If i'm not mistaken time vault is in this set. time vault + animate artifact + instill energy = GG. i saw this combo 1st hand years ago before time vault was banned from what was called type 1 then. we have access to all 3 of these cards in one set. it will be interesting to see if this will be able to hold up in todays meta.
I dont know about that but i always thought white borders where very ugly. I would avoid puting them in my deck over black borders just because they wernt appeasing to my eyes. Also i like symmetry, and 56 cards of black and 4 white just messes with my head. I was so glad when they decided to make core black border.
Yea, i was refering to casual players. Of corse the price gets driven that high because high level circuts win thousands. Im undefeated on the lowest tire of online tournys tho with cheap decks, grand total of 4-0 haha. Im talking the 2 event ticket ones :O
For real life i just print out expensive decks with paper and then throw them in a sleve with a real card behind them. With an HD printer, it can pass as tourny legal if they dont check lmao i swear, tho i havent tried it yet.
A draft will have, on average, one of every uncommon. I am going to get tired of playing against the Fireball pretty quickly.
The numbers make so little sense.
Your article on this was excellent. So much so that I scrapped a lot of what I had written and just included a link to your assessment (which I included in Part II... hm.)
So - readers - check out "Looking at Master's Edition 4, part 1: What It Is" from Nov 23rd. Worth the read.
While what you say is true, if I were a greedy corporate sales person, I would not release the Power Nine in one set, I would create a Power Edition, and in each one of those, released in 3 months intervals I would release each Power Nine card, one by one, as the only mythic on the set:
Power Edition I: Black Lotus, Allied Color Duals, Ravnica Fetchlands, +Casual Chase Rares, +Common & Uncommon Classic Staples.
Power Edition II: Timetwister, Enemy Color Duals, Onslaught Fetchlands, +Classic Staples, +Casual Chase Commons & Uncommons.
Power Edition III: Ancestral Recall, Allied Color Duals, Ravnica Fetchlands, +Casual Chase Rares, +Common & Uncommon Classic Staples.
Power Edition IV: Time Walk, Enemy Color Duals, Onslaught Fetchlands, +Rare Classic Staples, +Casual Chase Commons & Uncommons.
Power Edition V: Mox Sapphire, Allied Color Duals, Ravnica Fetchlands, +Casual Chase Rares, +Common & Uncommon Classic Staples.
Power Edition VI: Mox Pearl, Enemy Color Duals, Onslaught Fetchlands, +Rare Staples, +Casual Chase Commons & Uncommons.
Power Edition VII: Mox Jet, Enemy Color Duals, Onslaught Fetchlands, +Casual Chase Rares, +Common & Uncommon Classic Staples.
Power Edition VIII: Mox Emerald, Allied Color Duals, Ravnica Fetchlands, +Rare Staples, +Casual Chase Commons & Uncommons.
Power Edition IX: Mox Ruby, Enemy Color Duals, Onslaught Fetchlands, Casual Chase Rares, +Common & Uncommon Classic Staples.
White-bordered cards aren't pretty in paper, but they don't cause any issues. Online I honestly can't tell when I have selected a white-bordered card when trying to resolve an effect. That's a graphical design issue, but couple that with the poor design of automatically thinking I've finalized my selection once I've clicked on the correct number of cards causes problems. I may not think I've selected a card because I can't see it's highlighted and sudden after my next click I've made my selection and thrown a game away because two poorly designed issues occurred at the same time. Not cool.
I actually had a lot more history lesson / theory stuff in (including some stuff about the reasons for functional reprints - including limited), but I edited it out before the final cut. I can rattle on about the history and theory of Magic for pages and pages, but sometimes I just need to get to the point quicker heh.
I think Rust Tick is a very good card, that I'm always happy to have in any deck. I played one guy once that drafted a black/white zero artifact deck (!), other than that people always have something to tap. If they're light on artifact creatures, you can lock down a tumble magnet, trigon, contagion clasp, mimic vat, something.
The Rust Tick also has a nice alpha-strike enabling move where you tap down one of their artifact creatures on their turn, allow Rust Tick to untap, tap a second artifact creature, then swing in with two of their blockers disabled by one little Tick. Nice.
