Eredan's World

I wasn't gloom and doom about this release [because I never am], but I was certainly skeptical about the market changes. After observing the market for a few days and using the posting/instant-sale interface that has been added myself, I've gone from skeptical to a full supporter. The range-limit prevents extreme gouging, but the range changes based on supply/demand. Even if a card is in relatively high demand, if the supply is constantly = or > demand, the price on the card continues to go down as both the suggested and actual purchase prices slide down. If the card is in higher demand than supply, the suggested and purchase prices rise, allowing players to genuinely profit from their card instead of being restricted to the lowest possible price range.

In terms of economics:
1) Extreme kudos to Feerik for a well designed and well implemented market change to keep the player crystal-market experience fair for all and preventing frustration. Lots of folks advocate purely free markets, but that's because they've never ACTUALLY STUDIED economics, choosing to instead parrot ideologies that just don't work in real life. This sort of controlled market design addresses many of the real life issues that arise in any market.

2) I'm actually as wishy-washy about the return to 10% as the initial announcement of 30%. On the one hand, the lower tax encourages players to put cards onto the market in the first place, knowing they'll take a small attrition but will still see the vast majority of their crystals that they can turn around and use. On the other hand, a higher tax rate makes earned crystals more valuable precisely because a tax is taken. I've yet to speak up about it, but I think a 15-20% flat tax or a reverse scaling tax [20-25% on sales under X value that reflects common sales, sliding down to only 10% of any sale over Y value that represents sale of higher tier rares, foils, and legendaries] would still encourage market participation while having the desired effect. I know that the average player looking at such a proposal is immediately up in arms about any kind of higher tax, and as a player any tax certainly FEELS wonky, but crystal value [inflation/control] is an issue that I know you guys watch and consider carefully.

Additionally, it's nice to see the return of Act based boosters and a Newcomer pack if only for a limited time. I think this should be done more often, if not outright become a permanent option, because it encourages purchases since folks know they will have better odds at the cards they specifically want. Especially with the Act count about to rise to 5, I think this sort of odd narrowing option is extremely important. I would personally like to see an offered pack structure that is the current two-week offering in addition to the 'classic' one:
-120 Feez for a 4 card pack
-400 Feez for 12 card, Guild-based packs as offered before, spanning all releases
-400 Feez for 12 card Act-based packs as offered now
-400 Feez for 12 card Newcomer packs as offered now

I don't claim to know the effect this will actually have on Feerik sales or the player driven crystal market, but I really hope you guys consider it!

This addresses most of the concerns I was about to post. Simply ensuring the cards are salable, not bound, makes the pack much more attractive, as does the copy limit. If the copy limit extends beyond rares to uncommons and commons, then I would cheer because that is a nice perk as well. I am somewhat curious about the Anti-Magic glyph thing, but not complaining. I do not see the cost of the pack as an actual concern considering the large discount for its size and guaranteed legendary and XP cards that add up to well above and beyond standard chances of XP cards.

That said about the price, I too see the time limit as the primary concern. If these are limited to one purchase anyway, why the time limit? Like others I am torn between the desire to purchase the cards at such a discount and the disadvantages of the bulk purchase when:
-No event is going on (unable to time purchase to gain any event benefit)
-No collector's card for a release is included (and speaking of which, has this practice stopped? It seems a long while since the last)
-Unknown if the standard premium pack chance of converting the rare to a legendary applies, as this benefit is 'lost' from buying straight packs

The constraint makes it hard for many who would purchase it to make the purchase before the time limit runs out, and presumably prevents any event bonus. These are my primary two concerns with the Pack.

Actually, what about a discard deck? Dealing NO damage would certainly qualify as "only magic damage" in the sense that you dealt neither physical nor direct damage, and they do have some good defenses. Anyone tried this method?

The translations I've been getting of the impossible trophies from elsewhere are...poor. Just to be clear, the impossibles [for which you now get a booster, not a legednary], are:
3 Aces without playing a card from your hand
4 Aces without playing a card from your hand

These are the only two I'm confident about...play blindly with a starter deck, hope to get lucky. What are the others? I've been doing just that...blast my luck, but at least that's a way to have a chance, right? What are the others(s), and do you have to play no cards from hand or is there some other requisite like 'play only one card from hand'? If any do require cards from hand, is the Joker allowed?

And a general question...there's a trophy unearned in the trophy room -
The Bluffer / Mission: Having the best cards in hand.
Only thing I can think is playing a game where you have a Royal Flush in spades...but keep it in your hand. O_o???

I've given up trying to dual-wield Pistol Blade because of this bug. It's being treated in game as a one-handed sword that does NOT have 'dual-wield', and any one-handed weapon that does not itself have dual-wield I try to dual-wield it with is either discarded or discards the pistolblade depending on play order.

