pe...@homer.ucsf.edu.ucsf.edu (Eric Pettersen) writes:
> WotC's had two choices: drop Jyhad completely, or try to obfuscate
>the second edition past retailers by changing the game's name and removing
>any links to the previous name, including card backs. Changing the card
>backs was a painful decision, but it was far too dangerous to retain the
>old backs: the game would be too easily recognizable as Jyhad. WotC has
>tried to justify the name change on moral grounds or as a means to penetrate
>new markets, but the real reason for the change is that they have made
>the name Jyhad economic poison.
That's totally absurd. When you consider that almost all the cards are going
to be identical (with the same artwork, purpose, etc., if not always the
exact same card text) and the card backs are going to have the same green
marble background with one word changed, no sane person would think that
changing that one word would disassociate V:tES from Jyhad. Besides, one of
the reason retailers are having so much trouble moving those cards these days
is that anyone who's not thoroughly incensed by the card back change such
that they would still consider buying V:tES is going to wait for the V:tES
cards to come out for totally obvious reasons. In short, the sales problems
(to the extent that they didn't already exist) are due to the card back
change, not the other way around.
Fred
WotC tells us that the name "Jyhad" offends their Mid-East
distributor. What they don't tell you is that Jyhad offends _all_ their
distributors and all their retailers. They're not morally offended;
they're financially offended. WotC soaked them with Jyhad.
It's all because of WotC's short-sighted, egotistical and greedy
decision to print 180 million Jyhad cards in the "limited" (what irony)
edition. They sold all 180 million. Distibutors and retailers seeing
Jyhad as the Next Big Thing from WotC, the company with the Midas touch,
the company that could do no wrong, snapped up the cards. Unfortunately
Jyhad was not the Next Big Thing. It was the next reasonably successful
but-no-MtG thing. Which means that distributors and retailers couldn't
sell anywhere near as many cards as they had on hand.
Here in San Francisco, for example, no CCG outlet is out of stock
for Jyhad despite the "limited" edition and the second printing being
overdue. One store has had Jyhad "on sale" for months now; starters $5
and boosters $1.50. I went in recently and, not spotting the Jyhad
immediately, asked them if they still had Jyhad starters. "Yes." the
sales clerk groaned, "hundreds." It's not hard to get a box of boosters
for $50 at any convention. At Manafest recently, one dealer was selling
boxes of boosters for $25 each! The dealer did manage to move all his
boxes at that price (a loss), most to another dealer. A friend of mine
asked the dealer why he was selling so low and the dealer replied that he
had had the boxes for months now and couldn't afford to have that much
money tied up in inventory so he had to sell them for what he could get.
Getting the picture? The name Jyhad is completely dead as a CCG
that you can market to retailers. Picture a retailer reading promotional
material for a forthcoming "umlimited edition" of Jyhad! He'd look at
his slow-moving inventory of dozen of boxes of "limited edition" Jyhad
and be rolling around on the floor laughing. "The Dark Sovereigns expansion
to Jyhad"; another gale of uncontrollable laughter.
WotC's had two choices: drop Jyhad completely, or try to obfuscate
the second edition past retailers by changing the game's name and removing
any links to the previous name, including card backs. Changing the card
backs was a painful decision, but it was far too dangerous to retain the
old backs: the game would be too easily recognizable as Jyhad. WotC has
tried to justify the name change on moral grounds or as a means to penetrate
new markets, but the real reason for the change is that they have made
the name Jyhad economic poison.
---
Eric Pettersen
pe...@cgl.ucsf.edu (NeXTmail capable)
In article <3v9c09$s...@murrow.corp.sgi.com>,
Chad McDaniel <ch...@engr.sgi.com> wrote:
>I disagree with your final point. I do think that one >good< reason for
>changing the name (regardless of the cardbacks) is that it more clearly
>communicates what the game is about. I have encountered many people who are
>muddled by the name Jyhad, but become interested when I mention that it is
>about vampires.
It's all marketing. White Wolf put out a game called "Rage",
and nobody I know didn't get the impression that it was about
werewolves. Why? WW are masters of flashy marketing (noseroids aside).