That said, the Sylvok Replica is absolutely awesome, he's like a Shatter that spends some time blocking 1/1s, 2/1s, and 2/2s before he finally kills an artifact. Or spends some time hitting for 1 damage before turning into Shatter. Nice bonus value either way. Unlike Shatter he can also take out a Volition Reins or Arrest or whatever. I would pick him over the Rust Tick, probably. He's also exceptionally splashable, if you don't see your forest for ages (or ever) he's still a 1/3 and a metalcraft enabler so he's not a dead card, and if your forest or copper myr pops up on turn 12, is "destroy target artifact" still a relevant effect in lategame? Heck yeah.
I share a lot of your frustration. Not as much with the cards themselves being less useful than other things in Classic/Legacy - that's almost inevitable, but I think there's a niche for cards that haven't seen play in a long time. I'm happy to get Deathgrip, Lifeforce, Tsunami, and Acid Rain online - I just really, REALLY wish that they weren't unnecessarily promoted to rare. It's kind of a slap in the face.
Those cards are at least reasonable for their cost. Many of the other cards like Crumble may be reasonable for limited in ME4, which is likely to be slow. I can understand them printing almost anything to fill out limited at common and uncommon. It's the rares that really get to me. Like Kismet - a strictly superior version in a better color was printed in a modern set, plus Kismet got the completely unnecessary rare bump. Argh.
I think it's going to be very "uncommon bomb" heavy format. With only 72 uncommons (BAD DECISION) How often are Air Elemental, Juggernaut, Sengir Vampire, and Serra Angel going to be trading with each other. They just blow most of the commons and rares out of the water, efficiency wise. Plus Fireball in a set with only 72! different uncommons.
It feels like this WAS a nicely balanced, fun set. And then at the last minute, they pulled the Power Nine, shoved in the dual lands, promoted 20 cards to rare for no reason, and gave us this half-formed mutant baby of a set that is no longer made to play well in limited, and is less exciting for constructed.
I agree with Peter's review of this set. MED4 is very lame. While it might be fun to play for nostalgia value, its economic value is going to be low and in the end this is what makes or breaks a set when it is released online. Remember what happened with Mirage? That was a much better set, but did not fare well for drafting since most of the cards no longer have value. They should have released the power nine and been done with it - then people would be drafting this set. The dual lands are nice, but most people serious about classic already have their set, which decreases the need to draft MED4 even further.
I think this is a great history article. The only thing I feel it failed to properly point out it's the fact functional reprints are also very strongly linked to Limited. There's a given number of useful basic effects the game needs at any level of its formats in order to correctly work, and you have to put some of these effects into any set.
What MMogg said about white-bordered cards:
"I would support white borders (or alt art) as a way of making players who need cheap cards to play happy and those who already have them happy. I can't see a major downside."
Sorry about that, but I can't help but feel you don't understand human mind and human relations very deeply. :) First of all, alt-art and white-bordered are two WILDLY different concepts. It's like comparing a cover song made by a brilliant artist to a karaoke rendition by some not-so-drunken guy who's still able to make you recognize the song. What are the odds that John Avon's or Rob Alexander's Scrubland would be better than the original one? What about Jeff Menges' old Swords to Plowshares (good old memories aside) vs. Terese Nielsen's new one?
And then, there's the psychology involved. I'm not rich (relatively speaking, inside the MTGO world). I need cheap cards. I'm not happy to play with white-bordered cards. It's not about being a snob. White border is not just a variant version, it's an aesthetic statement. From an aesthetic point of view, white border makes for a poor layout. "Poor" is the key here. Back at the times, white border was meant to be what all the core sets (except the very first, very special limited edition) would look like. Just a choice, black layout vs. white layout. Except any graphic designer could say the white layout was poor. And that's the reason now the things are changed, and white border is no more. Because, you know, a now huge company doesn't like to be represented by a poor design work (that's why the overall aesthetic of the cards and all related material has drastically improved over the years).
Back to the psychology, I don't want to play with the bad-designed, karaoke version of a card. Since I actually AM a little snob, I will say I DON'T play with these cards. But this is about me. The truth about the average player is he doesn't LIKE to play with cards that say, "You're poor, you can't afford the true cards, what are you doing here in our country club dressed like that?". More importantly, he doesn't like to be FORCED to do that, in order to take part in the game. He wouldn't like for the company to have him forced to do that, to stand up among the other players this way, because, I dare to say, that would be slightly fascist on the company's part. :)
Granted, there are players who just don't care about black- or white-bordered cards (color-blinded players, in more than one sense :)). They could play a deck with 4 Force of Will, 20 dual lands and a playset composed by 3 white-bordered 9th edition Boomerang and a black-bordered one, without even noticing. But I don't believe this type of player is able to influence how the player base would respond to a white-bordered, only-for-poor-people reprint.
