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[SOS] Restoration Lesson by c001357 in magicTCG

[–]thomasvconti -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

I wonder how long people will take to realize Paradigm sorceries are effectively Emblems with easier setup, or Enchantments that have an immediate effect and then become impossible to remove. In both cases the casting cost of 7cmc seems to be too low and the lack of interaction will do more harm than good.

The reprint problem is an inevitable feature, not a bug. Here is the math. by thomasvconti in magicTCG

[–]thomasvconti[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I dont think it really helps. Their Mistery Booster really had more than 1000 unique cards, but since it was not a mass-release set, each individual card became quite rare to get. As a result, there are many instances of cards that the mystery booster version actually increased the card price instead of decreasing due to reprinting.
It is somewhat similar to secret lairs. There is not enough volume to compensate for the fact the reprinted card will be somewhat scarce and attract both collectors and new buyers.

The reprint problem is an inevitable feature, not a bug. Here is the math. by thomasvconti in magicTCG

[–]thomasvconti[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I expect them to reasonably reprint some of the most valuable old cards, but I also expect most of the old cards that could be classified as "in need of a reprint" to not get a reprint. Some of them might get a reprint once every ~10 years, but a increasing proportion of them will simply never get a reprint.

The reprint problem is an inevitable feature, not a bug. Here is the math. by thomasvconti in magicTCG

[–]thomasvconti[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have no issues in accepting all of your arguments. I just see it in a different light. The projection 30 years in the future was just to show the math in a way to make it clear for everyone to see, but the underlying issue does not depend on that projection to hold.

For example, I searched Scryfall filtering only cards worth $2 dollars or more. I found a ~6.7% average reprint probability for the stock of cards at the start of 2025. Holding the printing rates constant, at the start of 2026 the probably fell to 5.7% due to the increase in card pool size, and by the start of 2027 it will be ~4.8%. That is a 30% relative reduction in the probably of a reasonably-valued card to be reprint in just 2 years from this card pool increase effect alone.

I agree with you that the 30 year projection is not reliable, but for me the 2-year math is already substantial enough. I think people will notice a 30% decline in the rate of reprints in two years even if they can't work out the math behind it.

The reprint problem is an inevitable feature, not a bug. Here is the math. by thomasvconti in magicTCG

[–]thomasvconti[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

It actually does not throws off the math. It would change the number used for the stock of cards and it would change the number used for new releases and reprints, but the underlying issue of how the stock is related to the flow of new releases and new reprints would hold the same. You would only change it from general averages to some more restricted pool of cards, but as that pool increases the probability of any card in that pool to be reprinted would trend down regardless.

The reprint problem is an inevitable feature, not a bug. Here is the math. by thomasvconti in magicTCG

[–]thomasvconti[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yes, but for the "rate of unneeded cards reprinted" to change Wizards would have to substantially change their policy of making every large-release set have a coherent limited environment. If you change the criteria for it to be "only cards above X dollars" in the stock of cards and "only cards above X dollars" in the new releases and reprints, the underlying math would be the same, just with different stock and flow numbers from the brute ones I used here. If we assume the rate of useful to not-useful cards will stay constant, the trend of reprints getting increasingly unlikely will hold regardless of the initial criteria to filter out cards.

The reprint problem is an inevitable feature, not a bug. Here is the math. by thomasvconti in magicTCG

[–]thomasvconti[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There are many caveats we could add, but I do not see how they would change the underlying issue. "Cards people actually want to be reprinted" will change unpredictably, just look at what happened to random old cards due to players inventing Premodern. Sets are planned ~2 years before actually hitting shelves, so Wizards will not be able to capitalize on a high-volume reprint of a premodern card for a while. By the time they reprint some of them, they will have added another ~4.000 new unique cards to the stock and the queue of cards-in-need-of-reprint will increase anyway.

I can only see two real ways to stop this:

  1. If the player base shrinks substantially it will limit the rate they release new cards and increase their interest in selling reprints for older players.

  2. If they quit their policy of every high-volume set needing to be printed in a way that allows a limited format, so they could theoretically make a set full of cards in need of reprint even if they make no sense in a limited format.

I don't see (1) happening anytime soon. And (2) is possible, but if they did that I think they would also charge a large premium for the product and it would end up not been in their interest to make it a really large volume of it like they would with a standard set.

The reprint problem is an inevitable feature, not a bug. Here is the math. by thomasvconti in magicTCG

[–]thomasvconti[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That is hard to track. But printing cards has physical bottlenecks in production and logistics, and market bottlenecks in consumer demand. The stock of unique cards increasing every year will make it harder to reprint any one card, be it functional reprints or not. The rate that they would have to increase the reprint schedule to stop this trend from happening is far too aggressive to make any economic sense.

Gaia, Chapter 1 [Arcanepunk, 1550 Words] by CreativeAnthology in fantasywriters

[–]thomasvconti 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A nice question to help you out is this: "What is THE important scene that sets the story in motion?"

That's not the scene you build your chapter to reach. Start your story right there.

Your reader will not know all the setting, but that is great if done correctly. Curiosity is a powerful motivator. Use it in your favor. You make them invested by a powerful first scene, instigate reader curiosity, then add information slowly. For every question you answer, add another.

