An Absolute Failure Of A Magic: The Gathering Product | Innistrad Double Feature Is Not Worth It
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- Опубликовано: 26 янв 2022
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Don't Buy Kamigawa Neon Dynasty! Just buy these 5 cards for Commander instead: ruclips.net/video/9JnYq6xG9Cg/видео.html
Boy, love this video but this comment is clickbait!
you went 'that low' and has made 2 shorts by now
Y66⁶⁶7⁶⁶⁶y y thy_yy6y.
finally i can get the "crappy proxies i made with a b/w printer" feeling i always wanted
Careful, they might do dot matrix next!
And for premium price too! Wowee, it's the whole financially irresponsible decisions simulator all wrapped up into a lazily made shit looking package! Thank you wotc, I knew you truly had the interests of your community's wallets at heart
I was about to comment that. Wonder when they'll do "Secret lair: proxies" where they're 5 basic lands of each color, printed as if someone had written a color appropriate proxy card with a Sharpie on them.
@@justinclement5417 nope, and won't beat a básic land with "+" written on it with a Sharpie, imo
@@justinclement5417 yes, as an aesthetic art style. I meant on a literal dot-matrix printer.
"Double feature includes [select] cards from Crimson Vow and Midnight Hunt"
WoTC: "pays cleave cost"
Is the cleave cost 10 bucks per pack? If so, seems we're paying it.
That was cle[a]ver of you
*Also paid cleave cost*
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
"Double feature includes all [curated] cards from Crimson Vow and Midnight Hunt"
What's funny about removing the full art lands is that those were the actual cards whose artwork was originally intended to be appreciated in Black and White. This Black and White set has all but the cards that actually worked in b&w.
Until this video, I didn't know double feature was premium priced. It didn't ever occur to me as a possibility that they'd charge more for it.
Dude fr. I was actually ready to purchase a few packs until I saw that.
It’s not JUST that. Even if it was priced the same as two packs, you’re still getting half the cards
@@harryosborne8215 no, we assumed it was going to be priced as a normal Standard pack, because that's basically what it is.
Slightly more like 6$ might have made it worth it.
But 8-10$ ..nah
You don't know wotc🤣
This is why I love the prof. He is speaks his mind even if Wizards doesn’t want him to.
Thats why he isnt sponsored by WOTC like the Gameknights are.
And still people will calll him a sellout if he speaks a little too positive of a product
@@nik700 Right? As if this dude isn't the Bernie Sanders of MtG.
@@owlbedamned4034 yikes, bad comparison
@@owlbedamned4034 I dont think that is the right analogy but ok.
I initially thought this may be a good idea... But $9.99 a pack WHAT?!? Ridiculous.... And a booster box only has 24 packs.. wow... The effort here is insulting to customers at that price... Black and white of 100% of the 2 sets cards no new artwork ... duplicates and all .. wow congrats Wizards you win the laziness award of 2022 in just the first month of the year.
I usually frown upon Americans when they typically accuse someone of "lazyness", because this accusation is based on the preconceived idea that if you try hard enough, you succeed - which is seldomly true. But this product, yes, screams "lazyness" in the most cynical way: there is no need to make any effort for a good gameplay experience, since Double Feature is intended to be hoarded as a limited edition (which do not equate to better) rather than played seriously. Wizards of the Coast is a double-headed monster, with on one head a talented team at its best, and on the the other head shareholders only interested in profit.
Laziness award already in january? They just are too lazy to wait for later...
@@lebdainazim9880 Americans call people lazy because they are. There's infinite ways to succeed from nothing in America but entitled millenials think they're too important to lower themselves to a $35 hourly wage plus benefits garbage disposal job and so everyone else should give up their hard earned comfort to accommodate them through government handouts.
The only real injustice in the American economy is the housing market, for everything else you get what you give.
