Somewhat in the way a starving maddened lion isn't a proven mankiller I imagine. :)

I'm sorry, you're wrong (EDIT: I later got it what you meant, see at the bottom. I'll just leave all this research because it's interesting :)

Core sets don't have "neutral" settings. There's plenty of references to places in the multiverse in core set cards. In fact, it's been said that a specific core set can have a few planes as a setting, whereas a block is clearly set in one plane only and tells a specific story.

Looking at M14, it seems that the main setting is the plane of Shandalar.

We have references to several place in Shandalar: Evos Isle (Warden of Evos Isle), the forest of Kalonia (Kalonian Hydra, Kalonian Tusker, flavor texts of Voracious Wurm and Giant Spider), the plains of Thune (Archangel of Thune, flavor text of Bonescythe Sliver), the mountain of Valkas (Scourge of Valkas), the swamp of Xathrid (Xathrid Necromancer).

But we also have a mention of Benalia (Capashen Knight), that just like Llanowar is in the plane of Dominaria. Same goes for Shiv (Shivan Dragon, Shiv's Embrace) and Krosa (Brindle Boar).

Dismiss into Dream references Tazeem, which is a continent in Zendikar. Into the Wilds references Mul Daya, also in Zendikar.
Vastwood Hydra: Vastwood is once again, a place in Zendikar.

Nephalia Seakite: Nephalia is in Innistrad.

Darksteel Forge, Darksteel Ingot: the darksteel is found only on Mirrodin. The Forge also comes with a quote by Elesh Norn.

Elixir of Immortality has a quote by Baron Sengir!

And those are just the references I was able to identify. Others I can't tell where they came from, like Mistral Isle, the Northern Verge, Calla Dale or Goma Fada.

EDIT: Okay, got it, you were saying that they wanted a generic mana elf to reprint it everywhere. Like, in a hypothetical Return to Alara, they couldn't put Llanowar Elves or Fyndhorn Elves there, but they can reprint Elvish Mystic. Makes sense.

The reason isn't mysterious at all - they want neutrally named elf to reprint not only in core sets but in expert expansions too. Llanowar is too specific for them.

Yep. And I'm also using it like when you parachute vipers to stop a rat's infestation (or something), because if the Goblin decks will be more powerful in regular weeks, the non-interactive combo decks (and that includes Elfball) will have a harder time to end undefeated, because if you just leave the Goblins free to roam, they might win before you're able to say "storm".

I want to know more about these cards. They are somehow interesting though. - Marla Ahlgrimm

Jacob van Lunen's article is fantastic. Well worth the read for anyone looking to play anything M14. Also your comments about the new client were top notch. I'm still not exactly sure what bugs me the most about the new client(a lot of things...), but the lack of functionality in trading is high up there. Players should be able to set prices for cards in their trade binders, and have other players browse collections for potential purchases without having to go through any hassle. I'm not sure about the legality of trading tickets in fractions either, but it seems to me like if you can trade a whole ticket, you should be able to trade parts of it. Perhaps someone with more knowledge could clarify this.

No, I don't have insider knowledge. But I think I have read about all there is to read about the history of the game. Articles from MaRo, Richard Garfield, Peter Adkison, etc. Duelists from back then, dailymtg articles and so forth. To be honest, there is not even that much to read about the prehistory of the game. If you want to read about that yourself you might want to start in the Wikipedia. About two years was the time Richard Garfield spent developing MtG according to all sources I would know of.

And --call me fanboy-- I firmly believe Richard and his playtest group did an incredible job of playtesting Magic back then. I don't mean the early expansions, just the original Limited Edition. If you want to judge their playtesting you have to take into account that Magic was not just a new game. The concept of a Trading Card Game was exploring a completely virgin design space. For everything we take for granted now, Richard had to think of a way how to do it best. Minimum deck size, starting hand size, turn structure, one land drop per turn, number of cards in the game, use of rarities, really everything. Now imagine playtesting that. On which basis do you evaluate if your design decisions are correct?

