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[An-Det]

Good luck to everyone at the prereleases this weekend. I'm heading out of state for a wedding, so I won't be going to any. I think this is only the fourth (maybe fifth) prerelease weekend I'll have missed since I started playing many years ago.

The problem is the bigger picture. As a few people pointed out on Twitter in response to this, WotC actually doesn't hire the best for tech roles (they hire people who are mediocre, or who will undercut themselves by $30k+ for the chance to work on Magic) which means that the challenges of dealing with this legacy codebase are greatly multiplied. In addition, the tech choices they made with MTGO4 were very poor, and the sunk-cost-fallacy decision to stick it out with this busted client (or the lack of funds to make another choice) has hobbled the UX and platform support dramatically as a result.

Yuuup. I've definitely oscillated over the years between wanting to apply to the mtgo team and staying the fuck away knowing it's a train wreck. With the new dude doing MDN I really hope they can come out with something worthwhile.

 

[zethren]

Tonight's midnight is the only prerelease that actually works with my schedule.

Same. Looking forward to it, as I skipped out on the past 4 prereleases or so.

 

[Chorazin]

Same. Looking forward to it, as I skipped out on the past 4 prereleases or so.

Same here. I actually only play in the pre-releases so it's not such of a money and time sink for me. Hoping to pull some good Zombies, or stuff I can trade for that awesome one mana Zombie.

 

[Ashodin]

Finally! LRR has come back! To Friday Nights!

New FN: https://youtu.be/ewmGGRCRKlE

 

[Yeef]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk

 

[DashReindeer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk

Finally! LRR has come back! To Friday Nights!

New FN: https://youtu.be/ewmGGRCRKlE

A little sad watching the Glengarry Glen Ross scene next to the LRR one. While I get their intentions, the original scene is just too good to redo it without bringing much new to the table besides awkwardly squeezing Magic in there instead of sales.

 

[kirblar]

SCG crew all over Elder Deep Fried btw. Managed to get some for 4 and change each a few days ago.

There are actually a few left on Amazon for 4.

 

[Ashodin]

A little sad watching the Glengarry Glen Ross scene next to the LRR one. While I get their intentions, the original scene is just too good to redo it without bringing much new to the table besides awkwardly squeezing Magic in there instead of sales.

Never seen it

 

[OnPoint]

SCG crew all over Elder Deep Fried btw. Managed to get some for 4 and change each a few days ago.

There are actually a few left on Amazon for 4.

I wonder what the ceiling on this one is.

 

[Santiako]

SCG crew all over Elder Deep Fried btw. Managed to get some for 4 and change each a few days ago.

There are actually a few left on Amazon for 4.

It's an insane card. It's really easy to cast on turn 4 and time walk your opponent more than once since you can chain them off sanctum of Ugin.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I wonder what the ceiling on this one is.

Unless there's a Deep Fried Modern deck, probably $5-7.

I personally enjoy tapping out the lands in response to Deep Fried and then casting Collected Company.

 

[charlequin]

Do we think that Maro will say BFZ is bad for the same reasons we do though?

Too many eldrazi, mechanics incoherent, allies mishandled, pointlessly confusing gamestates... from his answers in the past it seems like he's pretty clear on all that. It's still an open question whether he gets the way that BFZ fucked up the scary aspect of the Eldrazi although clearly someone's got the message given that OGW and EDM both do a way better job at that aspect.

You're forgetting the enchantment from oath they wanted to remove hexproof as a static ability and changed it to an activated because it wouldn't work on MTGO.

I just don't think this is a meaningful thing. You're going to have this exact same phenomenon in games with good digital versions as well as bad, because it's always going to be worthwhile to tweak a card in paper if it makes it much easier to implement online. The same sort of thing happens with the paper rules too, sometimes they change how a card works because rewriting the rules to support it is a pain.

I really wish Wizards stole the "Midnight releases are now at 8:00 PM" thing that movie theaters started doing a few years ago. Just let stores run a Pre-release as FNM!

