Post by sdfkjgh on Sept 6, 2018 23:09:36 GMT
Welcome back to No Reservations II. Last night, I saw Angelique Kidjo perform on Austin City Limits, and she was amazing. I’ll never forget the first time I saw her perform, it was on a PBS documentary about combating malaria in Africa. She sang Malaika, and it’s still one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. On ACL, she went from Redemption Songs to Malaika to Pata Pata, and it was glorious. J'adore absolument cette chanteuse enchanteresse.
Now on to less happy matters. When last we left off, our tally was:
Here’s the link to the complete Reserved List.
• 43 cards stay on The Reserved List
•79 cards reprinted for Standard.
•34 cards reprinted in supplemental sets.
•70 cards teleported directly into the nearest singularity.
•And Dark Ritual is STILL on the New Revised Reserved List.
From this, we get a BSQ of 184/227, or 81.05726872246696%.
Let’s get started with Ice Age, part b.
Well, you got a few extra this week, not like it was anything actually good! Tally finale:
• 47 cards stay on The Reserved List.
• 82 cards reprinted for Standard (with, in this episode, Hot Springs downgraded from
1 to 
).
• 35 cards reprinted in supplemental sets.
•79 cards given a nice, big cup of Litvinenko-Brand tea, and told to “Drink up, before it transmutes--I mean, gets cold.”
• And Dark Ritual was caught trying to dig its way out on Enchilada Night, and had all further parole hearings revoked as punishment.
This gives us total of 197/244, or 80.73770491803279%. Whaddya know. the ratio’s actually gone down this time.
Come back the next two weeks for the conclusion of this rather mediocre set, and the week after that for another installment of Dicking Around in Tosche Station.
Until then, thanks to Daij_Djan for putting up with my nonsense, and I’ll see you all in the pageview counter!
Now on to less happy matters. When last we left off, our tally was:
Here’s the link to the complete Reserved List.
• 43 cards stay on The Reserved List
•79 cards reprinted for Standard.
•34 cards reprinted in supplemental sets.
•
•And Dark Ritual is STILL on the New Revised Reserved List.
From this, we get a BSQ of 184/227, or 81.05726872246696%.
Let’s get started with Ice Age, part b.
{Sorrow’s Path can only WISH it was this “good”.}
General Jarkeld 80, but he NEEDS better art! Good god, he looks like he’s being held prisoner in spiked manacles. NEVER show your general in defeat!
Price
The Arctic Fox, as General Jarkeld is known, isn’t particularly threatening, but he can be deceptively powerful. A couple of good analogous cards would be the Kithkin Dares from Shadowmoor and Lorwyn. General Jarkeld proves that Sorrow’s Path did NOT need that ridiculous additional damage ability.
Yes, Gen. Jarkeld is overcosted, but that just further proves he’s safe for Standard.
General Jarkeld 80, but he NEEDS better art! Good god, he looks like he’s being held prisoner in spiked manacles. NEVER show your general in defeat!
Price
The Arctic Fox, as General Jarkeld is known, isn’t particularly threatening, but he can be deceptively powerful. A couple of good analogous cards would be the Kithkin Dares from Shadowmoor and Lorwyn. General Jarkeld proves that Sorrow’s Path did NOT need that ridiculous additional damage ability.
Yes, Gen. Jarkeld is overcosted, but that just further proves he’s safe for Standard.
{Oh gods, there’s so much going wrong with this card…}
Glacial Crevasses71
Price
Glacial Crevasses is a bad card. That R&D of the time (such as it was) stuffed Ice Age with multiple examples of cards that did the exact same thing as each other is perhaps, at minimum, a little admission of at least one card in each of those duplicated effect pairs being a badly designed card. Let’s go over all the ways that Glacial Crevasses sucks:
1 & 2) The cost to activate has TWO restrictions. Very few people run Snow lands. You know how many run Snow Mountains? EVEN FEWER! In fact, I’m willing to bet that the ratio of players who run Snow lands vs. players who run Snow Mountains is orders of magnitude less than the ratio of players who don’t run Snow lands vs. players who do.
