What Surprises Me Most About Tom LaPille’s Article on the Mothership Today
NEWSFLASH!
NEWSFLASH!
Wizards of the Coast has announced that Baneslayer Angel will be in M11!
BIG. SURPRISE.
Wizards makes $4/Baneslayer. One time.
Each pack containing a Baneslayer costs $4. That’s not even counting what the store gets the booster cases for, so Wizards makes LESS than $4/booster. However, the customer who is trying to open Baneslayers in packs will actually spend $100-$120 for a box of boosters. Wizards knows this. Wizards wants to sell Baneslayers too. so OF COURSE Baneslayer gets into M11.
Here is the part of the article that ACTUALLY surprised me:
One of the special things about Magic’s core sets is that they are not beholden to any particular setting or flavor. Instead, they are intended to represent a baseline from which Magic can vary in other sets. Under our new model, however, during their time in Standard they are inextricably connected with the block that comes immediately before it. For Magic 2010, that was the Shards of Alara block.
One of the five shards in Shards of Alara is Esper, which had an artifact theme. Although Open the Vaults is not creatively connected to Esper, we made the card with the intention that it would interact powerfully with Esper’s artifacts. In that we succeeded, as Open the Vaults was powerful in Standard with Time Sieve, and Niels Viaene made the Top 8 of Pro Tour–San Diego with a Time Sieve-less version of Open the Vaults. However, those potential interactions will be gone when Shards of Alara rotates out of Standard. That would have made Open the Vaults a much less interesting card to have around, so it won’t be coming back.
We have all been speculating for one hundred years about Scars of Mirrodin. I know he’s talking about a specific combo deck that is losing significant pieces of it’s combo when Shards Block rotates, but if Scars of Mirrodin is supposed to be an “artifact block” why wouldn’t Open the Vaults still be relevant and interesting post-rotation? Does this suggest that Scars might NOT be the Artifact set we are speculating about?
This just seems a little strange to me. I think we should be a little more open-minded about what Wizards might do in their sets. Just because we see Mirrodin in the name doesn’t mean we can immediately start talking about whether or not affinity is coming back. It’s not, by the way. Also, I know that there is some artifact from Scars in the From the Vault: Relics set, and that it’s not Oil of Psarl. However, I really think that the “Scars” of Mirrodin might be some powerful artifacts, but not the dense metallic landscape of the original Mirrodin block.
Just a different angle to consider on the whole thing.
Bigheadjoe
Joey Pasco
bigheadjoe
iwantmymtg
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I would assume that open the vault might be TOO good with scars so instead of having to ban it or what not they are just not reprinting it. thus saving them the headache of people complaining about the “broken” deck
Yeah, but he said this: “However, those potential interactions will be gone when Shards of Alara rotates out of Standard. That would have made Open the Vaults a much less interesting card to have around, so it won’t be coming back.”
Sounds more like it would be LESS powerful in the next block.
You could be right BHJ.
Ways it could be less powerful:
– Few, if any, artifacts with ETB triggers.
– Few, if any, spells or permanents that want you to sacrifice artifacts.
– A lack of triggers based on artifacts ETB (i.e., not on the artifact it self, but things like Glassdust Hulk)
Of course, I’m still on the fence as to whether it would be too powerful or too weak, as either is a good enough reason.
I also thought it was being removed because it would be too powerful but maybe the right artifacts are just not going to be around. The kind that get sacked and recurring them is significant.
-Eric
My initial thought was that it would break the format and putting it mildly would make the set less interesting, but it would be legal in extended so I doubt they’d want to bust that. Maybe there really won’t be much artifacts and the “Scars” are real plants breaking through the metal surface of Mirrodin leading Wizards to make the first ever ALL GREEN SET!!!!!!