Jyhad would've been a fine seller if they had marketed it as a game about
vampires. Instead, it's marketed (look at the box) as a "Deckmaster"
game by Richard Garfield (by that I mean that the front of the box, the
prime eye-catching space, never once implies vampires, and if you turn
it over, more often than not the gold stripe of the cellophane around
the box is positioned right over top the "Vampire: the Masquerade"
name. Rage, on the other hand, has a werewolf on the front, and
mentions the Werewolf game right on the front).
I don't buy that Jyhad's lack of sales was because of the name.
It was because of poor marketing to the intended audience (and because
of complexity of rules, but that's not a bad thing).
| If you've got a hot lead on a new | *--Joe--*
| PC game, call the announce line at | js...@vt.edu
| ** csi...@discus.ise.vt.edu ** |
+-------------------------------------+----------------------------------
"There. That should do nicely. After all, we don't want the locals to
see grannies clipped to trash bins by their teeth, do we?" -- Mr. Gone
fhol...@utdallas.edu wrote:
>There seems to be some truth in what you're saying. VteS appears sure to
>become another vanity press item contributing to the "overhead" that
>drives up the price of MtG. I never spent enough time on Jyhad to play
>more than one game, but this episode (and various others) has soured me on
>both Jyhad and MtG (along with the rest of the sorry empire). One
>advantage for WotC of the relative failure of Jyhad is that there are
>relatively few bitter Jyhad buyers who, like me, now are staying away from
>MtG.
Peace be with you,
Allow me to add four more voices to your chorus of discontent. The core of my
Jyhad group (all Magic players) have also sworn off WotC products due to the
double whammy of card backs + price increase. There are more of us than WotC
believes. If they don't do a card exchange, I'll never spend another dollar
on WotC products.
Nil carborundum illigitimi,
James R. McClure Jr.
The OS/2 Apostle
<insert disclaimer here>
fre...@anthrax.cisco.com (Frederick Scott) wrote:
>changing that one word would disassociate V:tES from Jyhad. Besides, one of
>the reason retailers are having so much trouble moving those cards these days
>is that anyone who's not thoroughly incensed by the card back change such
>that they would still consider buying V:tES is going to wait for the V:tES
>cards to come out for totally obvious reasons. In short, the sales problems
>(to the extent that they didn't already exist) are due to the card back
>change, not the other way around.
>
>Fred
I disagree with your final point. I do think that one >good< reason for
changing the name (regardless of the cardbacks) is that it more clearly
communicates what the game is about. I have encountered many people who are
muddled by the name Jyhad, but become interested when I mention that it is
about vampires.
My point: I think that changing the name will increase sales because of better
product recognition by jane (or joe) random who happens to be in a game store.
Often, those of us with internet access often forget how little information the
general populace has about such things. I would bet that most jyhad players
don't even know about the impeding name change.
--
-chad
Eric Pettersen <pe...@homer.ucsf.edu.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> WotC tells us that the name "Jyhad" offends their Mid-East
>distributor. What they don't tell you is that Jyhad offends _all_ their
>distributors and all their retailers. They're not morally offended;
>they're financially offended. WotC soaked them with Jyhad.
> It's all because of WotC's short-sighted, egotistical and greedy
>decision to print 180 million Jyhad cards in the "limited" (what irony)>edition...
We printed Jyhad based on pre-orders. We were actually somewhat skeptical that
that much limited edition of any game could sell, but what do you think the
reaction would have been if we had said "Sorry, we refuse to sell you all
those cards?" People might have understand that *now*, but would they have
then? Of course not; everyone was assuming it would be the next Magic.
Yes, Jyhad was overprinted for a limited edition game. But we gave the
distributors and retailers what they asked for.
>They sold all 180 million.
Actually, that's not true.
>Distibutors and retailers seeing
>Jyhad as the Next Big Thing from WotC, the company with the Midas touch,
>the company that could do no wrong, snapped up the cards. Unfortunately
>Jyhad was not the Next Big Thing. It was the next reasonably successful
>but-no-MtG thing. Which means that distributors and retailers couldn't
>sell anywhere near as many cards as they had on hand.
Well, then they guess wrong on how much Jyhad they could sell. They
overordered without having seen the game. Speculators probably fueled
a lot of that market. But we didn't force the cards on anyone; people
ordered them.
> Getting the picture? The name Jyhad is completely dead as a CCG
>that you can market to retailers. Picture a retailer reading promotional
>material for a forthcoming "umlimited edition" of Jyhad! He'd look at
>his slow-moving inventory of dozen of boxes of "limited edition" Jyhad
>and be rolling around on the floor laughing. "The Dark Sovereigns expansion
>to Jyhad"; another gale of uncontrollable laughter.