I made the mistake of doing a midnight pre-re exactly once and I was already way, way too old for it. Never again!

 

[Angry Grimace]

I just get product and then look at it and play one match then leave lol

 

[Jhriad]

My normal prerelease schedule is:

Friday @ Midnight
Saturday @ 11AM, 5PM, 11PM
Sunday @ 12PM, 2HG 6PM

Been a long week with work so I may cop out on the Saturday morning one but we'll see.

 

[Giant Panda]

My normal prerelease schedule is:

Friday @ Midnight
Saturday @ 11AM, 5PM, 11PM
Sunday @ 12PM, 2HG 6PM

Been a long week with work so I may cop out on the Saturday morning one but we'll see.

I have no idea how you have the energy for all that haha. I'm tired after doing 2 in a weekend.

 

[Yeef]

I have no idea how you have the energy for all that haha. I'm tired after doing 2 in a weekend.

You get used to it. I run 6 prereleases over the weekend for each set. Fri -> Saturday is the worst because you're there super late, then again early. The other ones are a lot easier to deal with in terms of sleep.

 

[Jaeyden]

On the topic of banning SSG...and hear me out just because of my inner Johnny.

The T4 rule is basically that Wizards doesn't want decks to consistently win before turn 4. Fair enough..it's why Summer Bloom was banned and why a bunch of rituals are gone too.

I get what they are trying to do, but wouldn't it be easier if the modern rules just read "Each player begins play with an emblem that reads 'Any players life total cannot be reduced below zero until after all players have completed their third turn' " or something to that effect.

I mean isn't that what they're trying to do in essence? Ban out "glass cannons" and allow "fair decks" to develop board presence. To me banning SSG feels like it's just a grudge that people have since it's never seen the axe...is it really warping the format? Is it even winning tournaments? TWoo's dredge deck is the most amazingly consistent pre turn 4 win deck I've seen in a long time and no one seems to be crying about bans there.

Anyway, this is a hypothetical, but seriously if everyone knows there is an internal decree about the format and wins before turn 4, wouldn't the emblem be easier?

 

[Angry Grimace]

Because winning on Turn 2 or 3 is okay sometimes and that's a completely arbitrary restriction.

 

[Angry Grimace]

This Vintage Cube deck is pretty bad to mediocre (it's just RG goodstuff) but my opponent tried to draft some kind of Storm/Guttersnipe deck but doesn't seem to know how to play it so its mostly just me sitting here on GAF instead of playing =/

 

["God's Beard!"]

I stopped going to prereleases ever since the shop that did them as one big event with a cut to top 8 moved. I liked 80-man midnight sealed madness.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Latest Developments on emerge. I'm kind of surprised offering didn't come up, with the flavor and mechanical similarities. Emerge originally worked exactly like ninjutsu, but applying it to large Eldrazi instead of small ninjas led to less interesting gameplay, and they felt the flavor was odd anyway. The emerge creatures were hard to get right, so he wouldn't be surprised if a few were bigger than they needed to be.

It also has the full art for Enlightened Maniac, and I'm kind of disappointed that he has an arm coming out of his chest. Before, I thought he was just gesticulating wildly, which I found more charming.

Going over potential new decks. Some of these look interesting, but of course, they probably won't be that good unless Collected Company is banned in Standard.

And Limited Review: Green.

 

[Jhriad]

I have no idea how you have the energy for all that haha. I'm tired after doing 2 in a weekend.

Pretty much what Yeef said. You get used to it and if you stay hydrated and bring healthy snacks it isn't too bad. The one set that it was really difficult for was BFZ. Ended up going to time on almost every single match throughout the weekend and that started to wear on me by the end.

 

["God's Beard!"]

How many prize packs do you wind up with after a weekend of prereleases? Like a box if you win them all? I used to get a box for winning at my old shop. but it was like 8 rounds.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Decimator of the Provinces would have been a ridiculously busted card in a format with Delve still in it.

