eBay insanity for May 2011

Ashur wrote:

Amenophobis wrote:

In other words: design flaw. A card that is powerful, does something unique and will definitely need multiples of in a deck, it should have been a common and not a rare.

I agree it is somewhat overpowered, but that last bit I don´t get. Isn´t the producer supposed to wanna sell boosters, ie by making a rare much sought after? And I rather draw another of a card I need many of than my 20th copy of Giant´s Blood.

Giant's Blood is very popular and I could give away copies on a regular basis if I had enough. (But that's beside the point.)

The combination of:

• a higly useful card, that you need multiple copies of to make it work
• such a card in the rare slot, where you are ensured to have few copies of that card

will make players hunt for that card unnecessarily. In the past, such cards had been (mostly) assigned to the common slots in boosters (e.g. Shadow Twin - wait, another useful non-reprinted card...).

Either the powerlevel of Summon History was underestimated (which infers either not enough playtesting or deaf ears of designers), or it was accepted that there would be MTG-like "chase" cards in the set.
Both explanations leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Ashur wrote:

Amenophobis wrote:

In other words: design flaw. A card that is powerful, does something unique and will definitely need multiples of in a deck, it should have been a common and not a rare.

I agree it is somewhat overpowered, but that last bit I don´t get. Isn´t the producer supposed to wanna sell boosters, ie by making a rare much sought after? And I rather draw another of a card I need many of than my 20th copy of Giant´s Blood.

In the past WW often printed hard sought cards in new sets or even in Starters to up their availability. That was a very kind move IMHO. So they are decisively NOT like the designers of the other game, what I appreciate.

Either the powerlevel of Summon History was underestimated (which infers either not enough playtesting or deaf ears of designers)

Summon History is not a powerful card.

It's a unique effect, sure. It's arguably a powerful effect, sure. The card is hardly powerful. There is zero need for everyone to have 10. It being a rare is good.

The argument you IMO should be trying to make is "HttB had too many rares".

Amenophobis wrote:

Either the powerlevel of Summon History was underestimated (which infers either not enough playtesting or deaf ears of designers)

It was not. A Summon History deck has won exactly 1 tournament, and it was a 15 player tournament. The $ price of a card does not make it overpowered.

Izaak wrote:

The argument you IMO should be trying to make is "HttB had too many rares".

And too many of them are Blood Tempering

Non-existant user wrote:

And too many of them are Blood Tempering

are we allowed to discuss HTTB playtesting yet?

either way, I don't think Summon History is overpowered, with its blood costs. if you only have 1 copy, use it to fetch a Remnant or Dog Pack or whatever, for toolboxy flavor. or discard it. if you play with 10 copies, your first action has to be to summon the Ankara Citadel just to afford playing the card one more time. and then you need a blood refill engine or you're stuck. it does cool stuff but it can easily fall apart.

another way to get big vampires for free: transfer them out and then Villein them. oh yeah, I guess that's what the "Girls..." decks are about.

likewise, Enkil Cog kinda sucks unless your big 10-pool vampire can untap, so they either need to be Masika or able to play Freak Drives. which goes to show that Freak Drive still rocks.