Well, that retailer either a) got in after Jyhad was released, so doesn't
understand the history, or b) was part of the ordering binge, so should
know exactly what went on, and accept that he/she was most likely
part of the problem.
No, we aren't sticking the retailers, or the distributors, with all of the
blame (such as there is) for the overprinting of Jyhad. But the blame is
quite clearly shared by all.
> WotC's had two choices: drop Jyhad completely, or try to obfuscate
>the second edition past retailers by changing the game's name and removing
>any links to the previous name, including card backs. Changing the card
>backs was a painful decision, but it was far too dangerous to retain the
>old backs: the game would be too easily recognizable as Jyhad. WotC has
>tried to justify the name change on moral grounds or as a means to penetrate
>new markets, but the real reason for the change is that they have made
>the name Jyhad economic poison.
This is a nice conspiracy theory, but it has little to nothing to do with
reasons for changing the name and card backs.
Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative for
aa...@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
James R. McClure Jr. <jmcc...@e-mail.kdp-baptist.louisville.edu> wrote:
>Allow me to add four more voices to your chorus of discontent. The core of my
>Jyhad group (all Magic players) have also sworn off WotC products due to the>double whammy of card backs + price increase...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Magic has been out for *two years*. Think about that. Overhead for producing
the game has gone up a lot in that time. Exchange rates change, the price of
paper of all kinds is going up all over the world, etc. It was simply not
economically feasible to continue selling the game at the old prices. One
cannot stay in business by taking a loss every time one sells product. Well
it would be swell and great if the price of Magic (and our other products)
never changed, that's not how reality works.
[ quoted text not captured ]
aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) wrote:
>James R. McClure Jr. <jmcc...@e-mail.kdp-baptist.louisville.edu> wrote:>>Allow me to add four more voices to your chorus of discontent. The core of my
>>Jyhad group (all Magic players) have also sworn off WotC products due to the
>>double whammy of card backs + price increase...> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Magic has been out for *two years*. Think about that. Overhead for producing
>the game has gone up a lot in that time. Exchange rates change, the price of
>paper of all kinds is going up all over the world, etc. It was simply not
>economically feasible to continue selling the game at the old prices. One
>cannot stay in business by taking a loss every time one sells product. Well
>it would be swell and great if the price of Magic (and our other products)
>never changed, that's not how reality works.
Peace Tom,
Your (WotC's) expenses have increased to the point that a 25% increase is necessary?
Seems kinda steap to increase the price of your game by 12.5% per year. If your
overhead (paper & printing costs) are going up, why is Companion Games reducing
the prices on their starter decks by almost 50%?
Plus, you are attempting to sidetrack the real problem, the unnecessary card back
change. If WotC made a mistake on putting "Jyhad" on the backs of the cards, they
should accept responsibility for their mistake and not force their customers to
rebuy their entire collections (at a 25% increase in retail cost).
[ quoted text not captured ]
In article <3vi42d$n...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R
Wylie) wrote:
>
> Magic has been out for *two years*. Think about that. Overhead for producing
> the game has gone up a lot in that time. Exchange rates change, the price of
> paper of all kinds is going up all over the world, etc. It was simply not
> economically feasible to continue selling the game at the old prices. One
> cannot stay in business by taking a loss every time one sells product. Well
> it would be swell and great if the price of Magic (and our other products)
> never changed, that's not how reality works.
>
>> Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative for
> aa...@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
I think the problem here is convincing anyone that you're not making
"enough" money when you're selling two little cards (scraps of
paper--albeit pretty and fun to play with scraps of paper) for a quarter!
Granted, the cards are quality (say $2.50 Bicycle card quality vs
$0.30/pack cheap card deck)--but it's still two dinky little pieces of
paper for a quarter. How can you not be making money hand over fist at
this?!
I do not want to point fingers or to lay blame, I just want to know if
WoC will commit to this game after the "redirection" and relaunching of
VtES. Are there sales conditions on continued support? Were they met
by the pre-orders? What is the future for this game now that the change
is done and over with?
Concerned player...