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";210096543]How many prize packs do you wind up with after a weekend of prereleases? Like a box if you win them all? I used to get a box for winning at my old shop. but it was like 8 rounds.[/QUOTE]

Even here in San Diego, the most competitive store (Artifex) had to flatten out payouts for pre-releases because of player complaints. I mean, if you played as many as Jhriad does and won them all, sure.

I'm honestly baffled at what shop you keep going to that's giving you boxes for winning weekly events and apparently a big middle finger to every other player. I mean, sure, there are hardcore grinders like you who literally do not have fun playing Magic and only have fun winning at things, but I'm not sure how that's enough people to keep a store running.

 

["God's Beard!"]

I haven't been there in over a year because they closed and moved out of the county. They had modern win a box FNM and win a box prereleases but they were massive events compared to normal 3-round stuff. It was in the middle of a lower-population area so they did that stuff to keep the hardcore players happy since that was the majority of their customer base. Compared to other areas it was still relatively casual level of play outside of maybe 2 players. They actually had a post about me on their facebook when I came down from the bay area to visit family and won three events in a row and walked out with 3 boxes. Pretty friendly people, too. Miss going to that place and going out for horchata and tortas afterwards with the locals.

In the bay area all the stores have flat events like you mentioned.

Decimator of the Provinces would have been a ridiculously busted card in a format with Delve still in it.

Sounds like a Portal Three Kingdoms card.

Also, I'm still waiting for a busted delve + burnt offering combo to reveal itself.

 

[Bandini]

I'm not sure I'll go to prerelease. I like playing sealed events but EMNx4 SOI x2 isn't very fun and I don't care much about owning any EMN cards. The set screams low value in general. With $30 I could buy 1 or 2 cards on my list.

 

[Ashodin]

What the fuck? Never too old for midnight pre releases. Used to midnights at GameStop when I worked there lol.

Wife and I stay up late anyways.

I'm doing midnight, and Saturday at 7. Sleeeeeep

 

[bigkrev]

What the fuck? Never too old for midnight pre releases. Used to midnights at GameStop when I worked there lol.

Wife and I stay up late anyways.

I'm doing midnight, and Saturday at 7. Sleeeeeep

No problem with a Midnight opening, but the fact that the tournament won't be over till around 5 in the morning is the killer

 

[Ashodin]

Mehhh I'm up until 5 am usually

 

[Jhriad]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";210096543]How many prize packs do you wind up with after a weekend of prereleases? Like a box if you win them all? I used to get a box for winning at my old shop. but it was like 8 rounds.[/QUOTE]

It's a relatively flat prize structure so we do a participation pack plus your win total. I typically end up with around around 23-24 prize packs. So for $150 I end up with somewhere around 60 packs plus the promo rares. If I Puca out the highest demand stuff plus whatever commons & uncommons folks want before release I can usually at least double up and end up with a bunch of stuff that I keep for myself or future trades.

 

[Santiako]

I'm not going to the midnight because the prerelease is in another city, so I'm doing one or two tomorrow, depending on my stamina.

 

[Bandini]

We get 13 packs for a 3-0-1 record at my store

That's really good. Last prerelease I went to 4-0 was good for 9 packs.

 

[bigkrev]

That's really good. Last prerelease I went to 4-0 was good for 9 packs.

The store I used to go to charged less for prereleases ($25 compared to $30), but prized down to the point where over half the players would get prizes, and 1st place was usually only 7 or 8 packs. Place I go now better supports winning, and also throws in a Free booster draft the following weekend for each prerelease you enter, which is well worth paying the extra $5

 

["God's Beard!"]

50 for a prerelease is crazy. Everything I see is 20-25 prereg and up to 30 at the door.

 

[bigkrev]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";210108519]50 for a prerelease is crazy. Everything I see is 20-25 prereg and up to 30 at the door.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that was a typo. $30. I believe the Mirrodin prerelease I played in was $50, but that was an old fashion 200+ player one that was multiple rounds with a cut to T8 with some pretty nice prizes. The Darksteel one used Flights sadly

 

["God's Beard!"]

