The Gaming Den

shadzar wrote: Since they no longer provide rulebooks with starters or fatpacks or whatever, it may be hard, but i challenge you to show me where in the rulebook it states there is any banned cards or restricted to number X cards?

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/r ... ook_LR.pdf

page 15

https://www.wizards.com/magic/rules/EN_ ... 090710.pdf

page 14 (from 2009)

Josh_Kablack wrote:You know, around here we called them Pump Knights due to their similarity to the White and Black Knights, and I was wondering if the Pump Clerics thing was just a regional difference.

There were identical Knight creatures in Ice Age, and they got a lot more play in IA's metagame than FE's. Knight of Stromgald and Order of the White Shield.

shadzar wrote:Should I get out any of the rules books from Weatherlight back to give you a page number where the 40 card deck size and permission required for ante card is? might not be so easy to find the beta or unlimited rulebooks, but lord knows I have some Ice age laying around and FE was part of the Ice Age block following the Revised "block" (Antiquities, The Dark, Legends). 4th had no block, FE was the first expansion that was considered to be called a "block". and the only expansion for a block that came out before its "core set".

This is not how things happened. Fallen Empires wasn't part of a block, either officially or in any informal way. Blocks weren't a thing yet.

Blocks, first and foremost, were a promise by WOTC to shop owners that they'd stabilize MTG set releases. Availability of MTG sets had been completely unpredictable, with Revised and The Dark having their print runs locked in before WOTC fully understood how successful MTG was going to be. WOTC printed Fallen Empires like crazy, but not only was FE a bad, small set, but it couldn't satisfy the demand for a starting set for MTG, since Revised was out of print and 4th was delayed by both pointless design fiddling, delays in getting the much-promoted next expansion ready, and issues with Carta Mundi's printing capacity. (WOTC would break with Carta Mundi about a year after this.)

They finally did get 4th Edition out the door, followed almost immediately by Ice Age. Ice Age wasn't just boosters, like previous expansions had been, but also included starter sets, in response to the demand for starters after Revised had been out of print for a year. This sudden glut of unsellable FE boosters and a "nerfed rehash" 4th edition (which admittedly did sell well), followed by stores being forced to buy starters to get the new set that everyone actually wanted didn't do a lot to endear WOTC to store owners. They were happy about the sudden influx of money, but there was a degree of pressure on WOTC to get shit stabilized.

Ice Age was followed by Homelands, which was not a hit, and Alliances, which was. However, WOTC hit on a working formula for set releases: one big set with starters, followed by two smaller, booster-only expansion sets, each spaced four months apart. Additionally, WOTC also realized that players liked the thematic links between 4th and Homelands, and Ice Age and Alliances. This is also the time that "Type 2" MTG, without the overpowered and unobtainable cards from pre-FE, started to pick up steam.

So, starting with Mirage, new sets were part of a year-long "block" of three, thematically-linked sets. The big set would be printed in large enough numbers to last the year (and, later, continuously), while the smaller sets would get smaller print runs. Players liked the thematic links and the metagame of only cards they could (usually) obtain in a local shop, while store owners liked the reliable schedule and reduced pressure to carry out-of-print sets.

Blocks were a result of finding a proper rhythm for printing new MTG sets that satisfied both players and store owners, and they weren't at all figured out until more than a year after FE.

A Man In Black wrote:So, starting with Mirage, new sets were part of a year-long "block" of three, thematically-linked sets. The big set would be printed in large enough numbers to last the year (and, later, continuously), while the smaller sets would get smaller print runs. Players liked the thematic links and the metagame of only cards they could (usually) obtain in a local shop, while store owners liked the reliable schedule and reduced pressure to carry out-of-print sets.

Blocks were a result of finding a proper rhythm for printing new MTG sets that satisfied both players and store owners, and they weren't at all figured out until more than a year after FE.

I'm not sure of the exact details but I think there were still starter decks for the "small sets" at lest there where from Mirroden block to Time Spiral when I was serious about paper magic.

The other big thing that started with Mirage was WotC starting to design sets for limited.

Lord Mistborn wrote:I'm not sure of the exact details but I think there were still starter decks for the "small sets" at lest there where from Mirroden block to Time Spiral when I was serious about paper magic.

The other big thing that started with Mirage was WotC starting to design sets for limited.

Starters for every set came later. WOTC actively tinkered with the formula as time went on.

As for limited, I don't really recall when drafting started. I remember informal "pass around a chunk of the common box, take turns picking out commons to build a deck" was A Thing in the pre-Ice Age days.

A Man In Black wrote:Blocks were a result of finding a proper rhythm for printing new MTG sets that satisfied both players and store owners, and they weren't at all figured out until more than a year after FE.

Yes blocks came after FE, but only because FE came before Ice Age and was somehow retro figured to be an expansion OF Ice Age, and then Homelands and Alliances were all a part of the Ice Age Block, PRIOR to Mirage/Visions/Weatherlight.

Chronicles was an expansion to 4th somehow too, but it was all weird in the beginning but Ice Age was the first to call it a block as the expansions were made to go WITH Ice Age, with the exception of the previously mentioned FE which came jsut before IA. It was in an Inquest about DCI being called the Ice Age block prior to Mirage existing or even being known about by the public.

Lord Mistborn wrote:@Midnight_v is there a reason your version of that deck doesn't have Young Pyromancer. I play that card in modern and it's stone cold awesome.

Yeah. Actually, I play pretty much 4 days a week or so, and I was basically a meta call.
2 things.
1. Right then I wanted to use the spike jester to push through a popular wall, slyvan caryatid, and get damage in early or slow their ramp. Its an 0/3 hexproof manadork with defender and I can't directly kill it so I'm trying to sneak some damage through and go over the top, with stormbreath dragons, phoenix, and honestly lifebane zombie.
2. The standard removal set from the other popular decks don't care about pyromancer so much. Bile Blight, Down in Sorrow, Detention Sphere, and Supreme Verdict... They're pretty close to the most popular.
Though honestly the deck is in a state of flux, like most semi-pro piles, a week from now when Walter White become the most popular deck or whatever, he'll be back in the 75 somewhere at least.

TL;DR? No young pyromancer because the standard meta is wonky right now, that card drifts in and out of the deck but yes... it is pretty amazing.