3) Aggro doesn’t want this at all. I know
isn’t JUST aggro, there are control and combo decks that run , so they may want something like this, but they could just use Sunstone.
As a result of these points, Glacial Crevasses ridiculously narrow, far too narrow to correctly be, but too powerful in Limited for the person who’s all-in on this card’s plan, yet not powerful enough for the player who isn’t, to be . Fortunately, we have just the place for cards that are this much of a mess.
Glacial Crevasses
Price
{All non-instant, non-sorcery cards that have “prevent all combat damage”}
Pay close attention to Sunstone.
Pay close attention to Sunstone.
Glacial Crevasses is a bad card. That R&D of the time (such as it was) stuffed Ice Age with multiple examples of cards that did the exact same thing as each other is perhaps, at minimum, a little admission of at least one card in each of those duplicated effect pairs being a badly designed card. Let’s go over all the ways that Glacial Crevasses sucks:
1 & 2) The cost to activate has TWO restrictions. Very few people run Snow lands. You know how many run Snow Mountains? EVEN FEWER! In fact, I’m willing to bet that the ratio of players who run Snow lands vs. players who run Snow Mountains is orders of magnitude less than the ratio of players who don’t run Snow lands vs. players who do.
3) Aggro doesn’t want this at all. I know
isn’t JUST aggro, there are control and combo decks that run , so they may want something like this, but they could just use Sunstone.As a result of these points, Glacial Crevasses ridiculously narrow, far too narrow to correctly be
, but too powerful in Limited for the person who’s all-in on this card’s plan, yet not powerful enough for the player who isn’t, to be . Fortunately, we have just the place for cards that are this much of a mess.{Holy shit, this isn’t even worth a card! Not even if it just regular cantripped!}
Gravebind721
Price
Nevermind that regeneration’s been retired in favor of indestructible, this card wouldn’t even be good if it was just one of the four modes of a Command, as it’d be the one mode that would never get chosen! Even Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in broad daylight, is a better choice! Gravebind doesn’t even deserve supporting arguments for its relegation to The Burn Pile, its terribleness should be that self-evident.
Gravebind
Price
Nevermind that regeneration’s been retired in favor of indestructible, this card wouldn’t even be good if it was just one of the four modes of a Command, as it’d be the one mode that would never get chosen! Even Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in broad daylight, is a better choice! Gravebind doesn’t even deserve supporting arguments for its relegation to The Burn Pile, its terribleness should be that self-evident.
{Breathe, my pasty friend!}
Halls of Mist 44
Price
Halls of Mist, for all of its weirdness to our modern eyes, can be quite powerful. It’s a land, but instead of generating mana, it’s a constant, ever-increasing mana drain. Sure, turning all creatures into Giant Turtles has great potential in Standard & Modern, but too many strategies exist, right now, that would make this an absolute nightmare to play against, like Pillowfort or Exalted or any sort of anti-creature Control shell. When the best outcome you can hope for, out of dozens of possibilities, is that a card does nothing on its release, the risk of releasing it might be a little too great.
Halls of Mist 44
Price
Halls of Mist, for all of its weirdness to our modern eyes, can be quite powerful. It’s a land, but instead of generating mana, it’s a constant, ever-increasing mana drain. Sure, turning all creatures into Giant Turtles has great potential in Standard & Modern, but too many strategies exist, right now, that would make this an absolute nightmare to play against, like Pillowfort or Exalted or any sort of anti-creature Control shell. When the best outcome you can hope for, out of dozens of possibilities, is that a card does nothing on its release, the risk of releasing it might be a little too great.
{私はあまりにも多くのヘンタイを読んで、温泉でどんなハンカチのパンキーも期待していない！}
Hot Springs 81, downgraded from1 to .
Price
Oh, look! Another card that Wizards tacitly admits was mistakenly Listed by printing a near-exact duplicate! How many is this now, 5? I’ve honestly lost count. I’m almost certain the first one was Drop of Honey/Porphyry Nodes.