Yeah, that was a typo. $30. I believe the Mirrodin prerelease I played in was $50, but that was an old fashion 200+ player one that was multiple rounds with a cut to T8 with some pretty nice prizes.

That sounds awesome. I get that flights are better for stores and casual players, but there's nothing more fun than playing in a big tournament.

 

[Angry Grimace]

We get 13 packs for a 3-0-1 record at my store



No problem with a Midnight opening, but the fact that the tournament won't be over till around 5 in the morning is the killer

I just open product and play like 2 rounds unless I open a bunch of Planeswalkers or something.

 

[Ashodin]

I just open product and play like 2 rounds unless I open a bunch of Planeswalkers or something.

You could get Kathleen's crazy ass pool with Jace AND Tamiyo, sheeit

 

[bigkrev]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";210110841]That sounds awesome. I get that flights are better for stores and casual players, but there's nothing more fun than playing in a big tournament.[/QUOTE]

The upside of flights was that they were firing them once they hit the playercount. The Big prerelease had a 8:30 start time, so if you were even a minute late you couldn't play at all, and had deck swap, so if you opened a Foil Chrome Mox (which was hyped to holy hell back then), you were just done for the day because you had to drop.

The nice thing about those regional pre-releases was they used to be 3 weeks or so before the actual release of the expansion, so vendors on site would actually buy prize packs at MSRP or higher from you!

 

[charlequin]

What the fuck? Never too old for midnight pre releases.

It's been a long time since I could stay alert and operational until 4AM anyway, but these days with ~5 hours of sleep a night to start I don't think I could even keep awake.

 

[Ashodin]

It's been a long time since I could stay alert and operational until 4AM anyway, but these days with ~5 hours of sleep a night to start I don't think I could even keep awake.

Ooh 👌 then. Didn't know you had it hard up on sleep.

Also looks like they'll be doing SDCC promos again this year

 

["God's Beard!"]

I don't go to bed until 4am anyway. My sleep schedule is usually 4-8am and then 2-4pm.

#workfromhomeproblems

 

[charlequin]

Also looks like they'll be doing SDCC promos again this year

It's kind of bizarre to me that they're doing these, and have confirmed they're doing them, but still won't show them off yet.

 

[kirblar]

It's kind of bizarre to me that they're doing these, and have confirmed they're doing them, but still won't show them off yet.

Probably some sort of Hasbro bulk announcement they're waiting on.

 

[blindrocket]

The one advantage here is that every one of these problems can be dealt with, at least in part, by a brand-new platform rebuild happening in parallel, and if there really is a talented team working on a Magic Digital Next, they could assuredly leverage some of the experience of the MTGO team in terms of implementing the cards and rules interactions while still building a much better, cross-platform system for the actual UI/UX.

MTGO on PS4? /dreams

 

[charlequin]

Probably some sort of Hasbro bulk announcement they're waiting on.

Oh right, wouldn't want to get this out there in advance of the Micronauts and Littlest Pet Shop collectibles.

 

[aidan]

It's kind of bizarre to me that they're doing these, and have confirmed they're doing them, but still won't show them off yet.

Presumably they'll be the Planeswalker pack cards? Without a core set, they'd have to pick and choose the Gatewatchers from the other sets (Chandra and Nissa from OGW, Liliana from EDM, etc.) which seems kind of clunky.

 

[The Technomancer]

On my way to an early prerelease!

 

[WhereAreMahDragonz]

I have a good feeling about tonight

 

[SigmasonicX]

Presumably they'll be the Planeswalker pack cards? Without a core set, they'd have to pick and choose the Gatewatchers from the other sets (Chandra and Nissa from OGW, Liliana from EDM, etc.) which seems kind of clunky.

No, they won't be.
* There are only two of them per set.
* The planeswalker cards in them will be brand new (and intentionally weak).
* We already know Chandra is one of the Kaladesh ones, and presumably Saheeli is the other. They won't reveal a Saheeli card now.

If they're doing promo Planeswalker cards, they'll be cards already in Standard. I think it will just be Gatewatch character cards.