Update from Rules Committee re: The Walking Dead Cards

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DirkGently
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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

Regardless of which border they choose, they eventually have to decide whether or not they're technically legal in the format, and that's where the problem is always going to lie. Especially in the cEDH crowd, whether or not they're technically legal is the important question. The actual color is basically irrelevant.

Plus it just raises more questions. Right now, black border = legal in all formats where the card itself is legal, silver = illegal card in all formats, gold = illegal version of a legal card. Making them gold border would just be confusing - maybe it could be justifiable if they made legal versions in black border, but then there'd be no reason not to just do it godzilla-style and make them legal. If they made them purple border or whatever, there wouldn't be much justification unless the legality was somehow different than black or silver. Ultimately they're either legal or illegal, and if they're silver they're not, and if they're black they are. Anything else is just adding more steps to the essential problem.
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Post by OneAndOnly » 3 years ago

Except -- it doesn't.

Silver-bordered would mean that the TWD cast are fully legal in silver-bordered gameplay. Right now, that means just the Un-sets (which may or may not also allow black-bordered cards) -- but it is, thankyouverymuch, a clearly defined format. The TWD crew really don't belong there.

Gold-bordered gives the RC the ability to add or remove them to formats / competitive play as they desire -- like, some players would be happy to have a TWD vs. Transformers match, without random Clamfolk showing up to spoil things. Admittedly, this would require WotC to have been more rigorous about printing outside-IP cards than they chose to be, but I think it would be the best choice moving forward. (That, or a different border unique to each IP. If that sounds like a more complicated version of an expansion symbol, why, yes it is.)

Personally, I think the "subtitle" version of re-skinning is the weakest choice. Aesthetically it's unpleasing; it leads to rules confusion when dealing with legendary creatures; and, most importantly, weakens the mystique of these very unique characters.

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Post by Outcryqq » 3 years ago

OneAndOnly wrote:
3 years ago
-snip-
Personally, I think the "subtitle" version of re-skinning is the weakest choice. Aesthetically it's unpleasing; it leads to rules confusion when dealing with legendary creatures; and, most importantly, weakens the mystique of these very unique characters.
I agree with you and think that the subtitle/Godzilla style skin is not aesthetically pleasing; however, your argument ignores that there is a segment of the MTG community that hates these TWD cards for the reason that it breaks their immersion in the game - they they represent cards that have no basis in the MTG world. The subtitle/Godzilla skin attempts to address this. While I don't feel this way personally, two people in my playgroup said they would be fine with TWD cards if they made, subsequently, a subtitle/Godzilla style skin with a more magic-related version.

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DirkGently
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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

OneAndOnly wrote:
3 years ago
Except -- it doesn't.

Silver-bordered would mean that the TWD cast are fully legal in silver-bordered gameplay. Right now, that means just the Un-sets (which may or may not also allow black-bordered cards) -- but it is, thankyouverymuch, a clearly defined format. The TWD crew really don't belong there.

Gold-bordered gives the RC the ability to add or remove them to formats / competitive play as they desire -- like, some players would be happy to have a TWD vs. Transformers match, without random Clamfolk showing up to spoil things. Admittedly, this would require WotC to have been more rigorous about printing outside-IP cards than they chose to be, but I think it would be the best choice moving forward. (That, or a different border unique to each IP. If that sounds like a more complicated version of an expansion symbol, why, yes it is.)

Personally, I think the "subtitle" version of re-skinning is the weakest choice. Aesthetically it's unpleasing; it leads to rules confusion when dealing with legendary creatures; and, most importantly, weakens the mystique of these very unique characters.
The mystique of who, exactly? I hope you don't mean the walking dead characters, because I really couldn't care less about their "mystique". Nor do I think their "mystique" has any relevant to magic the gathering.

MLP and transformers are already silver bordered, and are external IP cards. So the precedent is already there.

Gold borders haven't been used in a long time, and only (afaik) for champ decks. This is a very different situation. Not that they couldn't repurpose the concept, but silver border and alt-name cards have both been used recently for almost the same exact thing, so both are obvious choices.

I'm really not sure what the point of having uniquely colored borders would be. I daresay that, while wotc is leaving these technically legal in legacy/vintage, that they aren't targeted at those formats and would probably be concerned if they became popular there. The main question is simply "is this default legal in commander?" and you don't need multicolored borders to do that. You could add a third color border if you wanted to show that they weren't default legal in commander OR un-magic, but it seems kind of pointless to exclude them from un-magic. Silver border does the job just fine and would have been BY FAR the best solution for these things.

Given that we're probably past that stage as a possibility though - I know that, if I'd ordered some of these only to have them become silver bordered before they arrived, I'd be pretty pissed - the best solution is probably the godzilla-style names. I'm not a huge fan of the aesthetics either, but it's a relatively small sacrifice for wotc have their cake and eat it too - and personally, if the magic-themed versions are the non-subtitled ones, then I really don't care about the aesthetics of the alt-IP ones. Just so long as I can acquire the normal ones via conventional channels, wotc can slut it up with whatever trashy IP their hearts desire.
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