The economics of card prices are driven by their value in terms of potential earnings. Cards that win big money cost big money. It is not unreasonable for this to be the case. On the other hand if your confidence in your abilities is lower than your spare income then you probably should not be overextending to buy cards like Jace and Lotus Cobra.
Winning casually is not the same as winning professionally or even low level tourneys. I know a lot of people play so they can brag about it or enjoy the thrill of victory for it's own sake but that isn't what drives the market. Casual players do buy up lots of cards but they don't set their prices because they are always looking for the best deal.
Tourney players will pay to play at much higher costs because they know they will make more winnings than their expenditures. Or so they think. Also the way tourney players come up with good decks is by playing them. Off line people can proxy cards. Online we are stuck with either having the cards or not having them. Sure many people borrow first but in the end to be competitive each play group needs a certain amount of the hard to get mythics. Proven rares and mythics of course get the premium prices.
I belive reprints should be kept to the core sets. I hate seeing a reprint of a card from core in an expansion when there both in standard! I guess its to appease the set block constructed games, but its still annoying. Whats worse is when they reprint the same thing with a different name. Example being Soul Warden + Soul's Attendant. During that time window you could have 8 soul wardens instead of 4, and this was in the era where eldrazi spawns dominated.
Another point ide like to bring up, I dont belive for a second that Baneslayer droped because it was reprinted. If they didnt reprint it in m11 it wouldnt be in standard. Card value drops and rises for allot of differnt reasons. Jace's price has changed so widley its not even funny. My cuzen and I always play a game when we look at MTG sites. What do you think Jace is at now? You cant predict what cards will be a good investment because card crazes come and go. Your cards are worth what people will pay for them.
It cost the same for wizards to make a basic land as it does a mythic. Its just the illusion of worth. They make some cards very pretty and put cool words on them and others very plain and basic. The pretty ones they print very few of, and they flood the market with the simple boring ones. Supply and Demand 101.
Now im not a hater, i love playing the game. The only reason I got into online is because I stumbled onto this site and saw how insanley cheap most of your cards are. I always build a deck with a spending limit around 3-5 dollars. I love my decks, and ive won a bunch of casuals against tourny staples like goblin guide, jace the mind sculpter, baneslayer, primeval titan, day of judgments, bloodbraid elf, nico bolas, ect.. and thats just off the top of my head. You can make a cheap and very fun deck that can win without the crazed insanley priced cards.
In summary, is it really worth spending an enitre paycheck just to own a playset of whatever the meta game is telling you is a must have? Its much funner in my mind to be creative and think outside the box. I look at it like the jace/lotus cobra decks are the Yankees. Im like the Rays. Its a struggle, and Yankees just dominate the league, but the rays can win and make it too.
I agree with Paul. Not much here, which is rare for your articles. They usually give me some food for thought, but after this I'm still hungry. ;) Some parts, like Fork for example, were just wrong. Fork has been available as a promo for a while, but you seemed to imply with, "We have had it online in blue," that it wasn't available already.
Also, more to what Paul said, you missed some casual formats, like Commander for example. That is such a popular format and MED4 is full of lots of goodies for that format.
Also, might I suggest better formating for a article like this, such as putting the card names in bold or something.
OK so I got to the end of this article and was sorely disappointed with your review. I know you are upset by the shoddiness of the set from the point of view of a power-gamer but it really isn't as bad as you say if you are a casual player looking for eternal format fun cards. I agree with some of your assessments but really I do not see the point of this article and it is not the tone I expect from the Renowned Pete Jahn. You usually have so much more useful things to say that the disappointment really rises a notch in consideration of that.
I don't think it was necessary to reprint the duals and perhaps they decided a while back when Legacy was very hot in the summer (no pun intended) and prices were rising. Prices in September were already cooled off quite a bit. If this is their final printing, I'm fine with them doing these reprints for long-term growth and greater supply to avoid future problems. One problem with reprints is when to reprint. Wait too long and you'll burn those who bought them at a high price, so I do think sooner is better than later. That said, other problems like Force of Will still remain and are yet to be fixed. In fact, if cheaper duals DO attract more eternal players, that will inevitably drive up the value on those hard-to-find cards making them harder to find and more inaccessible.
