MTGNexus

https://www.cracked.com/article_27000_a ... w-set.html

and lots more

Those lands look pretty sweet. Do we know a price point for the box set as a whole? I haven't seen it anywhere.

This does bring up an interesting conundrum (for me at least ). I am now not sure if I want to get these lands in foil or stick with my plan of getting the Nyx basics in foil. I might have to split some up because I really do like these lands. The Forest and the Swamp jump out the most to me.

Surgeon Commander looks light it might be referencing an Ikoria Mechanic!

Hot take: the lands are...fine. I'm not crazy about the gold frame in a frame.

Looks fun, kinda just want the lands

Cardz5000 wrote: ↑

4 years ago

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Surgeon Commander looks light it might be referencing an Ikoria Mechanic!

Yep sounds like what recycla-bird ability in mystery boosters test card

When "name" Dies put a (ability name counter) on target creature

But probably ways to do it without die triggers as well

And as for the cards

I love these another reason why I hope someday the commander rules committee will just allow silver bordered cards already

CommanderMaster999 wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I love these another reason why I hope someday the commander rules committee will just allow silver bordered cards already

The new cards feel way more balanced and tame than old silver effects. I can see them being played and not cause any problem

Boomstacker looks like it would be fun to play against if you can reroll dice. I pick the bottom one! >:D (If Maro says I can.)

Speaking of dice, how would you represent Pippa, Duchess of Dice's dice if you roll more than 6? I know some of you are thinking, "What's The Big Idea about asking about something that can't happen?" but it can happen if you have some crazy Squirrel-Powered Scheme or something.

CTNC wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Boomstacker looks like it would be fun to play against if you can reroll dice. I pick the bottom one! >:D (If Maro says I can.)

Since the dice are never actually rolled but only stacked without rolling, I expect rerolling won't apply to them. Especially the Wall makes it quite clear that it affects only dice as they are rolled.

the lands are super cool, one thing I still regret about Unstable is not playing it enough as it was super fun. I only did one draft I think. I'll probably end up doing a few more drafts of this

motleyslayer wrote: ↑

4 years ago

the lands are super cool, one thing I still regret about Unstable is not playing it enough as it was super fun. I only did one draft I think. I'll probably end up doing a few more drafts of this

This is a box set, you can't draft it. I guess you could do a simple psuedo draft where 2 players take turns picking half decks, but otherwise it's not intended to be drafted.

Wallycaine wrote: ↑

4 years ago

motleyslayer wrote: ↑

4 years ago

the lands are super cool, one thing I still regret about Unstable is not playing it enough as it was super fun. I only did one draft I think. I'll probably end up doing a few more drafts of this

This is a box set, you can't draft it. I guess you could do a simple psuedo draft where 2 players take turns picking half decks, but otherwise it's not intended to be drafted.

sorry I totally forgot that, guess I'll be finding people who wanna play it as much as I do then. Thanks for correcting me

I want to talk about the lands a little bit.

This set has just a few of the full art lands, and is mostly the regular frame basics (the squirrel lands - they each have a squirrel hidden in the artwork). There's 5 foil full art basics (1 of each) and 5 regular full art basics.

Not surprisingly, some people have been disappointed that all the lands aren't the full art ones. Maro has been mostly dismissive of this position and actively disputing it on twitter. As he says, the Un-sets are about the silver cards and the sweet lands are a bonus. I don't disagree. But I think he misses the problem with regards to Unsanctioned.

I love the Un-sets. I bought a box of both Unhinged and Unstable. I don't get to play silver bordered magic often, but it's always fun when I do. Zzzyxas's Abyss and My First Tome are some of my favorite cards. I've had a bruised hand a day after playing silverbordered because I got overzealous playing against Goblin S.W.A.T. Team. The silverbordered cards and play patterns are fantastic, and absolutely what matters about the sets.

But the Un-sets are also tied to full art basics. That's undeniable. It's where they originated, before they spread out into other sets, and every Un-set has upped the ante with regards to the full art basics. WoTC clearly know this too, because they made gorgeous new full art basics for this set. I'm not sure why they felt the need to add regular basics as well. But that's where the problem and the frustration comes in.

Unsanctioned is not like the other Un-Sets. It's a boxed set, not a booster set. That makes all the difference.

Maybe they were scared that people would buy the set solely for the full art basics and ignore the silver bordered cards. That would be bad. But limiting the full art basics just creates issues.

With a booster set, it's easy to get more of the desired basics. Every pack has 1. The booster set also encourages more packs. More un-drafts. More trying to acquire new and weird cards. That's not there with the box set. You get what you get. More aren't easily acquirable. There aren't other play benefits to buying additional box sets. It just feels frustrating,

Also, the foil full art basics are exactly as common as the regular full art basics. What? Look, I'm not a foil guy. I prefer my cards to be nonfoil, and foils are for other people (that's fine, not every product in this game is for me). But foils (with the exception of the Commander product commanders) are supposed to be rarer. It's a huge part of their appeal. If seeing a deck with regular full art Unsanctioned lands is exactly as impressive as a deck with foil full art Unsanctioned lands, doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?

The product structure of Unsanctioned was designed to make it a simple purchase, different from booster sets. That works out better if your point is to jam simple fun games with Un-cards. However, with the artificially limited full art basics, that product structure creates a crippling bottleneck. That's what is so frustrating. I wanted to think about this product and be excited about ways to sneak a Cheatyface into play. Instead, every time I think about it I wonder why they felt the need to make basics players will love, and then withhold them and give us a bunch of basics that people won't use instead.