Forums member Xerent opens this rare 8-card booster pack from the Homelands expansion.
Homelands was known primarily for being so overpowered in block formats that it was removed entirely from Ice Age block. Furthermore, since it was one of the last expansions to exclude rare and mythic cards, most people consider it the high point in Magic: The Gathering set design.
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by Fake Mark Rosewater |
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Welcome back to Innistrad preview week! I hope you’ve all remained vigilant, because sinister dealings have been going on here at Wizards of the Coast. Since I am in charge of literally everything that happens around here, I’ve chosen these three cards to give you a small taste of what is coming later on this week.
We’ll start off with a most horrifying red spell. This card is special because it was actually on the file for Urza’s Saga, but was ultimately cut for power reasons after it was determined that it would take years of playtesting to balance it properly. Those years have passed! Here is that card!
Next is the return of a beloved cycle of lands, ones that defined their original block through their flavor and artistic vision. In truth, their “original” printing was found on an old sheet of paper that a custodian found one day at Wizards headquarters, years ago. A sheet of paper that was labeled … Innistrad.
Finally, we bring you the most terrifying preview yet: A creature type so evil and sinister that it’s been left out of sets that contained demons, devils, and horrors. What could it be?
Join me later this week when I reveal the full previews of the cards you already saw on Monday.
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by Fake Mark Rosewater |
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Welcome to Innistrad preview week! It’s once again time to delve into a new and exciting block (it feels so good to be saying that after sitting on this thing for more than five years). As you will see, this time we’ve taken the set design in a whole new direction. What are we doing, and what inspired us to do it? Before today’s column is done, you’ll know.
Ever since we announced Innistrad it’s been known to the public that the set has a gothic or medieval look to it. After enduring a fierce, action-packed metal world, with its own ‘tainted’ flavor, both the design and art teams wanted to get back into traditional fantasy. In fact, they both came to me independently asking to swing the pendulum back from the crazy chaotic feel of war in the Scars of Mirrodin block. They were eager to build a world steeped in a misty full-moon setting, with horrors lurking around every corner (horrors without infect). I hope you’re ready to delve into Innistrad!
Innistrad, the forgotten plane
To get in the mood, I have to tell you something about the story. It so happened that the ancient planeswalker Feroz came across Innistrad, a once-beautiful plane, now ravaged by war and darkness. At the last unspoilt oasis on this plane he met fellow planeswalker Serra, whom he married. Together they worked to restore the plane, and to protect it, Feroz’s Ban was created. Feroz died during its creation, however, and the grief-stricken Serra abandoned the plane. In her absence the isolated civilizations of the plane fight amongst each other while the vampires plot with the secretly lurking Liliana Vess to take control of the plane under the fading Ban of Feroz.
Innistrad is truly an ancient plane, and as such the art team wanted ancient artwork to go with it. They’ve organized a dream team of artists, including Rob Alexander, Mark Poole, Mark Tedin, Anson Maddocks and Kaja Foglio, whose outstanding efforts have defined the plane and the set of Innistrad.
A high knight stands on a precipice, overlooking the plains of Innistrad.
Innistrad is filled with mystic places, where clerics sing mystical chants.
Many horrors lurk in the snowy mountains of Innistrad…
…such as raiders and bandits.
I’m confident that players will be equally impressed by the wow! factor when they open their first packs of Innistrad as I was. This is going to be an amazing fall in the world of Magic!
Force the flash mechanic!
Normally when you design a set (you do that all the time, right?), you start with the mechanics. No block set since Homelands has been without a whole array of new keywords and mechanics, and in this regard Innistrad surely delivers.
The difficulty of being head designer of a Magic set is knowing about cool stuff and not being able to talk about it for years – I don’t think I’ve mentioned that before. In any case, the first mechanic I’ve wanted to highlight for the last five years is featured on this card:
What’s this? Forceflash. If you pay an extra cost, you force the spell through, kind of like Force of Will, only somewhat like Force Spike but not at all like Force of Nature. The forceflash cost is an alternate cost, not an additional cost.
Then how on Earth did we come up with forceflash? From my point of view, it’s simple. Players like when things happen unexpectedly-or at least when they do for your opponent. I knew I wanted a push towards instant-speed interactions. When I proposed my idea during the initial Innistrad development, the team agreed (as I’m their boss). The biggest challenge for the team was trying to find a way to approach the “instant-speed” theme in a way that didn’t just feel like Time Spiral 2.0.