Also, Spiritmonger is a bad example in this article. Everyone knows and accepts the fluctuations of value based on playability and meta changes. I didn't hear many people complaining about the sudden flop of Sun Titan's value and the rise of Frost Titan. Reprinting the duals, however, and indeed all reprints, is not a "natural" occurrence, meaning that Wizards knowingly reprints cards they know will cause a splash. I'm not making a value judgement on reprints here, I'm just saying part of the backlash regarding MED4 is that this was a planned move by Wizards rather than a naturally occurring value shift based on the game and players.
About the article, though, I didn't really like the tone. For example, "Although the thread title might make you roll your eyes and the suggestion it raises might be laughable and virtually guaranteed not to happen," sounds quite condescending and really is off-putting. I would support white borders (or alt art) as a way of making players who need cheap cards to play happy and those who already have them happy. I can't see a major downside. Saying, "people don't like white borders," or as some people said in that thread, "I don't want to see my opponents' ugly white border cards," well, how come they don't have to just suck it up like you and others are telling others to do? For that matter, if what people want determines everything, make all Magic cards foil. Do away with non-premium and give people what they want. The suggestion to white border the cards to me isn't laughable or eye-roll inducing if the reasons proposed for its implementation are sound. This article comes across as a whinge about whingers.
Power 9 was never in ME4. This was confirmed 100% from the WotC brand manager a while back.
If i'm not mistaken time vault is in this set. time vault + animate artifact + instill energy = GG. i saw this combo 1st hand years ago before time vault was banned from what was called type 1 then. we have access to all 3 of these cards in one set. it will be interesting to see if this will be able to hold up in todays meta.
I dont know about that but i always thought white borders where very ugly. I would avoid puting them in my deck over black borders just because they wernt appeasing to my eyes. Also i like symmetry, and 56 cards of black and 4 white just messes with my head. I was so glad when they decided to make core black border.
Yea, i was refering to casual players. Of corse the price gets driven that high because high level circuts win thousands. Im undefeated on the lowest tire of online tournys tho with cheap decks, grand total of 4-0 haha. Im talking the 2 event ticket ones :O
For real life i just print out expensive decks with paper and then throw them in a sleve with a real card behind them. With an HD printer, it can pass as tourny legal if they dont check lmao i swear, tho i havent tried it yet.
I figured you wither meant Zendikar Fetchlands or Ravnica Shocklands, but I just had to be an ass XD
The number of uncommons is a problem.
A draft will have, on average, one of every uncommon. I am going to get tired of playing against the Fireball pretty quickly.
The numbers make so little sense.
Your article on this was excellent. So much so that I scrapped a lot of what I had written and just included a link to your assessment (which I included in Part II... hm.)
So - readers - check out "Looking at Master's Edition 4, part 1: What It Is" from Nov 23rd. Worth the read.
PRJ
woa, completely messed that up, i meant Zendikar :-p
Ravnica had fetchlands?
While what you say is true, if I were a greedy corporate sales person, I would not release the Power Nine in one set, I would create a Power Edition, and in each one of those, released in 3 months intervals I would release each Power Nine card, one by one, as the only mythic on the set:
Power Edition I: Black Lotus, Allied Color Duals, Ravnica Fetchlands, +Casual Chase Rares, +Common & Uncommon Classic Staples.
Power Edition II: Timetwister, Enemy Color Duals, Onslaught Fetchlands, +Classic Staples, +Casual Chase Commons & Uncommons.
Power Edition III: Ancestral Recall, Allied Color Duals, Ravnica Fetchlands, +Casual Chase Rares, +Common & Uncommon Classic Staples.
Power Edition IV: Time Walk, Enemy Color Duals, Onslaught Fetchlands, +Rare Classic Staples, +Casual Chase Commons & Uncommons.
Power Edition V: Mox Sapphire, Allied Color Duals, Ravnica Fetchlands, +Casual Chase Rares, +Common & Uncommon Classic Staples.
Power Edition VI: Mox Pearl, Enemy Color Duals, Onslaught Fetchlands, +Rare Staples, +Casual Chase Commons & Uncommons.
