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Commonly Asked Questions

I opened a card from a different set in my booster pack, is this unusual?

Don't worry, this is completely normal. If you opened a set booster, you have a small chance of obtaining a bonus card from a previous set. This is an extra card that does not replace any of the other cards in your pack, and is from a curated set of past hits that Wizards of the Coast has selected, which they call "The List".

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My foil card has a shooting start symbol over the bottom left. I can't find anything about it online.

All old-bordered foils have the shooting star symbol. Most sites that display card images just overlay a generic foil graphic over all foil cards, which doesn't include the shooting star. Your card is normal.

Normally, all posts in this subreddit need to be both Magic-related and at least somewhat "high effort". This weekly thread gives you the chance to relax and talk with your fellow Magic redditors about things that would normally go against those rules.

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TLDR: Judging has gone downhill. There is no way to escalate when judges are wrong - and the lack of ownership or control of judging is enough to make any reasonable player quit competitive MTG.

During RC Dallas I witnessed some of the worst judge calls I have ever seen. I witnessed a judge tell one player an opponent could choose targets for his spell. I saw a judge rule that an instant could not be played during an end-step. But what took the cake, unquestionably in the RC Dallas, was a play in which a judge threatened both players with a DQ - and ultimately knocked both out of contention for a PT invite.

Not only that... The judges removed this player from the area…. And still left his OPPONENT crying because she recognized that the call was garbage - no one intended what the judge implied they did - and all agreed the call was nonsense. The last thing the player 1 said - was that she felt bad that her words got her opponent knocked out. Had no judge showed up - no one would have cried and both players were agreed on what the result should have been.

It’s the sort of call that makes legions of players stop playing competitive - and if magics competitive scene is to survive and thrive - judging needs to be fair - and encourage a health competitive environment - not disqualify attendees that have spent countless weekends qualifying - and hundreds or thousands of dollars traveling to RCs.

Let me explain……..

Both players are 7-3, going into round 11. They’re 1-1 - going into game 3. One is is a new competitive player - who in PT MKM qualified for Amsterdam. The other aspires to the PT. During game three - player 1 takes a 1 lander, and proceeds to miss 2-3 land drops. Both players were having fun playing - and Player 1 is seeing the writing on the wall vs her Gruul aggro opponent. Now here’s where the judges made both an incorrect call - but also a bad spirited call that made both players enjoy the event less. In fact - ended PT chances for both.

Player 1 says to Player 2 “If I don’t get a land my next card - I’m going concede”.

Player 2 says: “Sure - whatever”. The key phrase being whatever. Whatever you want to do opponent. “Whatever” does not constitute an agreement.

A judge overhears this (they weren’t called)- and says “you’ve made an illegal agreement - and should both get a DQ… but instead I’m giving you both a match loss”.

Both players agreed that was never the intent. Player 1 - who I in no way fault in this, cries because their mention of conceding has ruined her opponents PT dreams… and clearly no player intended it to be a deal. The judges proceeded to rule a match loss. Many players are upset - including BOTH players in the RC. What bothers me about this is that both players have agreed there was no intent - and the language “whatever” does not constitute an agreement - but these powertripping judges ensured both players and their friends had a terrible time. Worst - the judge was talking down to the players - and proceeded to ruin and end the event for numerous people.

The judges claimed that the players came to an illegal agreement - and the head judge stated it was the equivalent of a bribe to me in explaining the ruling. This seems patently insane to me - there was no bribe - one player said they’d concede - the other simply acknowledged. “Whatever” is not an agreement. It implies either way is fine.

I think it’s past time for competitive magic events to have a central judging organizing, training, and a central recourse for incorrect decisions. I can’t justify spending the time and money we play competitively to play in an environment where WOTC takes no responsibility for their game and where Judges have no training. Might as well go play dice.

• A very saddened 28 year veteran

Over the years the average card quality in precons improved drastically but there was a time when WotC used to just bundle 36 (+24 lands) of the worst possible cards you've ever seen into something they called an "expert level" theme deck. The best thing about these decks was probably an introductory pamphlet (IP for brevity) flavourfully detailing their supposed gameplan with the purpose of gaslighting kids into believing the had actual chances of ever winning a match. At the time access to the internet wasn't widespread, there was no way to know the content of the decks beforehand so your best hope was to grab the one with the coolest picture hoping for the best.

'twas the year 2005 and Betrayers of Kamigawa had just came out. The deck with the coolest looking picture was "Dark Devotion" (decklist) which also had the coolest name thus causing numerous kids to waste their monthly allowance on it. The idea behind this deck was to be a multi-tribal deck with payoffs when demons and their ogre servants were fielded together. From the IP:

The “Dark Devotion” deck depends on powerful Demon Spirits, called oni, and the Ogres that worship them. The key to success with the deck is getting both Ogres and Demons into play at the same time. Their combined size and strength should be too much for your opponents to deal with.

