[ABU][Finace] Copper Tablet

[Alex]

Copper Tablet (Apha, Beta, Unlimited) è una carta iconica, discontinuata con le revised, perfetta come upgrade nel mazzo COMMANDER Endless Punishmen con Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls. Tra le varie carte che hanno spikato in questi giorni (aprirò i relativi topic, ndr) perché producono effetti simili questa sicuramente e' quella con la disponibilità più limitata ed a mio avviso anche la più bella, per l'effetto nostalgia che porta con se.

Si tratta però di un investimento abbastanza pericoloso perchè essendo uncommon potrebbe vedere prima o poi la sua prima ristampa, un po' come successe a Consecrate Land in Time Spiral Timeshifted, che ne disintegrò il valore.

Salirà ancora a mio avviso, se ce l'avete valutate il da farsi...

[Alex]

OT, dal libro della genesi secondo Richard Garfield:

Spoiler:

ABU Cards Omitted from Revised: Why?

There are 33 cards appearing in ABU that were left out of Revised. I'd like to have a discussion on why we think that's so. I know the were some notes from R&D that existed on this topic long ago (I recall Time Vault being called "a spoiler" in Garfield's notes, meaning it was too powerful to be reprinted), but no idea if anyone has seen those or they're archived somewhere. But let's take a stab at it.

Too Powerful

Obvious offenders: Ancestral Recall, Berserk, Black Lotus, Moxes, Time Walk, Timetwiser, Time Vault

Less obvious offenders:

Forcefield: If you've played against this, it's really powerful. A CoP for all colors for every deck is better not being made widely available.
Icy Manipulator: In the earliest days, this really could bring games to a screeching halt and combos with Winter Orb for maximum unfun. It took until Ice Age 2 years later to come back.
Invisibility: (Not sure here). Combos with Juggernaut?
Psionic Blast: We all know how strong this card really is. It's out of flavor too.

Too Confusing

Blaze of Glory, False Orders, Two-Headed Giant of Foriys: Cards that mess with combat assignments were all taken out, so I assume it's over confusion, although modern rules support it well.
Camouflage: Have you looked at the Oracle text for this card?
Chaos Orb: The lore on this card can fill books.
Cyclopean Tomb: Using counters to mark land changes and removing them one at a time each turn is a lot of bookkeeping.
Illusionary Mask: Remember the days when continuous abilities of creatures applied under the Mask? "I attack you for lethal." "Nope, I don't die. I'm at 1." "Why?" "Something makes that happen." "What something?" "Something." If you didn't know Ali from Cairo was a thing, you were seriously confused here and probably thought yor opponent is cheating.
Jade Statue: I think that it only is a creature for part of the turn is strange? When you need to activate this is not as well defined in the early rules and I suppose was troublesome for early players?
Raging River: My favorite part of this is that it refers to "the River" without saying what that means. :p It's intuitively clear what this is supposed to do but the bookkeeping is annoying.
Word of Command: This card really didn't work under the rules of the time because you couldn't cast spells without the mana existing in your pool and you couldn't tap for mana during the resolution of a spell until 6th Edition.

That leaves the following cards:

Consecrate Land
Copper Tablet
Dwarven Demolition Team
Gauntlet of Might (Secondo me troppo forti per l'epoca, ndr)
Ice Storm
Lich (Secondo me troppo complicata per l'epoca, ndr)
Natural Selection
Sinkhole

What category do you think those cards belong to? Do you think I've miscategorized anything above?

There is, of course, a third category I've omitted: "Just not that interesting." In making room for cards from AN and AQ, something had to go and some cards may have been removed just because the new stuff was more interesting. "Too weak" is a harder sell considering that the Laces and Farmstead are still in Revised, but it may be that too.

From the Duelist

“Some cards that appeared in the Limited and Unlimited editions have been replaced in the Revised Edition with cards from Arabian Nights and Antiquities, the first two Magic: The Gathering expansion sets. There are several reasons for these substitutions. According to Magic's creator, Richard Garfield, and the original design team, cards being replaced fall into three broad categories: There are the "mystifiers cards that were too confusing for most players, or led to too many paradoxes, or defied too many of the basic Magic rules. Then there are the "spoilers", the cards whose effects were out of proportion. These cards had a tendency to throw entire games out of whack, and were only fun when they were on your side. It is no coincidence that many of these cards appear on the Duelists' Convocation Restricted or Banned list. Finally there are the "retirees" , cards which are simply being phased out. Richard always intended for the card set to be fluid and for some of the old cards to be periodically replaced by new ones. So some of the cards were selected for "retirement." This is not to say that they will never be back, or that similar cards won't show up in future expansions.”

[fabrimagic]

Molto interessante questa analisi