Forceflash’s design story begins with the design of Invasion and the instant-speed rare cycle (Breaking Wave, Ghitu Fire, Rout, Saproling Symbiosis and Twilight’s Call). Here we had five cards that could be cast at instant speed if you only paid 2 more colorless mana. Mechanics like these played directly into this design. I had been longing to exploit this kind of mechanic for years, but (as you should know, if you’ve been reading my columns) a set mechanic isn’t a set mechanic unless you can make it work at the common level.
To that end, I decided that we were going to treat the instant-speed cost as a separate cost. As it came to be, one day (while tossing scrapped designs into a paper bin from across the room), it hit me. It didn’t have to be two colorless mana all the time! It could be anything! I ran down the stairs and up again, screaming with joy. In this setting, you could cast a common spell for four mana more, possibly even colored mana. I knew I wanted some form of innovation involving color. Colorless mana is boring.
Take a trip, slowly
Cantrips are fun. Magic is about fun. Thus, since what I say, goes, Innistrad is about cantrips. But while cantrips are fun, anticipation is a key element in gameplay. Starting with Innistrad, we’re introducing a new revolutionary (and magical) keyword: Slowtrip.
Isn’t that fun anticipation? You’ve cast an awesome spell and are waiting in deep anticipation for your next turn. What could the next card be? While you’re waiting, you can even play spells and interact with your opponent! We believe that this will both work as the format’s draw engine and make the game even more fun to play.
Now that I’ve rattled your brains somewhat, let’s do it completely. The world of Innistrad will not only introduce new mechanics and keywords, but will look and feel radically different from the previous block. In fact, it’ll come in a different container.
Booster packs
Innistrad will come in 8-card booster packs, and… wait, WHAT? Has Mark(eting) gone insane? Yes, it’s true, and no, he hasn’t (at least not me, I don’t know about marketing). The rationale behind this change is actually really simple. In recent years we’ve been experimenting with selling 6-card booster packs at large mass-market stores like Target or WalMart. What we learned from that experiment is that smaller booster packs are selling in large quantities simply because people love to crack packs and frantically inhale the Magic smell. We also noticed that players didn’t miss the rules tip card in the smaller packs, but they did long for tokens.
The Innistrad block will be sold in 8-card booster packs, featuring 1 rare or mythic rare card, 1-2 uncommon cards and 4-5 common cards. The last card will always be a basic land or a token. In limited, two Innistrad boosters equals one regular booster (say, of Magic 2012). That is, a sealed pool would consist of 12 Innistrad boosters.
We spend much of our time designing powerful rares, many of which players never get to slam on the table. It is our hope that players will come to enjoy opening twice the number of rares. This feature will both reduce the value of chase-rares on the secondary market, as well as increase Wizards’ revenues.
One last thing
To round off this preview, I’m happy to announce that the release card will be called Liliana’s Chime. I can’t tell you what it does yet, but I can assure you that it’s a truly amazing card (I admit, I designed it). Liliana’s up to no good and she stops at nothing to get what she wants!
That’s all for this week! Join me next week as we delve deeper into the horrors lurking within Innistrad.
We can only show you the card – the rest is up to you.
Good Gamery has recently come in possession of six scans of entirely new Magic 2012 cards. Sources close to Wizards of the Coast have confirmed that they might indeed be real. Considering the events of the past few weeks, we have pondered whether or not to release these images to the public. In the end, we decided to go ahead. We’re really excited about this core set, so without further ado, here are the images.
White weenie decks in standard will certainly get a kick out of this innovative swinger!
Finally – a good white sweeper in standard! Thank you, Wizards! This is the card we’ve been waiting for since 1993.
This is a card with an effect we’ve never seen before in any color.
Our only mythic rare shows that Wizards will stop at nothing in being creative and bringing new and surprising cards to the core set!
Just – WOAH! This green common card is sure to find a place in all aggro builds. We’ve never seen anything like it before!
Wrapping up our amazing M12 spoiler scoop, the final card is the soft counterspell we’ve all been waiting for. We’ll be picking this one for sure!
Attention MTGS readers: This article is an obvious joke.
Good Gamery would especially like to thank the artists: Mr–Jack, Abi909, Amedyr, dinmoney, zakariah and barretxiii.