Payoffs from combinations of multiple cards need to be particularly strong given their vulnerability to interaction as the opponent can just target the pieces forming an established combo board for maximum damage. With this in mind, what kind of payoffs was the "dark devotion" expert them deck offering to its daring players? Once again let's refer to the IP:

[[Yukora, the Prisoner]] is the ultimate Demon at a massive 5/5 for only four mana—bet your friends can’t top that!

Shame that they forgot to mention that, for the upside of casting a vanilla 5/5 at only (?) 4 mana, you were exposing your board to a one-sided wipe if it the fucker ever left play. You don't think this offers enough x:1 to your opponent yet? Hold onto your horses because the deck also featured another similar creature in [[painwrecker oni]] which, while not even passing the vanilla test, could also kill your board one piece at a time if you ever dared not having an ogre on the board :D

Another cool fact about this decks is that, while the demons had a terrible balance betwen upsides and downsides, the ogres were just straight up some of the worst cards to be ever printed:

• [[Deathcurse Ogre]]: A 3/3 at 6CMC (!) with the symmetric effect of 3 life loss for both players when it left play. One of the rare cards with the ability to make creatures in the legends set good by comparison.

• [[Shinka Gatekeeper]]: A 3/1 at 3CMC, which would already be terrible, but incredibly enough it dared having the downside of making you lose life when it took damage (why?)

• Ever thought [[Hill giant]] was too efficient? No? Too bad because this deck had hill giant at home with [[Sokenzan Bruiser]] and [[Frost Ogre]]

For some reason "Dark Devotion" also included other random creatures in [[Bile Urchin]] and [[Hearth Kami]] that were neither ogres nor demons. Not even the mighty IP enligthens as to what their purpose in the deck was supposed to be so we are left guessing.

Comprehensibly WotC probably was under the impression that the deck was too strong. At least that's what I think because otherwise I don't understand why they also stuffed the deck with gems like:

• [[Kumano's Blessing]]: An enchatment with flash a 3CMC that caused creatures dealt damage by the enchanted creature to be exiled instead of dying. Not sure if I would even pay 0 for that effect. This card was so bad that, as I kid, I wondered if I was not understanding its effect properly when reading it.

• [[Call for Blood]]: How much would you pay for an effect that had you sac a creature to destroy one with equivalent stats? 1? What about 5?

If all this didnt sell you the deck yet don't worry because "dark devotion" also featured a brutal combo that could put even [[voltaic key]] + [[time vault]] to shame, as the IP describes it:

An especially savage combo in the “Dark Devotion” deck involves Heartless [[Hidetsugu]] and [[Overblaze]]. Hidetsugu taps to deal damage to each player equal to half of his or her life total, rounded down. And Overblaze can double the damage it deals. Together, this combination wipes out every player with an even life total—even someone at 20 life! Just make sure your life total is odd!

To summarize with this "savage combo" if you:

• spend 9 total mana

• You draw the only copy of Hidetsugu and one of the two copies of overblaze in the deck

• your opponent doesnt have a way to counter or kill your Hidetsugu

• Your opponent's/your LT is not odd/odd, odd/even, even/even but even/odd

congrats, you have won the game with Dark Devotion.

Would fetchable man lands be too good?

I think if the creature part had the same strength that we have become accustomed to, they would be incredibly busted. If they balanced the ability to be expensive enough it would be. What are your thoughts?

Fairly new to MtG in general and I’m quite amused by the “stock market” aspect of cards and their prices. This is a question I just thought of fairly recently after opening a [[Sheoldred, The Apocalypse]] and I was curious if people more knowledgeable than me had some insight.

So I made a 'Kambal, profiteering mayor' deck because his ability to create tokens if they enter on my opponents side of the field felt silly af, but as I was messing around with the playtest I was wondering how many tokens this interaction would even make. If I'm reading it right, I feel like it would be more wedding rings then I'd know what to do with.

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Over the past year, MTGO has begun offering a $20-30All Access Pass, giving users access to every card on the client for the first week or two of set releases. For OTJ, they broke that trend and didn’t offer the service.

Premiere set releases like MH sets and LOTR last year are typically a nightmare for subscription service users to manage over the first few weeks. The increase in demand makes staples dreadfully scarce and often leads to the chase mythics and rares (like The One Ring, Orcish Bowmasters, Ragavan, and Urza’s Saga) basically impossible to rent for sometimes days and weeks on end.

Offering the All Access Pass next week gives rental services more time to stock up on their inventory while allowing all players a chance to dive into MTGO and experience MH3 brewing to the fullest.

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I created a deckbox with the idea of organising the playspace during EDH to keep everything easy to see and utilise at a glance while limiting the likelihood of that new sleeve slip'n'slide everytime you go to draw your next card. Making it was a lot of fun and I hope that others can make good use of it, too. I currently have the STL on sale at the link posted below if you were interested in printing it yourself, however if anyone has any pointers or suggestions for additions based off what they see in the pictures I would love to hear them!

Thanks guys! Lemme know what you think!

https://cults3d.com/:2038467

Its based on usijg krenko mob boss to duplicate goblins until theres too many to block

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/bH_vpfBmdUqK9pGM-FKSkA