Throughout this entire series, over both iterations, I’ve maintained that The Reserved List, at the very least, needs a drastic reëvaluation in regards to what should & shouldn’t be on it. I have since come to the conclusion that the whole issue at stake goes much deeper. The very creation of The List deeply traumatized WotC as a psycho-corporate entity, and made them extremely gun-shy, almost to the point of PTSD, about even acknowledging the existence of the secondary market. It may be that the first step, after admitting that The Reserved List has created an untenable, potentially fatal problem, is admitting that not only does the secondary market exist, but without it, Magic WOULDN’T exist!
How exactly does one treat the mental illnesses of a corporate entity? Seriously asking, as several corporations are quite obviously suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder &/or Psychopathy.
Hot Springs 81, downgraded from
1 to .Price
Oh, look! Another card that Wizards tacitly admits was mistakenly Listed by printing a near-exact duplicate! How many is this now, 5? I’ve honestly lost count. I’m almost certain the first one was Drop of Honey/Porphyry Nodes.
Throughout this entire series, over both iterations, I’ve maintained that The Reserved List, at the very least, needs a drastic reëvaluation in regards to what should & shouldn’t be on it. I have since come to the conclusion that the whole issue at stake goes much deeper. The very creation of The List deeply traumatized WotC as a psycho-corporate entity, and made them extremely gun-shy, almost to the point of PTSD, about even acknowledging the existence of the secondary market. It may be that the first step, after admitting that The Reserved List has created an untenable, potentially fatal problem, is admitting that not only does the secondary market exist, but without it, Magic WOULDN’T exist!
How exactly does one treat the mental illnesses of a corporate entity? Seriously asking, as several corporations are quite obviously suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder &/or Psychopathy.
{No.}
Ice Cauldron 452
Price
Ice Cauldron, along with Humility/Opalescence, the Necronomicon, and The Room, were all made by Nyarlathotep for the express purpose of draining your SAN. The moment you can understand what Ice Cauldron does, without first resorting to sanitized, Foundation-approved versions, is the moment The Messenger of The Old Ones will be made manifest on this Earth, presaging the awakening arrival of Cthulhu.
Hard pass.
Ice Cauldron 452
Price
Ice Cauldron, along with Humility/Opalescence, the Necronomicon, and The Room, were all made by Nyarlathotep for the express purpose of draining your SAN. The moment you can understand what Ice Cauldron does, without first resorting to sanitized, Foundation-approved versions, is the moment The Messenger of The Old Ones will be made manifest on this Earth, presaging the awakening arrival of Cthulhu.
Hard pass.
{And another hard pass.}
Illusionary Presence73
Price
I’m only going to mention one thing:
Phantom Warrior
Price
PROSECUTION RESTS!
Illusionary Presence
Price
I’m only going to mention one thing:
Phantom Warrior
Price
PROSECUTION RESTS!
{I have lost to Trix. It’s no fun}
Illusions of Grandeur 46
Price
Trix is quite possibly the earliest example of what goes wrong when R&D doesn’t take older cards into consideration when designing new cards. Donate, on its own, is cute in a “Let’s see what weird shenanigans we can come up with”, “I live in the corner cases” sort of way. But combine it with Illusions of Grandeur, and they immediately graduate into “OH DEAR GOD, WHAT HATH SCIENCE WROGHT?!?!!!”
I’m so glad WotC’s hired more people to keep track of these things.
Illusions of Grandeur 46
Price
Trix is quite possibly the earliest example of what goes wrong when R&D doesn’t take older cards into consideration when designing new cards. Donate, on its own, is cute in a “Let’s see what weird shenanigans we can come up with”, “I live in the corner cases” sort of way. But combine it with Illusions of Grandeur, and they immediately graduate into “OH DEAR GOD, WHAT HATH SCIENCE WROGHT?!?!!!”
I’m so glad WotC’s hired more people to keep track of these things.
{Dear Mr. Tucker, please stop sending us your children’s fingerpainting exercises. Don’t try to deny it, we can still see the impression from the refrigerator magnet in the top center of the image! Sincerely, Wizards of the Coast Art Department}
Infernal Denizen 35; see below.
