Magic the Gathering General

[Terthna]

Don't mean to derail, but something I've noticed in my business classes is a tendency to emphasize "shareholder theory" and "corporate social responsibility". Can't say how purposeful it is, though I honestly wonder if—intentional or not—it has a tendency to attract more "activistic" people who believe in precisely that. Not to mention how this lends itself to making the business just another purveyor of social engineering, both out of opportunism and the initial "stirrings" of what eventually metastasizes into genuine belief in the cause they're advocating.

Thankfully there's been some pushback as of late; though only in companies who have actually started losing more money than the investors were comfortable with. Sadly, with Magic the Gathering posting record sales figures last year, Wizards of the Coast has a bit to go before they're in danger of going broke as a result of going woke.


Anyways; that aside, I finally put in an order to CardKingdom for the cards that will compromise my Green/Black Elf deck. Sadly, I ended up deciding not to run Tempt with Discovery in it (though I did buy a copy anyways, seeing as there weren't many of them available). It's a cool card; but thanks to a few other changes I made (replacing Llanowar Tribe with Wood Elves, and Eyeblight's Ending with Deathsprout; not to mention the card I replaced it with, Gala Greeters, which adds a way to generate Treasure tokens), I felt that the deck has enough ramp without it that isn't reliant on keeping my creatures on the board.

I also ended up buying some cards to upgrade the decks I bought previously, using what I've learned since then. The cards that were replaced are in the Sideboard for each deck, if anyone's interested.

 

[Terthna]

Been designing a simple and straightforward Jasmine Boreal Vanilla Tribal commander deck to use as a teaching tool for my mother (who has never played Magic: The Gathering before), and I came across this nonsense on Moxfield. It seems to run everything it can to drag all the other players down to its level, until everyone is forced to play as if they're also running Vanilla Tribal.

 

[TheRejectionist]

Yes, they recently cancelled two of their best remaining artists: Terese Nielsen (for following conservative twitter accounts), and Seb McKinnon (for attending a trucker rally). Kinda shooting yourself in the foot there given how good their art is:


Terese Nielsen art:

Seb McKinnon art:

Grim Return

Damnation

Allure of the Unknown

Bankrupt in Blood

@Val the Moofia Boss could you help find full images like that of Guardian Beast and Dauntless Cathar?

Also they removed Stone Throwing Devils for some reason :

https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=928

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

@Val the Moofia Boss could you help find full images like that of Guardian Beast and Dauntless Cathar?

Also they removed Stone Throwing Devils for some reason :

https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=928

Generally what I do is I check MTGpics, ArtOfMTG, and Scryfall to find out who the artist is (and check their website or their artstation/deviantart), and download the biggest version of the art they have. Then I toss the image into Google Image Search and Yandex Image Search just to check if there are bigger or cleaner versions out there (sometimes there are). The biggest one is the one I save. Sometimes I simply can't find the original art at all and have to settle for a crop of a small scan/photo of a card.

For Guardian Beast, this is the best one I could find (from MTGpics):

For Dauntless Cathar the highest rez version I could find is from the artist's artstation page.

 

[Terthna]

Also they removed Stone Throwing Devils for some reason:

Supposedly it's because "Stone Throwing Devils" is a derogatory term for Muslims; particularly Palestinians:

Why Palestinians throw stones: A reporter's notebook

Stone-throwing is not just a physical act for Palestinians but a deeply symbolic gesture. Here's why they do it.

abcnews.go.com

The fact that this association was made because of events that happened years after the card was printed is apparently irrelevant; it's offensive now, so it had to be censored.

Let's be honest though; there's hundreds of others cards out there just as "offensive", if not more so. The fact that they didn't ban those as well, serves to shine a light on the fact that the whole thing was just a publicity stunt to show Wizards of the Coast's support for the BLM riots. As well as Palestinian terrorists, apparently.

 

[Abhorsen]

I came across this nonsense on Moxfield. It seems to run everything it can to drag all the other players down to its level, until everyone is forced to play as if they're also running Vanilla Tribal.

Haha! Man, I love it. It's classic white: NO, stop having fun!

Anyway, I pulled a (few) Miiryms, and decided to put together a quick jank commander deck using all the clone creatures I had, to get way to many Miiryms:

 

[Abhorsen]

Considering buying out a store. They are going out of business, and I offered a grand for what they had left, so we will see.

 

[Terthna]

Considering buying out a store. They are going out of business, and I offered a grand for what they had left, so we will see.

Wow. What do they have left?

 

[Abhorsen]

Wow. What do they have left?

About 2k of bulk, and about $2k of cards worth >$2. With inflation so high, figured I'd invest some into this, then sell after inflation gets back to normal.

Can also turn it into quite a few decks, which should be fun.

 

[Terthna]

About 2k of bulk, and about $2k of cards worth >$2. With inflation so high, figured I'd invest some into this, then sell after inflation gets back to normal.

Can also turn it into quite a few decks, which should be fun.

Ah, so no packs or anything of any major value. Still, you should be able to get some use out of those cards. Maybe even make a Cube.

 

[Abhorsen]

Ah, so no packs or anything of any major value. Still, you should be able to get some use out of those cards. Maybe even make a Cube.

Yeah. Now this is a tentative. The guys looking at someone else who might buy for higher. I figured I could justify it at 1k, not any higher. But I think there's a decent chance. Regardless, I just bought about 400 dragon shield inners for about $10 bucks there, along with a bunch of other half off stuff. I got Mage the Ascension, the Dune Board game, and a buncha miniatures, all half off.

