2007 - 2010 Rumors/Previews/mtg.com articles

[Delha]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to doing stupid/cute things with Dance of Many, Clone, and such.

[LotusHead]

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/95b

Vintage, no changes.

Extended is now "4 years" instread of "7 years"

"It became clear that instead of creating a third format—Double Standard—let's fix the one we have," said Scott. "One of the things we noticed was that the Extended format was not doing very well. The Pro Tour Qualifier round we run every year in Extended is the lowest attended, it does not do very well on Magic Online, and that when we are not making people play Extended there is less Extended being run than Legacy."

Wizards/DCI hating on Eternal Formats simply because it is more popular than their "buy our new cards rawrs!" format.

[conboy31]

Giant shake-up for extended.  I enjoyed the large card pool, I won't bother to play extended now. 
Legacy also will be morphed with storm and reanimator becoming slower, less consistent, or both.  Bodes well for my GW survival deck, but I don't think mystical needed to die.
Too bad vintage did not get thrown a bone.  Even something like flash coming off could have given a few people reason to try out a new deck.

[swooop]

Really bad news for vintage when they can't even be bothered to remove Burning wish from the restricted list after they errarted its orginal functionality, pure apathy not a good indicator for future format health.

[LotusHead]

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/activity/475

Wizards gives a shout out to TMD!

Now unrestrict something already!

[Norm4eva]

"It became clear that instead of creating a third format—Double Standard—let's fix the one we have," said Scott. "One of the things we noticed was that the Extended format was not doing very well. The Pro Tour Qualifier round we run every year in Extended is the lowest attended, it does not do very well on Magic Online, and that when we are not making people play Extended there is less Extended being run than Legacy."

Wizards/DCI hating on Eternal Formats simply because it is more popular than their "buy our new cards rawrs!" format.

This confuses the gumdrops out of me.  The fuck; you have an Eternal format that does better than Extended, so.... instead of supporting a more popular format, fuck with 1.x rrrrl bad until it's a weird version of Standard?  Why does it follow that the formats should necessarily rank in popularity according to their relative similarity to Type 2?  I don't get how they can read those numbers and not go "Oh look, people do give a shit about Legacy and probably Vintage for that matter.  We need to be paying closer attention to those formats."

It might be true that Extended needed a bandaid, I wouldn't know, I don't play Extended.  My suspicion is that the number of players that naturally progress from Type 2 to Extended to Vintage sort of goes down as Extended as a format offers less to a player than it did before - you won't necessarily be able to just put duals and Forces and StP into a 1.x deck and dive into Legacy, your cardpool isn't necessarily relevant enough.  I didn't do it that way, but that's because I had a billion people around me playing Eternal formats.  Now that the jump off from Extended to Eternal is that much more daunting, I wonder what future growth in either format will look like.

[TopSecret]

"It became clear that instead of creating a third format—Double Standard—let's fix the one we have," said Scott. "One of the things we noticed was that the Extended format was not doing very well. The Pro Tour Qualifier round we run every year in Extended is the lowest attended, it does not do very well on Magic Online, and that when we are not making people play Extended there is less Extended being run than Legacy."

Wizards/DCI hating on Eternal Formats simply because it is more popular than their "buy our new cards rawrs!" format.

This confuses the gumdrops out of me.  The fuck; you have an Eternal format that does better than Extended, so.... instead of supporting a more popular format, fuck with 1.x rrrrl bad until it's a weird version of Standard?  Why does it follow that the formats should necessarily rank in popularity according to their relative similarity to Type 2?  I don't get how they can read those numbers and not go "Oh look, people do give a shit about Legacy and probably Vintage for that matter.  We need to be paying closer attention to those formats."

My own personal interpretation of the logic Wizards is using is that Standard is not only one of their tools to get money, but also to the most accessible format to new players because it contains only the most recent cards. And Wizards needs to focus on catering to new players to preserve Magic in the long term. Extended is supposed to be the next most accessible format behind Standard because the cards are Standard plus (some number) other sets. The fact that Legacy is surpassing Extended in popularity even though the Legacy cardpool is older (which in theory makes it less accessible to newer players who are fresh off playing Standard) and despite the fact that Extended gets more support from Wizards than Legacy (which was the case last time I checked) would be good indications that Extended is not doing a good job at all at what it was intended to do (provide non-veteran players with a format for people to use their recently rotated out standard cards in).

I don't know if this logic is entirely sound since it does not necessarily take into account a pooling of eternal players over time that would make Legacy more popular than Extended without Extended necessarily being some awful format no one likes, but besides that I don't think it's an unreasonable train of thought.

[Diakonov]

It's not unreasonable for WotC to want people from Standard to be able to continue using their cards, and this format would do that more readily, but I don't understand why Extended simply must become more popular than Legacy.  That part of their stance doesn't make sense to me.

EDIT: And by "doesn't make sense to me," I mean if they had intentions other than trying to make money.

