than anything else.
When someone operates on a strong "moral" compass and expects me and my family to live by their belief structure... I sure as heck am going to make sure she practices what she preaches just as she would the same if the roles were reversed... that reminds me...
Looks like this deck is about to find a lot more traction. Guess now it's time to talk about the mirror match?
Sorry, going to have to debunk you. Many times they overprint promotional material that they use for these conventions, and these are likely leftovers from previous years. This is a new convention for WOTC, and they likely wanted to bring as much as they could for the fans, and getting rid of a couple of cases of extra old promos that are sitting in the back room is a pretty logical and common thing to see.
Don't be paranoid about the sets or the dates or the card frame, because honestly this is likely all that this is... getting rid of extra crap in the back room from old cons.
People like to read into what MaRo says often. It's also important to note that "in a long time" isn't very long in the scope of Magic. A huge chunk of players didn't start playing the game till ISD/RTR era and are in their early 20's to late teens... so to them anything older than ISD is "a long time."
It's nice that we won't have to fork over millions to get the chase cards, but it won't be good for local shops and WOTC. Here's hoping it pulls a Dark Ascension and pulls out it's greatness later in life.
As long as there is a minimal possibility that a card a person bought is fake, they will post... and post... and post. Literally 30 mins after the news broke we started seeing the "I think my Garruk is a fake!!!!!" threads.
I think we need to educate people that these aren't nearly as impressive as feared, and it might help the people who will freak out about any card they get that isn't out of a booster.
Always bugs me when people lump CHK into the same field as Fallen Empires, Homelands, and Saviors. CHK alone is a very solid set, and has plenty of cards that are chased today. Theme or no theme and not looking at the art, it was a set filled with extremely unique ideas and was very fun to play. Problem was they couldn't follow it up very well with the next two sets and ruined the block as a whole. IMO, that's the problem we're seeing here in Theros. Very unique first set, dropping the ball in the last two. I don't see it as the WORST EVER, but people throw around Homelands and Fallen Empires as examples and many of those folks really had ZERO idea why they were bad.
I would say there are a couple of cards that seem very competitive here... but they just don't have obvious homes. It will take some creativity to make them work, but it will happen. We likely have at least one or two $30 Mythics on our hands with BofG 6 months from now. The real question is which ones.
And normally I 100% agree with the "wait and see" method as it's just logical, even if I'm not feeling the set right off the bat. However, BotG is just rubbing me the wrong way and I'm not feeling any real strong desire to play with what we have here outside of a couple of cards and it will effect how I spend my money on it.
On the positive, I am absolutely thrilled that the power level seems to come from uncommons so far, and I'm hoping that we see a couple of them shake up standard for the sake of seeing some new ideas take shape that won't break banks.
That's absolutely NOT what I'm saying. As someone who's been through every spoiler season since this site began back during Mirrodin block... I sure as heck know what spoiler season looks like, and how it plays out. I've been on both sides of the "bad set/good set" team and have been a big cheerleader for new sets 9/10 times, using many of the same retorts you're making now.
With any set, there are some great cards I'll be happy to own (Kiora's going in my cube for sure). However, when I look at a set on the whole, it factors if I will buy boxes, attend prerelease, build casual decks, attend FNM's more frequently, draft the set, etc. It's not about Standard, which is not a format I'm even playing right now.
For me, it's not about reprints or broken cards, it's about what's fun to play for ME. Personally, I'm not having a ton of fun with Theros, but that's my opinon. I certainly don't mind someone having to disagree... but I will not be lumped into the group that fires off irrational thoughts for the sake of trolling. My comment above was in line with "you know, I'm seeing people who normally are more optimistic being critical of this set." You went right to "OMG SHUT UP YOU PEOPLE HATE EVERYTHING."
While there are always those types, we also are seeing plenty of established players who have been through this plenty of times saying that they don't like what we've seen. As one of those, I dislike it because it feels uninspired and like a bunch of leftovers that didn't make the cut for Theros. It's one thing to have 99% limited fodder like normal... another to see cards that feel like rehashed ideas that do less expanding of theme, and more cluttering.
Magic is one of those "each their own" games. Part of the beauty of it is that it changes all of the time, and there is always something that will pleasantly shock people that they undervalued. For example, while I personally think Theros is MUCH better than Scars was, there were some people who LOVED that set.
We will ALWAYS have people disapointed with new sets, and every now and again that person is you. This time I'm a hater, and you're a lover. Next time it may just swap. It's part of the thing that makes this game so great. It's always different and there will always be room for change.
We should be happy about this, and celebrate. As those who aren't enjoying it will take a break, come back later refreshed, and enjoy the game with a new gusto. I've been playing for over ten years, and have taken SEVERAL breaks. You just learn to enjoy it as a mini vacation, and savor jumping back in once something appeals.