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by Da Sarge Tempest : Is a Box Worth It? People, sit back and take notes. This is going to be a long one. Let's start by saying that I knew this was going to be a stand-alone set. In other words, it gives WOTC free rein to print those damn reprints. Well, guess what? They sure as hell didn't disappoint me. Oh, I know what you're going to say. " Da Sarge has finally lost it," or, "Here he goes again." Wrong, pal. Not only am I right, but I can prove it. Read on if you dare.... Here's the plan. I'm going to base this all on the box I bought, plus the current Arena League rules. Let me state that I did not look at spoiler lists, so I have no idea what's rare and what's not. As of this writing, I still have not looked. Also, any card that deals with Slivers, Licids, Shadows and Buybacks, will not count for this article. They are new and deserve to succeed, fail, be renamed, or reprinted on their own. All I'm going to do is state the new Tempest card, and the card that it was either renamed for, or just plain reprinted from, plus the set(s) it came from in parentheses. Plus, of course, how many I received from the box I bought. All you have to do is make the call on what I write. Other than that....oh well, hate to be from WOTC today..... Same Card, Different Name This first group really gets me going. I mean, be real. Magic is supposed to be a game of creativity. How creative can you be when all you do is look at your past sets, take a card, then change it very little (or not at all) except for its name? The following cards were based on the abilities of that card(s) against ONLY those in the same color. Of course, the argument could be made that a certain card could have the exact same ability only with a different color. I did not do that. I only worried about it if there was a similar card in its own color. Hey, WOTC, if you're looking for new cards, just e-mail me. I know a few good men and women who could help you out..........
Will someone please explain this to me? I grant you that there are some good cards here (Endless Scream with a Will o' The Wisp comes to mind). But why redo cards like this? Seventy-two (72) cards to be exact. Take red, for example. Why on earth does red need MORE direct damage? Oh look, even MORE counterspells. Hey, just what I need! ANOTHER Prodigal Sorcerer. I guess red and blue need all the help they can get. Take a peek at green, black, and white. See anything strange? Every one of those cards has been reprinted before with very little change: Flickering Ward, Respite, Endless Scream, and Fevered Convulsions are the greatest changed. I'm sure that Clergy En-Vec, Blood Pit and Sea Monster will see a lot of game time. All in all, I, for one, am not impressed. The Reprints Don't even get me started on this one. These just plain show no creativity. In the Army we would say, "They must have come up with these cards on a Friday afternoon at about 1600 hours (that's 4 pm for you civilians)." Someone out there will have to do some real heavy explaining to me about the following cards:
These cards really tick me off. Especially white. Nineteen are COP's. WHY???? Don't give me this bull about it being a stand-alone set either. Since these cards are reprints anyway, why not just put these cards in the starter decks? Let the booster box just be made of the new cards. It seems to me that the experienced player gets punished for buying a box. In fact, right on the front of the Tempest box it says "Recommended for experienced MAGIC players." Why does an experienced player need nineteen COP's? To be honest, there are so many of these cards out there now that you can buy them for about a penny each. None of these cards needed to be reprinted. OK, why did I do this? To prove a point. If you buy a box of Tempest, you will get 36 packs with 15 cards in each pack. This gives you a total of 510 cards. Right off the bat, you need to subtract 72 cards (same card, different name) and 70 cards (reprints) from the 510. This leaves you with 368 cards. That's a lot of cards....or is it? Think about this. The set of Tempest is made up of over 300+ cards. Out of the 368 cards I have left over, I went back and found out that I have 181 "new" types of cards. Subtract 181 from 368, and that leaves you 187 copies of the 181 "new" cards. In essence, I paid $75 for 181 cards. Somehow, that does not seem right. Now, a lot of you are saying, "Yeah, but how much are those 181 cards really worth?" I buy the cards to be competitive and to win, not to collect. Plus, let's be honest, the price of a card is variable. What you pay at one place may not be what they charge at another. What you want to pay is the bottom line in this case. While the argument of how much a card is worth might or might not have some validity to it, to me it means nothing. Unless the card is something I think I can afford, or those one or two cards that can change the whole game around when I'm getting my butt kicked, I worry more about how useful the card is than the price. For example, how many times have you seen a $20 card that no one uses? Better yet, how many times are you going to buy a $10 or $20 card? Here's the kicker. Have you seen the new Arena League? The rules are simple. Use one of the preconstructed Tempest decks for the first week. Then after that, you can add a sideboard from one of the other sets. I bought three of the four decks. Guess what? Card for card, I received a better draw from those decks than from the box. For example, green has Overrun. In my box I received two, so I figure they must be real rare. Yet, in my deck I bought for the league, I received two Overruns. What gives? In the three decks I bought I received the following: Maze of Shadows, Wild Wurm, Furnace of Rath, Tangarth's Rage, Sky Spirit, Emmessi Tome, Wind Drake, Avenging Angel, Knight of Dawn, Precognition, Puppet Strings, Mnemonic Sliver, and Essence Bottle. None of these cards did I receive in the box I bought. Is it me or is something wrong here? I know this sounds like I'm whining. Hey, maybe I am. My problem is that when I spend money, I want my money's worth. This time, I did not get it. Based on what I received in the packs, I should have just bought those. The easy solution is to quit Magic and save both the money and the headache. I love the game too much. It's just too much fun to play. At the same time, WOTC is quickly ruining the game for money. What I have decided to do is buy more singles, rather than the box. Card for card, based on the above cards, you don't get your money's worth. Take, for example, that new card Time Walk, uhhh, sorry Time Warp. Five boxes were opened at my store before one box was found with it. Gee, I wonder how much that is going to cost to buy. Sets are coming out too fast to waste your money on. Because of this, you want your money's worth. WOTC could fix that problem tomorrow. You know they won't. WOTC could easily ask the fans to help create or give ideas for new cards. You know they won't. There is no excuse to have that many reprinted cards in a set. It shows a great lack of creativity on the part of WOTC. In the words of stunning Steve Austin, "That's the bottom line". Hey WOTC, if you don't have the time to come up with cards, guess what? We can, and we don't mind helping you. This is not to say all of Tempest is bad. I was not sure about Licids, but I think I like them a lot. Shadows are nice, a little weak, but if you have one, it forces the other player to think a different way. Slivers just plain change the game, and make it much more aggressive. Buybacks are nice, but mana hungry. The jury is still out on them. The true test will come in tournaments. And I don't just mean the Pro-Tour either. In the end you are the final judge. Only you can say how good your box is. Before you answer that question, look at your cards. Ask yourself this: Did I get my money's worth? If you say yes, no problem. If you say no, how can we change it? I looked at my box and I am not happy. I think the solution is to put more beef in the boxes. You know that WOTC is going to release a 6th edition sooner or later. Why not put those COP's, Dark Rituals and Counterspells in that set? Still not convinced? Think about this. How many reprint / renamed cards would you have put in that set?????????????????????
Dem'd My Views and I'm.......
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