Power Edition VII: Mox Jet, Enemy Color Duals, Onslaught Fetchlands, +Casual Chase Rares, +Common & Uncommon Classic Staples.
Power Edition VIII: Mox Emerald, Allied Color Duals, Ravnica Fetchlands, +Rare Staples, +Casual Chase Commons & Uncommons.
Power Edition IX: Mox Ruby, Enemy Color Duals, Onslaught Fetchlands, Casual Chase Rares, +Common & Uncommon Classic Staples.
I think it is really odd, that they haven't.
White-bordered cards aren't pretty in paper, but they don't cause any issues. Online I honestly can't tell when I have selected a white-bordered card when trying to resolve an effect. That's a graphical design issue, but couple that with the poor design of automatically thinking I've finalized my selection once I've clicked on the correct number of cards causes problems. I may not think I've selected a card because I can't see it's highlighted and sudden after my next click I've made my selection and thrown a game away because two poorly designed issues occurred at the same time. Not cool.
I actually had a lot more history lesson / theory stuff in (including some stuff about the reasons for functional reprints - including limited), but I edited it out before the final cut. I can rattle on about the history and theory of Magic for pages and pages, but sometimes I just need to get to the point quicker heh.
Precisely on the name change. I've been predicting that very thing for quite a while.
I think Rust Tick is a very good card, that I'm always happy to have in any deck. I played one guy once that drafted a black/white zero artifact deck (!), other than that people always have something to tap. If they're light on artifact creatures, you can lock down a tumble magnet, trigon, contagion clasp, mimic vat, something.
The Rust Tick also has a nice alpha-strike enabling move where you tap down one of their artifact creatures on their turn, allow Rust Tick to untap, tap a second artifact creature, then swing in with two of their blockers disabled by one little Tick. Nice.
That said, the Sylvok Replica is absolutely awesome, he's like a Shatter that spends some time blocking 1/1s, 2/1s, and 2/2s before he finally kills an artifact. Or spends some time hitting for 1 damage before turning into Shatter. Nice bonus value either way. Unlike Shatter he can also take out a Volition Reins or Arrest or whatever. I would pick him over the Rust Tick, probably. He's also exceptionally splashable, if you don't see your forest for ages (or ever) he's still a 1/3 and a metalcraft enabler so he's not a dead card, and if your forest or copper myr pops up on turn 12, is "destroy target artifact" still a relevant effect in lategame? Heck yeah.
I share a lot of your frustration. Not as much with the cards themselves being less useful than other things in Classic/Legacy - that's almost inevitable, but I think there's a niche for cards that haven't seen play in a long time. I'm happy to get Deathgrip, Lifeforce, Tsunami, and Acid Rain online - I just really, REALLY wish that they weren't unnecessarily promoted to rare. It's kind of a slap in the face.
Those cards are at least reasonable for their cost. Many of the other cards like Crumble may be reasonable for limited in ME4, which is likely to be slow. I can understand them printing almost anything to fill out limited at common and uncommon. It's the rares that really get to me. Like Kismet - a strictly superior version in a better color was printed in a modern set, plus Kismet got the completely unnecessary rare bump. Argh.
I think it's going to be very "uncommon bomb" heavy format. With only 72 uncommons (BAD DECISION) How often are Air Elemental, Juggernaut, Sengir Vampire, and Serra Angel going to be trading with each other. They just blow most of the commons and rares out of the water, efficiency wise. Plus Fireball in a set with only 72! different uncommons.
It feels like this WAS a nicely balanced, fun set. And then at the last minute, they pulled the Power Nine, shoved in the dual lands, promoted 20 cards to rare for no reason, and gave us this half-formed mutant baby of a set that is no longer made to play well in limited, and is less exciting for constructed.
I agree with Peter's review of this set. MED4 is very lame. While it might be fun to play for nostalgia value, its economic value is going to be low and in the end this is what makes or breaks a set when it is released online. Remember what happened with Mirage? That was a much better set, but did not fare well for drafting since most of the cards no longer have value. They should have released the power nine and been done with it - then people would be drafting this set. The dual lands are nice, but most people serious about classic already have their set, which decreases the need to draft MED4 even further.