Even at 4 a pack I was dubious about this, but upon hearing its 10 a pack!!! I would have spit my coffee out if I hadn’t finished it beforehand. Sad
@@Stroggoii I don't disagree with that, nor do I agree (I am not familiar enough with this particuliar topic). I was talking about laziness in artistic creation. Often, there are artists who are accused of laziness if the quality is not up to the expectations, but there may be many other reasons. Investors forcing design decisions upon them, or unsustainable deadlines. Maybe they are not experienced enough if it's their first project, or maybe they overestimated the scope of the project versus manpower or artistic mastery. Maybe they failed to understand what people expected. Etc. Oftentimes, a project can fail, despite large amount of work. In this case, I feel it is very unfair to dismiss designers by calling them "lazy" without any sense of context, when they really tried their best!
To put less effort in, they could have just sticky-taped two packs together. But that might have been a better product.
If you took 2 boosters from each set, sticky taped stick together and charged 11 dollars. You buyer would still get a better product, in full color.
So yeah you are fully right.
I've said this elsewhere, but if WotC truly wished to make an appealing product in this fashion, they should have commissioned black and white art in the style of horror comics. And had it been a curated selection, they would not need to have every single card redone in that way. But alas, they chose the low-effort route just to put a product in stores until Neon Dynasty is released.
That would have cost them too much. It's a cash grab
"Okay. Hear me out, guys. What if we just print off stickers that say 'Double Feature', put them on all of our box inventory for both sets - covering up the 'Midnight Hunt' or 'Crimson Vow' language - then just dump random packs from each set into each box?" - "I hear you, but what if we also cut it from 36 packs to 24 packs?" - "Um, just spitballing here,. but could we also reduce printing cost by making the cards greyscale?" - "I like where this going, team. But maybe we could also collect addresses of purchasers so that we could each personally punch them in the nuts? Figuratively speaking. Or literally. Whatever works best."
"No, no, think of the cost of transporting people to their houses to do that!" "You're right, shit! Hey, don't put those packs in yet! If we randomize it, they might just get a box of mostly one or the other! Open the packs, mix them all up, and reseal them!" "Genius!"
To be fair, it was selected cards from both sets.
They just selected all the cards.
Ctrl + a, ctrl + c, ctrl +v
Hey, now. Give them a little credit! They took out the basic lands!
What really gets me is that the full art land's are literally the only thing I liked about the new Innistrad set, and they didn't Include them in double feature
For real lol, leaving out the best common in each pack.
@@joe.5103 Exactly! What were the thinking? Lol
@@joe.5103 they are rare
How it could have been lazier: Some print runs were entirely misprint in black-and-white and WOTC decided to call it a special art treatment.
I said this on your colleague's video already, but imagine how cool it would have been if you could have got a random OG Innistrad block rare (ala Mystical Archives), in the movie-poster style. Then the set would have truly felt like a celebration of the plane, and people would have cracked these like mad to get a playset of LoTV.
This is what they should’ve done. I have my hopes up for kamigowa. It looks like they are putting much more effort into it on every aspect
Yeah, the old border slot in TSR was just as fun or even more so than the rare slot, with tons of well picked cards! Double Feature is quadruply disappointing.
The movie poster style would have been super cool but I can buy them not wanting to put the money in for those highly risky and hard to pull off art styles. But to be a game design studio and not even do any game designing, that's sad. These sets were for Innistrad fans and I just feel like they didn't really get much of what they wanted. Some reprints in draft really could have made something special without needing to design new cards or commission any new art.
@@kspice6807 If Strixhaven Archives could have the staggeringly insane artwork for Faithless Looting that it did (you all know exactly which one I'm talking about - I personally love it, but it's easily the strangest Magic card art since the modern border was implemented), I don't buy that it was too risky - I think it was too expensive to commission that new art. Y'know, cuts too much into that "we're gonna charge twice as much for the exact same cards" plan.
Lord of the Void?