Also, it's worth noting that WotC has not allowed for Extended to be to be played at FNM, and a lot of people who preferred the old Extended are complaining that it wasn't thriving due to this lack of crucial support.

[jtwilkins]

I do not play standard or extended but I think the changed to extended were a good move. The old extended was really wonky and this seems much more of a proper format and what I think extended was ment to be. I think it will gain in popularity and take some heat off the price of Legacy cards.

I do not believe in this "super extended" format the entire idea was based off one post with zero credibility. If the person knew anything he would have been disclosing this extend change not the creation of super extended. I think players get confused enough with too many formats let alone adding another.  "Super extended" might as well be called Goyf-Extened. If there is another major shake up in formats I couldn't see it being announced for another 9-12 months.

[Delha]

...and a lot of people who preferred the old Extended are complaining that it wasn't thriving due to this lack of crucial support.

That sounds oddly familiar.

I do not believe in this "super extended" format the entire idea was based off one post with zero credibility. If the person knew anything he would have been disclosing this extend change not the creation of super extended.

That's not how leaks tend to work. The thing about info like this is that it's often completely random. It's whatever employee X happens to mention offhandedly while out at lunch with a buddy. Sometimes it's big stuff, sometimes it's trivial. I've been on both sides of that fence before, so also bear in mind this is coming from personal experience, not raw conjecture.

[tedv]

Don't think for a moment that WotC is trying to kill Vintage and Legacy to drive people to newer formats with lower barrier to entry but higher incremental cost.  There's no reason to believe disenfranchised Vintage players will suddenly switch to a format like Standard.  Most likely they will play some other low incremental cost format like EDH, or just quit the game altogether.  WotC doesn't want to encourage the FNM Standard crowd to start playing Legacy and Vintage instead because that's an actual income loss.  But reducing Vintage players doesn't result in an income gain, and reduces the overall number of Magic players (which is bad for the Magic brand as a whole).

Or think about it like this.  If Wizards really wanted to kill Vintage, they wouldn't do it by making no changes to the restricted list.  They could just stop sanctioning tournaments.  Or worse, they could do away with the restricted list altogether.  Imagine how heinous Vintage would be if the official format allowed and basically required 4 Black Lotus per deck, 4 Ancestral Recall, and so on.  That's the quickest way to kill the format.

The other thing to keep in mind is that restricting is not an exact science, something that's obvious when you listen to the debates about whether Ponder and Gush deserve to be restricted.  There exist multiple potential Vintage metagames.  In some of these, Gush is restricted and in others Gush is not.  I'm sure both environments would be interesting in different ways, but it's not immediately clear which one is more interesting.  Sadly, there can only be one official Vintage format, and that means sometimes WotC has to make judgment calls about borderline cases.  A restriction can be less obvious than Black Lotus and still help the environment as a whole.

[Diakonov]

New pic:

.

[Norm4eva]

It looks like a wood carving of an armadillo humping a Tootsie Roll.

Not that that's a bad thing.

[Troy_Costisick]

It looks like a wood carving of an armadillo humping a Tootsie Roll.

Not that that's a bad thing.

LOL.  I  have to say that I still like the original art best.  I think this is a great printing for Standard right now though, especially since Bolt is in M11.

Peace,

-Troy

[Cyberpunker]

I already have 4 Foil 10th edition ones... w/e

[Delha]

I  have to say that I still like the original art best.

Have you ever looked at the picture closely? For a long time, it just looked like a machine that didn't make sense, until I eventually realized it was supposed to be phasing through the battlements or something similar. Learning that was even worse though, since it just hilighted the disconnect btw artists/designers back in the day. The flavor text is totally in keeping w/ what I'd expected, but the picture, not so much.

The armadillo humping a tootsie roll is probably my new fav, made even more ridiculous by the fact that it's also crowd surfing on a bunch of zombies.

[Juggernaut GO]

IT CAN'T BE BLOCKED BY WALLS!

[ReAnimator]

Scroll Thief
{2}u
Creature - Merfolk Rogue    Common
Whenever Scroll Thief deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
1/3

So better Ophidian with tribal synergies? Seems good.

Is there potential for an old school BBS ? would you want to run more than 4 phids?
I could see 6 or 7 giving you a lot of redundancy for a first turn phid.

[DubDub]

Scroll Thief
{2}u
Creature - Merfolk Rogue    Common
Whenever Scroll Thief deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
1/3

So better Ophidian with tribal synergies? Seems good.

Is there potential for an old school BBS ? would you want to run more than 4 phids?
I could see 6 or 7 giving you a lot of redundancy for a first turn phid.

This seems much worse than Cold-Eyed Selkie, which benefits more from Merfolk Lords, and isn't significantly harder to cast.  Thief survives Pyroclasm where CES doesn't (without 2+ lords), but doesn't have evasion.  Best argument for this guy is that he blocks DC for value, but if you're staying back to block DC and they don't attack they're the one drawing cards.