On 31 Jul 1995, Thomas R Wylie wrote:
>
> James R. McClure Jr. <jmcc...@e-mail.kdp-baptist.louisville.edu> wrote:
> >Allow me to add four more voices to your chorus of discontent. The core of my
> >Jyhad group (all Magic players) have also sworn off WotC products due to the
> >double whammy of card backs + price increase...
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> Magic has been out for *two years*. Think about that. Overhead for producing
> the game has gone up a lot in that time. Exchange rates change, the price of
> paper of all kinds is going up all over the world, etc. It was simply not
> economically feasible to continue selling the game at the old prices. One
> cannot stay in business by taking a loss every time one sells product. Well
> it would be swell and great if the price of Magic (and our other products)
> never changed, that's not how reality works.
>
>
> Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative for
> aa...@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
Here's my .02 on this arguement...if it has become a matter of exchange
rates, why don't you guys get an American printing house to do you game
printing? Here's an even more novel idea( don't give me the C*R*A*P about
how you can't find a printing house in the states either, I know people
who run printing houses and they could do the job _easily_):
Have Carta Mundi continue printing your games for the European
market, thiswould cut down on your importation costs, while here in the
states another printing house works on the games for distribution here.
Tell me that wouldn't be more cost effective in the long run. Plus it
would havethe added bonus of shutting up all those whiners who complain
about the "slow distribution of Ice age and 4th Ed.", which is
"forcing"(HAHAHAHAHAHA) the retailers to sell at a higher price.
-Rob International Economic Analyst at the wonderful University of
Oregon-look out Penn!!!we'll be back....
In article <3vi3sd$n...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>,
Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote:
>Eric Pettersen <pe...@homer.ucsf.edu.ucsf.edu> wrote:>>They sold all 180 million.>
>Actually, that's not true.
When I made the assertation that you (WotC) sold out of the run,
you acknowledged that you had, even though distributors and retailers
hadn't. Which is correct?
[ quoted text not captured ]
> Magic has been out for *two years*. Think about that. Overhead for
producing
> the game has gone up a lot in that time. Exchange rates change, the
price of
> paper of all kinds is going up all over the world, etc. It was simply
not
> economically feasible to continue selling the game at the old prices.
One
> cannot stay in business by taking a loss every time one sells product.
Well
> it would be swell and great if the price of Magic (and our other
products)
> never changed, that's not how reality works.
>
>
> Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative
for
> aa...@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
I've been wondering what all that overhead WotC has been undertaking
(largest staff in the gaming industry by far, etc) has been doing to the
bottom line. If WotC really needs to raise its prices already, it bodes
ill for the future. Uncontrolled overhead has squashed many a promising
growth company.
Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)
fre...@anthrax.cisco.com (Frederick Scott) wrote:
> pe...@homer.ucsf.edu.ucsf.edu (Eric Pettersen) writes:> > WotC's had two choices: drop Jyhad completely, or try to obfuscate
> >the second edition past retailers by changing the game's name and
> >removing any links to the previous name, including card backs. Changing
> >the card backs was a painful decision, but it was far too dangerous to
> >retain the old backs: the game would be too easily recognizable as
> >Jyhad. WotC has tried to justify the name change on moral grounds or
> >as a means to penetrate new markets, but the real reason for the change
> >is that they have made the name Jyhad economic poison.> That's totally absurd. When you consider that almost all the cards are> going to be identical (with the same artwork, purpose, etc., if not
> always the exact same card text) and the card backs are going to have
> the same green marble background with one word changed, no sane person> would think that changing that one word would disassociate V:tES from> Jyhad. Besides, one of the reason retailers are having so much trouble
> moving those cards these days is that anyone who's not thoroughly incensed
> by the card back change such that they would still consider buying V:tES
> is going to wait for the V:tES cards to come out for totally obvious
> reasons. In short, the sales problems (to the extent that they didn't
> already exist) are due to the card back change, not the other way around.
You know, you could be right. But I wouldn't dismiss the idea so
lightly if I were you. That one word on the card backs is critically
important in convincing retailers that VtES is, in fact, for all intents
and purposes a new game. The name is different, the rules are different,
the card fronts are _noticeably_ different (the text of many cards is
changed and more importantly the black borders are replaced by different
colors for different card types), and finally the card backs _are_ different.
If the card backs didn't change, then the assertion that VtES is a different
game would be substantially weakened.