Price
Why, if I’m mentioning a much better option, am I still reprinting Infernal Denizen? One simple reason, although there are more in the Gatherer comments:
Necrotic Ooze
Price
Besides, I wanna see what the Commander crowd can do with it.
Infernal Denizen 35; see below.
Price
Why, if I’m mentioning a much better option, am I still reprinting Infernal Denizen? One simple reason, although there are more in the Gatherer comments:
Necrotic Ooze
Price
Besides, I wanna see what the Commander crowd can do with it.
{C’mon, Wizards, we’ve been waiting 20 years for you guys to give us the Legendary Jester! What’s the deal?}
Jester’s Mask 82
Price
The reasons we’ve all been waiting this score of years.
Jester’s Mask has the same problem as the Onsen, and that’s about all I feel I need to say on the subject.
I will say this, though: I sincerely hope that when they DO print the Jester, it’s not some Joker/Kefka Palazzo snowclone. Give us something unique and interesting, or at least steal from less-used sources.
Jester’s Mask 82
Price
The reasons we’ve all been waiting this score of years.
Jester’s Mask has the same problem as the Onsen, and that’s about all I feel I need to say on the subject.
I will say this, though: I sincerely hope that when they DO print the Jester, it’s not some Joker/Kefka Palazzo snowclone. Give us something unique and interesting, or at least steal from less-used sources.
{It’s crap like having two of these shitpiles in a row that makes me not wanna do this anymore!}
Kjeldoran Phalanx75
Price
Kjeldoran Phalanx
Price
{Here’s every single 6-mana, 5 toughness creature:}
With 200 choices, chances are more than great that you’ll pick one that’s better than Kjeldoran Phalanx
With 200 choices, chances are more than great that you’ll pick one that’s better than Kjeldoran Phalanx
{Boy, Ice Age is sure shaping up to be a terrible set! Get over yourselves, old-timers. You wanna fight me? Take off your rose-colored, nostalgia-filtering hippie-glasses first!}
The entire depletion counter land cycleInto The Burn Pile for the lot of ‘em! 75, 76, 77, 78, 79!!!
Prices
Depletion implies removal of something, right? So why in the name of Q-metal do these lands ADD depletion counters?! Flavor fail! These lands suck, they’re ugly in both design & art (with the possible exception of Veldt), and they’ve used up names that would’ve been better suited to better cards. This cycle makes me so angry!
The entire depletion counter land cycle
Prices
{Even MOAR tacit admissions of wrongdoing on Wizards’ part!}
And these are actually superior to, and at a lower rarity than, their predecessors!
And these are actually superior to, and at a lower rarity than, their predecessors!
Depletion implies removal of something, right? So why in the name of Q-metal do these lands ADD depletion counters?! Flavor fail! These lands suck, they’re ugly in both design & art (with the possible exception of Veldt), and they’ve used up names that would’ve been better suited to better cards. This cycle makes me so angry!
Well, you got a few extra this week, not like it was anything actually good! Tally finale:
• 47 cards stay on The Reserved List.
• 82 cards reprinted for Standard (with, in this episode, Hot Springs downgraded from
1 to ).• 35 cards reprinted in supplemental sets.
•
• And Dark Ritual was caught trying to dig its way out on Enchilada Night, and had all further parole hearings revoked as punishment.
This gives us total of 197/244, or 80.73770491803279%. Whaddya know. the ratio’s actually gone down this time.
Come back the next two weeks for the conclusion of this rather mediocre set, and the week after that for another installment of Dicking Around in Tosche Station.
Until then, thanks to Daij_Djan for putting up with my nonsense, and I’ll see you all in the pageview counter!
{Footnotes}
| 1 | WHY IS THIS A ?!?!!?!! |
| 2 | I’m putting this here so as not to disturb the flow of the humor. The reason I chose to leave it where it is, rather than KILL IT WITH FIRE! is because after reading the sanitized, Foundation-approved version, I think it might just be useful enough to keep. I think the effect is like rebound, only you don’t get the first iteration of the spell. Mind you, I’m already certifiably insane, so take my guesses with a grain of salt less than a lethal overdose. |