I'm going to abuse Magus of the Moat just to grief you :-D (In fact, i just got a playset)
"I don't quite recall screaming RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!! back when I used to play chess."
Are you kidding? That was the best part about playing chess!
About animate artifact: "...It is really useful only in fun, casual, silly decks, and MTGO has no place to play such things."
Are you serious? I don't quite recall screaming RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!! back when I used to play chess.
And then, about Gaunglet of Might: "..This card in not strong enough for Vintage, but it might be strong enough for multiplayer and fun decks."
So, there are, or there aren't fun decks on mtgo? I'm confused.
I think this is a great history article. The only thing I feel it failed to properly point out it's the fact functional reprints are also very strongly linked to Limited. There's a given number of useful basic effects the game needs at any level of its formats in order to correctly work, and you have to put some of these effects into any set.
What MMogg said about white-bordered cards:
"I would support white borders (or alt art) as a way of making players who need cheap cards to play happy and those who already have them happy. I can't see a major downside."
Sorry about that, but I can't help but feel you don't understand human mind and human relations very deeply. :) First of all, alt-art and white-bordered are two WILDLY different concepts. It's like comparing a cover song made by a brilliant artist to a karaoke rendition by some not-so-drunken guy who's still able to make you recognize the song. What are the odds that John Avon's or Rob Alexander's Scrubland would be better than the original one? What about Jeff Menges' old Swords to Plowshares (good old memories aside) vs. Terese Nielsen's new one?
And then, there's the psychology involved. I'm not rich (relatively speaking, inside the MTGO world). I need cheap cards. I'm not happy to play with white-bordered cards. It's not about being a snob. White border is not just a variant version, it's an aesthetic statement. From an aesthetic point of view, white border makes for a poor layout. "Poor" is the key here. Back at the times, white border was meant to be what all the core sets (except the very first, very special limited edition) would look like. Just a choice, black layout vs. white layout. Except any graphic designer could say the white layout was poor. And that's the reason now the things are changed, and white border is no more. Because, you know, a now huge company doesn't like to be represented by a poor design work (that's why the overall aesthetic of the cards and all related material has drastically improved over the years).
Back to the psychology, I don't want to play with the bad-designed, karaoke version of a card. Since I actually AM a little snob, I will say I DON'T play with these cards. But this is about me. The truth about the average player is he doesn't LIKE to play with cards that say, "You're poor, you can't afford the true cards, what are you doing here in our country club dressed like that?". More importantly, he doesn't like to be FORCED to do that, in order to take part in the game. He wouldn't like for the company to have him forced to do that, to stand up among the other players this way, because, I dare to say, that would be slightly fascist on the company's part. :)
Granted, there are players who just don't care about black- or white-bordered cards (color-blinded players, in more than one sense :)). They could play a deck with 4 Force of Will, 20 dual lands and a playset composed by 3 white-bordered 9th edition Boomerang and a black-bordered one, without even noticing. But I don't believe this type of player is able to influence how the player base would respond to a white-bordered, only-for-poor-people reprint.
The economics of card prices are driven by their value in terms of potential earnings. Cards that win big money cost big money. It is not unreasonable for this to be the case. On the other hand if your confidence in your abilities is lower than your spare income then you probably should not be overextending to buy cards like Jace and Lotus Cobra.
Winning casually is not the same as winning professionally or even low level tourneys. I know a lot of people play so they can brag about it or enjoy the thrill of victory for it's own sake but that isn't what drives the market. Casual players do buy up lots of cards but they don't set their prices because they are always looking for the best deal.
Tourney players will pay to play at much higher costs because they know they will make more winnings than their expenditures. Or so they think. Also the way tourney players come up with good decks is by playing them. Off line people can proxy cards. Online we are stuck with either having the cards or not having them. Sure many people borrow first but in the end to be competitive each play group needs a certain amount of the hard to get mythics. Proven rares and mythics of course get the premium prices.
I belive reprints should be kept to the core sets. I hate seeing a reprint of a card from core in an expansion when there both in standard! I guess its to appease the set block constructed games, but its still annoying. Whats worse is when they reprint the same thing with a different name. Example being Soul Warden + Soul's Attendant. During that time window you could have 8 soul wardens instead of 4, and this was in the era where eldrazi spawns dominated.