Another thing that you have take into account is, that nobody dreamed of Magic ever being as popular as it was already a year after its launch. For effective playtesting it is important to know, what your audience is, and here they erred by being to cautious. They thought people would buy a starter and a handful of Boosters and that was it. Again, try to imagine the difference from how we experience Magic today. Back then the following actually happened frequently: You played with friends, and somebody had brought a few friends of his, who also played this Magic game. Now these friends bring their cards of course. You play with them, and one of them randomly has a Time Walk. Your reaction today might be, "oh, gosh, now I lose to that overpowered card again". In fact the reaction back then would have been completely different. Your reaction back then would have been "wow, what is this thing? I have never seen it before, but this is amazing. By the way would you trade it? No, sigh, I wouldn't trade it either. That is so cool". This is the environment, that Richard Garfield was designing and playtesting for. If he hadn't done his job of playtesting Magic so incredibly well back then, Magic would never have taken off.

Sure, a few of the Alpha/Beta cards are way more powerful than others, but most people were aware of that. Why is Ancestral Recall a rare card when all the other boons are common? Obviously they knew that one card in the cycle was too strong, but they loved the symmetry of the cycle. So instead of cutting Ancestral Recall from the game they made it a Rare card. People would only be very infrequently exposed to the card and it would not warp the playing experience. I cannot fault them for not expecting, that Magic became so popular that many people eventually would spend more money on Magic than on their car.

Anyway, your opinion of how good their playtesting was is as good as mine. I just don't think it is right to say "there are a bunch of broken cards in Alpha -> their playtesting was crap".

In the deckbuilder, give me a separate window that I can add notes and cards to consider, that get saved with the .dek file. More filtering options goes without saying (uncommons, planeswalkers, gold cards, etc.). Just staring at the vidcap of your video reminds me how many times I've started non-MTGO programs while trying to switch between MTGO screens (CTRL+TAB functionality please and move the menu to the wasted space at the top). Fixed replays. Obviously, I could go on. Thanks for the write-up, hopefully WotC will listen.

I had a similar experience, but I decided to skip out on Modern Masters entirely. After losing a quick 50 tickets in two drafts, it was obvious to me the format was really fun, really complex, and had a terrible value return. It reminded me a lot of Lorwyn where you could synergy-screwed in addition to getting mana and drop-curve screwed. I could not believe so many people signed up for the 45 ticket PTQ in that format. That's like taking a $50 bill and lighting it on fire.

While I didn't dip too far down into stuff I wanted to keep, I did have a losing streak that cost me, precipitated by modern masters. Just got back out of that hole by playing standard with a decent deck, which unfortunately looks to be rotating soon.

I am a little confused how you managed to Brainstorm with Jace during ROE drafts.

i concur, i spent a fortune on packs and draft and leagues and mtgo (and paper, but thats still around!) i gave up, i vowed to never pay the store again. i redeemed all i could, and the complete sets of tsp went to the bots. now i am cutting everything i can, went from 2000+ rares to now only a couple hundred left. i dont think im going to sell off my sea's or 1 fow, but everything else i said was off limits was checked off to be 'for trade'

the worst part is the money that i wouldnt sell while it was standard isnt worth a fraction of what id get for it now, kinda sad, but important to know that virtual is not tangible and even more important, the only cost wotc is going to get from me is just my time and opportunity.

I hate to smartass you (okay, whom am I kidding, most MTG players like to know it best), but apparently Richard Garfield knew very well, that cards like Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall were overpowered. And he did in fact playtest the game for about two years. The reason that these cards exist is that they anticipated each player to only have a few hundred cards maximum. If one player in your group had one Ancestral Recall then, and drew him once every other game, that was just cool. Nobody expected that people would buy boxes and boxes, and try to build decks consisting only of Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, and one Fireball or something.

If you want evidence to critisize the playtesting on, you maybe should point to the fact, that Sol Ring, Black Vise, and Channel were only Uncommons. Especially Sol Ring is way too strong, but also Black Vise was a card, that people lost tons of games to, because nobody had any idea how to build there deck right. Deck building principles were about as elaborate as 20 lands, 20 creatures, and 20 spells should be about right.

And MtG was very much Richard's main project at the time. It was not the original reason why he sought cooperation with Wizards --that was Robo Rally-- but when it was clear, that Magic was his project, he spent lots of time on it.