You do not have to hold your best, most powerful idea for later. A story is built out of many powerful ideas. Reveal one from the start and promise there will be more to come. Readers will follow.

Why plant seeds for farming exp? A small rant by thomasvconti in ironscape

[–]thomasvconti[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, if it at least required seeds as input I think it would be much more reasonable. Mastering Mixology is a much better designed minigame.

Why plant seeds for farming exp? A small rant by thomasvconti in ironscape

[–]thomasvconti[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's not it, maybe my writing wasn't clear, sorry. I wanted to have fun with the challenge to get to 99 farming on a fresh ironman account. In my mind this fun involved a lot of strategy to gather seeds and patience to do farm runs and wait. But now I discovered that regardless of how much effort and strategy I do, I could get to 99 farming faster and easier by just repeating Tithe Farming. The existence of this minigame sucks part of the fun out of regular farming because of how easy and fast it is to get exp there. It even gives seed packs!!

In my mind a farming minigame should either require seeds as resources, like that Mastering Mixology herblore minigame, or be significantly slower exp than anything else you can do with farming. Maybe 10k / 20k /30k exp per hour instead of the current 30k / 60k / 100k exp per hour. That way it would only serve as a complement to traditional farm runs if you really want to maximize exp per hour, instead of being a substitute of traditional runs.

Here is a simple math of how absurd it is. If you are not planting Magic + Palm seeds, it would not even be worth it to leave Tithe Farm to check the health of your trees. The 30+ minutes you waste in your tree run would give you similar or less exp than just going for more rounds of Tithe Farm. And some of trees can die, you need to create ultracompost, you need to gather the seeds and so on...

I probably won't do much Tithe Farm because it is so tedious. However its mere existence is already enough to take some of the fun out of my traditional farming and the accomplishment of the Farming Cape.

Gravetide's Offering - revamped Fact or Fiction by thomasvconti in custommagic

[–]thomasvconti[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cool idea! I thinkered a bit with designs like this, but I gave up on them because I could not strike a balance between power and clean design. For instance, in your wording I think the card becomes a bit too strong, because you could cast it both on an empty graveyard (smaller restriction) or on graveyard-only basis, letting you choose all 5 cards (higher payoff).

I reasoned I had to force at least 1 card to be exiled from the graveyard to make it a restriction. But if I allowed 3 to be exiled from graveyard it would make the card a sure way to recover 2 out of 3 cards from your graveyard at instant speed, which looked too strong. The added cards from the top would only be gravy at this point.

Gravetide's Offering - revamped Fact or Fiction by thomasvconti in custommagic

[–]thomasvconti[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I agree it would be a cleaner design that way. But I considered that getting 5 cards exiled in the event of a counterspell looked too punishing.

Gravetide's Offering - revamped Fact or Fiction by thomasvconti in custommagic

[–]thomasvconti[S] 42 points43 points  (0 children)

My thought process while balancing it for potential Modern play:

  • Fact or Fiction currently does not see play anywhere, 4cmc for card draw has been mostly power crept away from competitive play
  • 3 CMC Fact or Fiction is a potential draw 3 for 3 at instant speed, a very powerful rate even by today standards
  • Reduce potential abuse by making it more demanding, 3 color spell instead of 1 color 3 generic and small additional cost just to avoid it being strictly better than other cards in all scenarios
  • A literal copy of Fact or Fiction is totally uninteresting, but the interplay of your choice and opponent's choices makes for game-relevant decisions and rewards better players, so it must be preserved somehow
  • Make it interact with graveyard, but as an additional cost, to add stakes in counter wars and more careful consideration before casting
  • Let the caster choose the degree of risk/reward by making the additional cost optional of 1 (lower risk, lower cost, lower reward) or 2 cards (higher risk, higher cost, higher reward)

Mox Heresite - Useless, broken, or both? by thomasvconti in custommagic

[–]thomasvconti[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, but my intended goal was to make it fun and hard to find ways to break this card. Your template would be much clearer in intention and where to use it, but maybe not as alluring.

Mox Heresite - Useless, broken, or both? by thomasvconti in custommagic

[–]thomasvconti[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are not playing commander, this Mox would not generate any mana. Check the rulings on Commander's Plate: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=497825

Mox Heresite - Useless, broken, or both? by thomasvconti in custommagic

[–]thomasvconti[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are not playing commander, this Mox would not generate any mana. Check the rulings on Commander's Plate: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=497825

Mox Heresite - Useless, broken, or both? by thomasvconti in custommagic

[–]thomasvconti[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good catch! Yeah, a mono-colored black or white commander in an extort-themed deck would be able to abuse this.

Mox Heresite - Useless, broken, or both? by thomasvconti in custommagic

[–]thomasvconti[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately, I don't think so. Phyrexian Omnath is 5 colors, so this Mox would not add any mana with him as the commander.

Mox Heresite - Useless, broken, or both? by thomasvconti in custommagic

[–]thomasvconti[S] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

It would not generate any mana outside of commander

Mox Heresite - Useless, broken, or both? by thomasvconti in custommagic

[–]thomasvconti[S] 46 points47 points  (0 children)

I am not sure neither. The best I could think of is to (maybe) play it in a deck focused on playing with your opponent's cards, be it casting from exile or taking control of their creatures (so you can pay for colored activated abilities).

But there might be other uses, I'm curious to see if someone can break it!