The real test as to whether the name change was motivated by
deceiving retailers will occur when VtES actually comes out. If it is
virtually impossible to tell that V:tES was Jyhad from the exterior packaging
and marketing displays for VtES, then I think it would be clear what
motivated the name change.
By the way, I think that your assertion that Jyhad sales problems
are due to the card back change (i.e. there is some large market of people
that don't yet own many Jyhad cards and are just waiting for VtES) is
absurd. :-)
[ quoted text not captured ]
aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) wrote:
> Eric Pettersen <pe...@homer.ucsf.edu.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> > WotC's had two choices: drop Jyhad completely, or try to obfuscate
> >the second edition past retailers by changing the game's name and
> >removing any links to the previous name, including card backs. Changing
> >the card backs was a painful decision, but it was far too dangerous to
> >retain the old backs: the game would be too easily recognizable as
> >Jyhad. WotC has tried to justify the name change on moral grounds or
> >as a means to penetrate new markets, but the real reason for the change
> >is that they have made the name Jyhad economic poison.> This is a nice conspiracy theory, but it has little to nothing to do> with reasons for changing the name and card backs.
Well, no good conspiracy theory is complete without an official
denial. Thanks for helping out. :-)
[ quoted text not captured ]
In article <3vi42d$n...@darkstar.ucsc.edu>,
Thomas R Wylie <aa...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote:
>>James R. McClure Jr. <jmcc...@e-mail.kdp-baptist.louisville.edu> wrote:>>Allow me to add four more voices to your chorus of discontent. The core of my
>>Jyhad group (all Magic players) have also sworn off WotC products due to the
>>double whammy of card backs + price increase...> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>Magic has been out for *two years*. Think about that. Overhead for producing
>the game has gone up a lot in that time. Exchange rates change, the price of
>paper of all kinds is going up all over the world, etc. It was simply not
>economically feasible to continue selling the game at the old prices. One
>cannot stay in business by taking a loss every time one sells product. Well
>it would be swell and great if the price of Magic (and our other products)
>never changed, that's not how reality works.
>
Just thought I'd back the Voice of the Company here. In various trade
magazines (such as Advertising Age, which is where I got this info from),
paper is currently in high demand right now. Little peices of cardboard
aren't just the things you'll be seeing go up in price shortly;
newspapers and magazines are going to be hit hard. Smaller catalog
warehouse specialty shops are going to be hit harder. The price of paper
right now is very high either these types of companies are being forced
to raise prices or disappear altogether.
In article <3vi42d$n...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) writes:
>From: aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie)
>Subject: Re: The cynical truth about the name change
>Date: 31 Jul 1995 08:25:49 GMT>James R. McClure Jr. <jmcc...@e-mail.kdp-baptist.louisville.edu> wrote:>>Allow me to add four more voices to your chorus of discontent. The core of my
>>Jyhad group (all Magic players) have also sworn off WotC products due to the
>>double whammy of card backs + price increase...> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>Magic has been out for *two years*. Think about that. Overhead for producing
>the game has gone up a lot in that time. Exchange rates change, the price of
>paper of all kinds is going up all over the world, etc. It was simply not
>economically feasible to continue selling the game at the old prices. One
>cannot stay in business by taking a loss every time one sells product. Well
>it would be swell and great if the price of Magic (and our other products)
>never changed, that's not how reality works.
I must be missing something, somewhere......
What's the problem with the card backs being changed???? You can still
play w/ original Jyhad cards....and if you mark you cards by card backs
then it will be just as easy for the other person to tell what card is
next if they are paying attention.....I mean..the change isnothing that
will make an edition almost useless like alpha MTG is....
Joseph Cochran <js...@discus.ise.vt.edu> wrote:
>>>They sold all 180 million.>>Actually, that's not true.> When I made the assertation that you (WotC) sold out of the run,
>you acknowledged that you had, even though distributors and retailers
>hadn't. Which is correct?
At one time I was under the mistaken impression that the run had sold out.
It later developed that this wasn't quite true, but it didn't occur to me
that it might be important to post that information here.
[ quoted text not captured ]
[ quoted text not captured ]
We plan to put our full support behind the game. The first expansion
will be out soon, the PPG will be out soon after that, and the second
expansion is already being planned. There are no special conditions
on whether we will continue to produce or support the game. Pre-orders
have exceeded all expectations.