Another point ide like to bring up, I dont belive for a second that Baneslayer droped because it was reprinted. If they didnt reprint it in m11 it wouldnt be in standard. Card value drops and rises for allot of differnt reasons. Jace's price has changed so widley its not even funny. My cuzen and I always play a game when we look at MTG sites. What do you think Jace is at now? You cant predict what cards will be a good investment because card crazes come and go. Your cards are worth what people will pay for them.
It cost the same for wizards to make a basic land as it does a mythic. Its just the illusion of worth. They make some cards very pretty and put cool words on them and others very plain and basic. The pretty ones they print very few of, and they flood the market with the simple boring ones. Supply and Demand 101.
Now im not a hater, i love playing the game. The only reason I got into online is because I stumbled onto this site and saw how insanley cheap most of your cards are. I always build a deck with a spending limit around 3-5 dollars. I love my decks, and ive won a bunch of casuals against tourny staples like goblin guide, jace the mind sculpter, baneslayer, primeval titan, day of judgments, bloodbraid elf, nico bolas, ect.. and thats just off the top of my head. You can make a cheap and very fun deck that can win without the crazed insanley priced cards.
In summary, is it really worth spending an enitre paycheck just to own a playset of whatever the meta game is telling you is a must have? Its much funner in my mind to be creative and think outside the box. I look at it like the jace/lotus cobra decks are the Yankees. Im like the Rays. Its a struggle, and Yankees just dominate the league, but the rays can win and make it too.
I agree with Paul. Not much here, which is rare for your articles. They usually give me some food for thought, but after this I'm still hungry. ;) Some parts, like Fork for example, were just wrong. Fork has been available as a promo for a while, but you seemed to imply with, "We have had it online in blue," that it wasn't available already.
Also, more to what Paul said, you missed some casual formats, like Commander for example. That is such a popular format and MED4 is full of lots of goodies for that format.
Also, might I suggest better formating for a article like this, such as putting the card names in bold or something.
I hope your next article has a bit more meat.
Gravity Well + Carpet = renewable fog.
==Edit==
OK so I got to the end of this article and was sorely disappointed with your review. I know you are upset by the shoddiness of the set from the point of view of a power-gamer but it really isn't as bad as you say if you are a casual player looking for eternal format fun cards. I agree with some of your assessments but really I do not see the point of this article and it is not the tone I expect from the Renowned Pete Jahn. You usually have so much more useful things to say that the disappointment really rises a notch in consideration of that.
I don't think it was necessary to reprint the duals and perhaps they decided a while back when Legacy was very hot in the summer (no pun intended) and prices were rising. Prices in September were already cooled off quite a bit. If this is their final printing, I'm fine with them doing these reprints for long-term growth and greater supply to avoid future problems. One problem with reprints is when to reprint. Wait too long and you'll burn those who bought them at a high price, so I do think sooner is better than later. That said, other problems like Force of Will still remain and are yet to be fixed. In fact, if cheaper duals DO attract more eternal players, that will inevitably drive up the value on those hard-to-find cards making them harder to find and more inaccessible.
Also, Spiritmonger is a bad example in this article. Everyone knows and accepts the fluctuations of value based on playability and meta changes. I didn't hear many people complaining about the sudden flop of Sun Titan's value and the rise of Frost Titan. Reprinting the duals, however, and indeed all reprints, is not a "natural" occurrence, meaning that Wizards knowingly reprints cards they know will cause a splash. I'm not making a value judgement on reprints here, I'm just saying part of the backlash regarding MED4 is that this was a planned move by Wizards rather than a naturally occurring value shift based on the game and players.
About the article, though, I didn't really like the tone. For example, "Although the thread title might make you roll your eyes and the suggestion it raises might be laughable and virtually guaranteed not to happen," sounds quite condescending and really is off-putting. I would support white borders (or alt art) as a way of making players who need cheap cards to play happy and those who already have them happy. I can't see a major downside. Saying, "people don't like white borders," or as some people said in that thread, "I don't want to see my opponents' ugly white border cards," well, how come they don't have to just suck it up like you and others are telling others to do? For that matter, if what people want determines everything, make all Magic cards foil. Do away with non-premium and give people what they want. The suggestion to white border the cards to me isn't laughable or eye-roll inducing if the reasons proposed for its implementation are sound. This article comes across as a whinge about whingers.
I can't help thinking this should have been titled after the Zeppelin song: What is and what should never be. :)