 

[WolfBear]

I don't play the game, unfortunately, but I do know an interesting fact about this game. It was created by Richard Garfield, who is the great-great-grandson of US President James A. Garfield:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garfield

Garfield was born in Philadelphia and spent his childhood in many locations throughout the world as a result of his father's work in architecture. His family eventually settled in Oregon when he was twelve. Garfield is the great-great-grandson of U.S. President James A. Garfield and his grand-uncle invented the paper clip.[7] He is also the nephew of Fay Jones, who, already an established artist, illustrated one Magic card for him.[8]

Which other US presidential descendant was as accomplished? Serious question, BTW.

 

[Terthna]

sfdebris recently release the latest video in his series on the history of Magic The Gathering. It's a pretty fascinating watch, if anyone's interested.

 

[Terthna]

Anyone spend much time on the FreeMagic subreddit? It supposed to be an alternative community for those who take issue with how woke Wizards of the Coast, Magic The Gathering, and the community surrounding it have become, but it feels like half the people who post there are regressive leftists sniping about how everyone else is a Nazi, while the other half are your 4chan/KiwiFarms types who snipe about how everyone else is an autistic manbaby. There's really only a few people posting there who act as if they're interested in the game itself, and they usually end up getting it with both barrels; with one group going "posting here means you're evil!" and the other going "you're still playing this children's game; what are you, a pedophile?".


Also, I found out that there's a romance manga about people playing Magic The Gathering in the late 90's, called Destroy All of Humanity, It Can’t Be Regenerated:

The Manga Shelf: Cardboard Romance in DESTROY ALL OF HUMANITY, IT CAN’T BE REGENERATED

’90s nostalgia and Magic The Gathering geekery give way to a surprisingly thoughtful rumination on youth in this period piece romance.

magicplanetanime.design.blog

I've only read a few chapters, but so far it's really good.

 

[Terthna]

Anyone else watch the Dominaria United reveal day stream? Apparently the "Priceless Treasures" rumors were true; they "found" some pallets of unopened Legends boxes in a warehouse somewhere (which personally I don't buy), and are going to be inserting the cards from them into Dominaria United. Unfortunately, they're only going into Collector Booster packs, and only 3% of them; which basically means most people will never see one, seeing as the scalpers and investors will buy up all the stock they can to sell later, and never open them. Honestly, it may as well not be happening, for as much as it's going to affect the average consumer; so using this as the centerpiece of the presentation was rather tone-deaf.

Beyond that though; the presenter, Blake Rasmussen, seemed particularly unenthused to be on camera throughout the stream. That "smile" plastered across his face could not have come across as more fake if he had tried, and he completely failed to sound excited about anything he was talking about.

Just about the only think that interested me was the announcement that they were going to remake some of the old legendary cards from Legends; including one of my personal favorites Jasmine Boreal, giving her abilities that make her the perfect Vanilla Tribal commander. Of course they also made it clear that they would only be available as box toppers outside of Collector Booster packs; making me wonder what is even the point of selling Draft and Set Booster packs, when they make it seem like there's going to be nothing in them. Or at least, nothing worth getting excited over.

As things stand, so far I'm just going to hunt down a copy of Jasmine Boreal of the Seven when it comes out, and be done with the set from there.

 

[Abhorsen]

It should temporarily hit the prices of legends, so maybe grab something that'll be slightly cheaper while you can.

 

[Terthna]

By the way; the more I dig into the MTG community, the more I notice there's a certain amount of toxic disdain festering for the Commander format and the people who play it. I've seen people saying its existence as a format is a cancer on the game as a whole, that those who like it are idiots who are too stupid to play "real" Magic The Gathering, and will blindly buy anything Wizards of the Coast tries to sell them. It honestly makes me feel not that sympathetic towards those who wish more people played something like Standard.

 

[Abhorsen]

By the way; the more I dig into the MTG community, the more I notice there's a certain amount of toxic disdain festering for the Commander format and the people who play it. I've seen people saying its existence as a format is a cancer on the game as a whole, that those who like it are idiots who are too stupid to play "real" Magic The Gathering, and will blindly buy anything Wizards of the Coast tries to sell them. It honestly makes me feel not that sympathetic towards those who wish more people played something like Standard.

Every fandom is filled with people who hate others for no good reason. Many are SJWs, others just are stupid purists, etc. Some EDH players hate cEDH, etc. Given that mtg has to make cards that don't format warp EDH as well now, there is some credence, but not much.

 

[Terthna]

Every fandom is filled with people who hate others for no good reason. Many are SJWs, others just are stupid purists, etc. Some EDH players hate cEDH, etc. Given that mtg has to make cards that don't format warp EDH as well now, there is some credence, but not much.

Fair enough; you're not wrong. I suppose what surprised me was how insidious and widespread the attitude was; with people arguing that one shouldn't start learning how to play Magic The Gathering using the Commander format, because it doesn't teach you how to play other formats. The thought that someone might only be interested in playing Commander, at least starting out, never seems to dawn on them; or if it does, it's something they think should be discouraged.

 

[Terthna]

Was looking up ways to clean black spots on old cards, and came across this video:


After using this method on an old Savannah card from Revised I have, it looks good enough to play with; almost pristine in the right light, in fact, aside from minor indentations here and there, and some wear along the border (which, on a card with white borders, is easy to ignore). Which, compared to what it looked like before (like someone dripped ink all over it, while making a go of trying to give it a black border), is a massive improvement. I ended up slotting it into my Jasmine Boreal Vanilla Tribal deck; mostly because it's the one that needs all the help it can get.