[Yare]

From the Magic Show via MTGSalvation:

Time Reversal
3UU
Sorcery (Mythic Rare)
Each player shuffles his or her graveyard and hand into his or her library, then draws seven cards. Exile Time Reversal.

[Cyberpunker]

Scroll Thief
{2}u
Creature - Merfolk Rogue    Common
Whenever Scroll Thief deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
1/3

So better Ophidian with tribal synergies? Seems good.

Is there potential for an old school BBS ? would you want to run more than 4 phids?
I could see 6 or 7 giving you a lot of redundancy for a first turn phid.

This seems much worse than Cold-Eyed Selkie, which benefits more from Merfolk Lords, and isn't significantly harder to cast.  Thief survives Pyroclasm where CES doesn't (without 2+ lords), but doesn't have evasion.  Best argument for this guy is that he blocks DC for value, but if you're staying back to block DC and they don't attack they're the one drawing cards.

Well he can be a better chump blocker and can be used via Mana Drain mana. Also he is an Ophidian that deals combat damage.

[ReAnimator]

The thing is, you can't play Selkie on the first turn so easily. The thing that makes Phid so good, is that having 2 off colour moxes, or a mana crypt or a mox and a sol ring will let you cast it on turn 1, selkie is very hard to cast on turn 1, without running something like chrome mox or petals etc.

The casting cost also works a lot better with colorless lands. Which is huge in a deck like BBS, it also works better with drain.

The casting costs are worlds apart.

[DubDub]

Scroll Thief
{2}u
Creature - Merfolk Rogue    Common
Whenever Scroll Thief deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
1/3

So better Ophidian with tribal synergies? Seems good.

Is there potential for an old school BBS ? would you want to run more than 4 phids?
I could see 6 or 7 giving you a lot of redundancy for a first turn phid.

This seems much worse than Cold-Eyed Selkie, which benefits more from Merfolk Lords, and isn't significantly harder to cast.  Thief survives Pyroclasm where CES doesn't (without 2+ lords), but doesn't have evasion.  Best argument for this guy is that he blocks DC for value, but if you're staying back to block DC and they don't attack they're the one drawing cards.

Well he can be a better chump blocker and can be used via Mana Drain mana. Also he is an Ophidian that deals combat damage.

What in Vintage are you chumping with him?  DSC he saves you two points, but he isn't a better chump blocker against: Sphinx, Inkwell, Iona, Tarmogoyf, Terastodon, Ichorid.  I already mentioned the Dark Confidant case, and the Bloodghast case is identical, except that if you're keeping them back instead of drawing cards like DC, Bloodghast can fuel Cabal Therapy, or Dread Return.  Honestly an 0/3 is a better 'blocker' against Bloodghast, since then 'Ghast doesn't die.

The thing is, you can't play Selkie on the first turn so easily. The thing that makes Phid so good, is that having 2 off colour moxes, or a mana crypt or a mox and a sol ring will let you cast it on turn 1, selkie is very hard to cast on turn 1, without running something like chrome mox or petals etc.

The casting cost also works a lot better with colorless lands. Which is huge in a deck like BBS, it also works better with drain.

The casting costs are worlds apart.

They may be 'worlds apart' in BBS, but the casting costs are identical for the purposes of: Noble Hierarch fueled decks which obviously prefer CES, Merfolk decks intending to Vial them in, or any deck intending to cast them on pretty muich any turn besides the first.  You're right that Mutavault/Wasteland plays better with Thief, but the reward on swinging with a pumped (exalted or lords) Selkie is literally 2-3 times greater per turn.  It's worth the additional cost.

Let's remember that Mox Emerald is an on-color mox for the purposes of Selkie, and that replacing Sol Ring with Lotus Petal is not the worst idea in situations besides casting CES on turn one, like representing (or actually casting) Drain on turn one.

[ReAnimator]

I was specifically talking about BBS style things. I totally agree that CES is way better in Noble fish and what not, but i wouldn't write this new phid off completely just cause it is worse comparatively in that one deck.

[Delha]

IT CAN'T BE BLOCKED BY WALLS!

I'm just sayin that when I picure "Can't be blocked by walls" on a card named Juggernaut, I expect more of this

and less of this.

[honestabe]

IT CAN'T BE BLOCKED BY WALLS!

I'm just sayin that when I picure "Can't be blocked by walls" on a card named Juggernaut, I expect more of this

and less of this.

$5 to the 1st person to spot the feinstein

[vassago]

WANTED!!!!!  OH YEAH!!!!!

$5 to the 1st person to spot the feinstein

Want my paypal info?   

[i_set_fire]

OMG they are making a jace the mindsculptor TV show!!




EDIT: this is a joke!  the show is actually called the cage and is about some cop superhero or something like that

[honestabe]

Mana Leak

Damn, blue is gooood

[Diakonov]

OMG they are making a jace the mindsculptor TV show!!

lol