[ quoted text not captured ]
Robert Matthew Edens <red...@gladstone.uoregon.edu> wrote:
> Here's my .02 on this arguement...if it has become a matter of exchange
>rates, why don't you guys get an American printing house to do you game
>printing? Here's an even more novel idea( don't give me the C*R*A*P about
>how you can't find a printing house in the states either, I know people
>who run printing houses and they could do the job _easily_):
You'd think it would be easy, but it isn't. Printing houses simply aren't
set up to handle the kind of requirements that deckmaster games have. And
the cards *do* have to be identical to what Carte Mundi produces. If the
card dimensions are off by even 1/100 of an inch, you can pick the larger
card out of a deck of smaller ones almost infallibly. We also need to make
sure that the paper and finish are the same, that they can collate the
cards reasonably, etc. It's not really a question, at this point, of finding
print houses *willing* to do the job. It's a question of finding ones that
are *able* to, or willing expand their facilities appropriately, and that
can charge competitive rates.
[ quoted text not captured ]
Thomas R Wylie (aa...@cats.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: Robert Matthew Edens <red...@gladstone.uoregon.edu> wrote:
: > Here's my .02 on this arguement...if it has become a matter of exchange
: >rates, why don't you guys get an American printing house to do you game
: >printing? Here's an even more novel idea( don't give me the C*R*A*P about
: >how you can't find a printing house in the states either, I know people
: >who run printing houses and they could do the job _easily_):: You'd think it would be easy, but it isn't. Printing houses simply aren't
: set up to handle the kind of requirements that deckmaster games have. And
: the cards *do* have to be identical to what Carte Mundi produces. If the
: card dimensions are off by even 1/100 of an inch, you can pick the larger
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: card out of a deck of smaller ones almost infallibly. We also need to make
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tom,
Why would this be a problem? Are you suggesting that being able to tell
the difference between two sets of cards might affect the game in some
unwanted way? Be careful, now...
Brand
--
br...@iglou.com Vice Pope of Dogbert's New Ruling Class
--------------- The unexamined life is not worth living;
the unexamined reality is not worth inhabiting.
mys...@water.waterw.com wrote:
>What's the problem with the card backs being changed???? You can still
>play w/ original Jyhad cards....and if you mark you cards by card backs
>then it will be just as easy for the other person to tell what card is
>next if they are paying attention.....I mean..the change isnothing that
>will make an edition almost useless like alpha MTG is....
Peace Mystic,
OK, explain to me how Alpha Mt$ cards are "useless," but Jyhad cards
won't be. Mixed decks DO make a difference. WotC has said so (see
the Mt$ tournament rules). I'm saying so. So far, most people who
have responded have said so. I am truely interested in why you feel
that Alphas are spoilers, but VtES cards won't be.
[ quoted text not captured ]
In article <400tqn$9...@hermes.louisville.edu>, "James R. McClure Jr."
<jmcc...@e-mail.kdp-baptist.louisville.edu> wrote:
> mys...@water.waterw.com wrote:
> >What's the problem with the card backs being changed???? You can still
> >play w/ original Jyhad cards....and if you mark you cards by card backs
> >then it will be just as easy for the other person to tell what card is
> >next if they are paying attention.....I mean..the change isnothing that
> >will make an edition almost useless like alpha MTG is....
>
> Peace Mystic,
>
> OK, explain to me how Alpha Mt$ cards are "useless," but Jyhad cards
> won't be. Mixed decks DO make a difference. WotC has said so (see
> the Mt$ tournament rules). I'm saying so. So far, most people who
> have responded have said so. I am truely interested in why you feel
> that Alphas are spoilers, but VtES cards won't be.
One possibility: Alphas are detectable INSIDE a deck. VtES cards will
only be distinguishable when on top.
J. Andrew Lipscomb <ew...@chattanooga.net, them...@delphi.com>
PGP keys by request
Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian.
Karl J. Hiller <br...@iglou.iglou.com> wrote:
>Why would this be a problem? Are you suggesting that being able to tell
>the difference between two sets of cards might affect the game in some
>unwanted way? Be careful, now...
As I have stated several times during the card back debate, being able
to tell something about the top card on the library is a lot less interesting
than being able to tell something about any given card in the library.
Mixing alpha cards in with non-alpha cards, in Magic, gives you much more
information about what's coming up than only being able to know something
about the top card.
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