Eh, my vote was for the Mystic Slayers. Still, good to see the never-used Fog Snake getting an update

Those saying this Shadow is crap because she doesn't hit as hard as the original Shadow are full of crap. You are correct that she doesn't get the +2 attack turn bonus and can't use Zil weapons [which really only hurts at all because of Fist Blade]. The trade off is that you can build a deck like the one above, or a pure Nehantist Marauder deck...and suddenly, the loss of +2 attack on a given turn for +1 attack to both of her friends doesn't seem painful at all. This Shadow is different, and appropriately so, not worse.

Also:

[card]He who can do more...[/card]
[card]...can do less[/card]

[edit]Ninja! And tempus is beyond a doubt the fastest way: Dan cards come from all classes except craftsman to my knowledge, so having a priest, a mage, and The Eternal lets you burn two cards every-turn.[/edit]

I'm not sure if there's any ore, but with a full day left I suppose I'll dig through the card list and find out, then repost here.

[card]Expiation[/card] Seems to be a Desert Nomad Eclipse card victimizing poor Dahn, haven't tested whether it counts.

Did a full search of both my collection and the market using the 'not in my collection' filter, can't find any more. Don't recall if any trophy unlocked cards have Dahn on them.

They are, in fact, VERY less dead. Still dead enough to be 'not alive', but very very less dead none-the-less. This, and this is also the point of [card]Death to the Dead[/card]. In terms of classic game benefits of
1) Keeping character alive
2) Kill opposing character
3) card advantage
These cards do nothing. What they DO do is dramatically alter the final score of a match you expect to win by score alone...Death to the Dead can provide a ten point swing, and this card is a direct counter to being driven to crazy low health values on a single character because of burst [Armada] or other stacking effects [Port]. If you've ever lost a match because all characters are dead but Armada drove one of your characters to -22 HP, you'll understand how important evening the final score becomes. Obviously, the utility of this card is extremely variable and will be useless against certain decks, but can be a hard counter to decks that rely on overscoring with a big kill.

Personally, I think they should have somehow tagged Lightning Chain to interact uniquely with Lightning Rods. Instead of the Lightning Rod tagging the chain +1/+1/+1 (the reason they removed the buff D=), they should make it so each Rod buffs the chain by a single point only. What I mean is, the total damage is 9 [4+3+2]. So have each Rod buff the chain 1 point, to 10, 11, and 12. They could make it so it adds to the lowest value that hasn't already been buffed, so you get:

No Rods 4 + 3 + 2

1 Rods 4 + 3 + 3

2 Rods 4 + 4 + 3

3 Rods 5 + 4 + 3

It wouldn't exactly "save" Lightning Chain, but it would make it more useful in Pirate decks at least.

Just...no. This doesn't even make sense. Eggcatchers let you collect eggs FASTER, meaning you can get the trophies faster. The egg booster you get for every 750 collected has lottery tickets, and you get a small bonus in the way of two bonus cards that are regular, XP, Foil, or Egg of the Border.

If you're looking for the most efficient way to do this, buy three 3-card boosters because, as it states in the store, you get an eggcatcher with each of them, not just the premium/faction packs. You'll get 9 cards + 3 eggcatchers for 360 feez. Then go play a lot of games with the eggcatchers in your deck and collect eggs regularly. By using them, you'll level them up to level 2 quickly, and if you play enough they'll hit level 3. This jumps your usual egg-count per game by 3/6/9, which can literally double or more the rate at which you collect eggs.

Right, because you keep all the money you earn physically with you or your physical house, actually own nothing on your computer, and you can play with your real physical copies with anyone, anytime. And you've certainly never paid money that faces similarly poorly in price comparisons to see a movie in theater, watch a show in person, read a book before it came out in paperback cheap-edition...do I really need to make a full list of things we pay for everyday you can't physically hold in your hand?

Oh wait, that's not an argument about price, that's an argument about digital property! Jeez, how silly of me to assume you were going to make an actual argument about the value of preconstructed decks as a product and the intended market. People who buy booster boxes of Magic tend not to be precons. People who have considerably less money to throw at the game do, for exactly the reasons those with more money don't. If your concerns are about digital property, you don't buy digital property because your cost analysis makes it not worth your time unless it's free, or comes with some kind of tangible, physical backup such as verification codes, vouchers, or some such. So no, it isn't worth it for you. You're not new to the game, you don't have a collection with these particular gaping holes, you don't generally go for digital property by your arguments. For many other people, who you may well consider fools, it's actually a good deal.

I did mention I wasn't planning on buying these, right? [hint: yes, I did] I don't plan on buying an iPad or a dedicated gaming computer for pretty similar reasons. I don't have the expendable income, I personally find other things more entertaining for the money, my collection doesn't have those particular holes either. That doesn't alter their value for their intended markets or the companies that make them, or magically turn them into bad products.

Like I said, I'll spend my complaining time about things worth complaining about.