Over the years at GoodGamery we’ve had our fair share of exciting preview cards. As part of the Rise of the Eldrazi alliance we spoiled the Timmy-est card in a Timmy set, Spawnsire of Ulamog. For Magic 2011 we eschewed such whimsy for a card the average player on the street could really connect with: limited workhorse Quag Sickness. Those were heady days indeed, but two sets have gone by since then without so much as a whiff of exclusive news. Has GoodGamery been forgotten? That’s a rhetorical question. The answer is no.
Today we are privileged not just to kick off the Innistrad spoiler season, but to give a tantalising glimpse into the fabric of the block itself. We have been entrusted with one of the fundamental components of the Innistrad universe: its dual lands. From Tundra in Alpha to Flooded Strand in Onslaught, from Hallowed Fountain in Ravnica to Seachrome Coast in Scars of Mirrodin, dual lands have always been a cornerstone of both fantasy worlds and tournament environments.
But what exactly is a dual land? The Oxford English dictionary defines a dual land as “a land card that provides two colours of mana, or an indirect means of acquiring two colours of mana.” While technically accurate, this definition fails to account for the soul of the dual land, an intangible phenomenon that has touched the hearts of countless magic players. An exciting new dual is the perfect way to kick off exploration of an exciting new block, and we’re pleased to say our dual is quite a doozy. Are you ready to discover the horror lurking within? Don’t worry, we’ll be right there with you. Let’s go!
(This land has, of course, been generated randomly for your convenience by the magical dual land generator. To share this specific card with other people, click here and use the share code at the bottom of the page.)
It’s Friday night. After weeks of trying, you’ve finally convinced your powerful wizard friend to lend you a legacy deck and let you take a shot at the local monthly eternal event. You haven’t slept for days; you’ve spent every available moment reading up on the format and desperately trailing twitter feeds to look for the newest tech. You’ve turned away phonecalls from your family and your girlfriend. You’ve quit your job. There’s no way you can lose.
You’re sitting down for the first round. Your opponent is in his teens and tells you cheerfully he’s never played the format before. Inside you’re fistpumping, but nothing shows on your cold, steely face as you draw your seven. Your opponent wins the die roll and leads with Vault of Whispers, Springleaf Drum, Ornithopter, and Frogmite. You put him on affinity, drop one of your friend’s FBB Tropical Islands, and cast Pithing Needle. “Naming Glacial Plating,” you announce coolly. Your opponent frowns at you, visibly unsettled, then untaps and, slowly, announces that he’s casting a Cranial Plating. The judge nods and, two minutes later, you’re two games down and out of the running.
Don’t worry, reader, that wasn’t actually you. But it could be unless you know your cardnames! In this article we’ll go through some of the most common mixups and how to avoid them.
One’s an iconic Alpha/Beta/Unlimited artifact, commonly called ‘scepter’. The other’s a powerful modern combo piece known simply as ‘specter’. See the problem? Luckily, it’s not difficult to figure out which is which if you think about it: scepters are tools for spellcasting, but specters are scary flying monsters, and thus are more likely to eat people than hypnotise them.
People misremember Mana Walk because its actual effect is almost impossibly bad. This unique promo was designed, along with Pale Moon, for a ‘mana colour matters’ set that was ultimately scrapped. Despite this, both cards were recycled: Mana Walk as a promo, and Pale Moon as a junk rare a few years later. Time Crypt, on the other hand, gets mixed up because people can’t believe quite how good it is. A prime example of original designer Richard Garfield not knowing how powerful certain effects would be, Time Crypt’s negligible drawback has allowed it to become a cornerstone of vintage.
It’s easy to confuse these two artifact-based Urza’s Legacy Johnny cards. The best way to identify Goblin Tinker is from its amusingly non-functional printed wording. All three of the ‘then shuffle your library’ tutors (Goblin Tinker, Impulse, and Goblin Retrievers) were given errata in time for the Urza’s – Mirrodin extended season, where both of these cards saw fringe play.
Frankly, I’m not sure how so many people manage to mix up a piece of the power nine with a quirky draw spell from Fallen Empires. Maybe they were thinking of some other game.
The confusion around Sylvan Winter arises from a famous incident at PT – Los Angeles when pro player Shawn “Hammer” Regnier, on hearing the card’s effect, thought it was so powerful it must be a two-card combo. People have been referring to decks including a ‘Sylvan Such-and-Such’ or a ‘Winter Whatever’ ever since, although the original card has since fallen out of favour amongst deckbuilders.