This whole product just feels like several layers of internal miscommunication stacked into a single product, like if at one point R&D were considering making an actual curated draft product, then nixed the idea for whatever reason but forgot to tell the marketing department who had by then already come up with this great idea of doing everything in black and white but forgot to tell the art department to let the artists know that all their work was going to be reprinted in greyscale.
Working in a big corporate setting I can ABSOLUTELY see this happening
I'm going with this explanation going forward
Yea this seems pretty intuitively likely
Considering they themselves said this wasn’t suppose to be 2 sets but 1 probably should’ve been a dead giveaway that’s something was off and then we saw the final reveals of Crimson vow, it doesn’t take a genius to see that these sets are not designed like back in the day when sets were purposefully meant to work with eachother as an entire 3 part block since there was literal formats based on that like block constructed and sets were judged on that.
At least when they stopped those formats and just did 2c they didn’t try to sell people on some garbage like “hey guys, here’s a box of double Kaladeah block. Give us 10$ plz”
I actually doubt it. WOTC works two years in advance - I bet the original plan was to do a curated draft set with maybe some neat alts. But then standard died on the grapevine, and someone at WOTC clocked that nobody would want to buy a mishmash of the two most recent standard sets. So they slashed the funding to the bare minimum and moved on. Somebody might've forgot to alter the marketing, but I bet the core issue here is WOTC spotting a dud and cutting their losses.
The Professor is the voice of the people. He says what we need to hear and what WotC needs to hear. Wizards would finally have a conscience if they had him on their staff.
You know, I was kinda feeling that with Midnight Hunt/Crimson Vow. The two sets do NOT work together, there was literally more synergy between Zendikar Rising and Kaldheim than there is between these two sets.
Right? Kaldheim supports the adventure gimmick more than the wolves or vamps in these separate sets work together, *at all*
That's because this was a one off divided into two. Sets like Kamigawa on the other hand, would have benefitted being at least two setss.
Me: Yeah, the grayscale is boring and the backtracking on the curated list is embarrassing. But this can’t be fail.
Prof: It sells for $9.99.
Me: Holy Avacyn! WHY!?!?
You could also say " Holy buttocks of Bolas!". That is my personal favorite.
Get yourself a church
Those will sell for 8€ in 2 months top
And don't forget 24 packs in a box Double Feature! I heard "Double Flying Knee" was the code name of this set before it was announced
its not even BLACK AND WHITE ARTWORK - its color artwork with COLORS REMOVED. its DOWNGRADED - its broken, its worse, its trash!
This set is so fucking shitty....
Prof, always love how you advocate for us, the consumers. Been watching you for 5 years and hope to some day meet you in person! Thanks for everything you do.
Remember when other RUclipsrs were accusing the Prof as a Wizards shill
@@cmdrjanjalani when I first got back into magic (right before the riculousness if the Quartering), I thought that.. Fortunately for us all I was mistaken.
I hope to play a game one day too!! My favorite on RUclips and ive said it before I feel like he would fit right in here at my LGS and vice versa
When this got announced I was so excited. I've never been so wholly disappointed in a magic product.
What’s really upsetting to me, is what a lost opportunity. This could have been amazing. Imagine a set curated not just with these two sets, but across the full history of magic involving werewolves and vampires. It could have been epic. Even with just original Innistrad and these sets. Ah well! Guess I won’t be buying it.
This set is by far the biggest cash grab I have seen WOTC make. Utterly ridiculous. At least Double Masters (while expensive) gave a good game experience and valuable reprints.
I got some great cards from double masters as singles so I can’t say it was awful. Definitely too whaley though.
Yeah this is such a money grab. I bought a display Double Masters and it gave me several high value cards but both sets contain hardly any value. This set will only push down prices even further so you even will get less value. I can only hope people do not buy this otherwise it is just another signal to WotC management that the player base will put up with anything.
Such a missed opportunity here. This could have been so cool had they put in even a modicum of effort
Well, WOTC never miss and opportunity to miss an opportunity these days. That's pretty sad, let's hope returning to Kamigawa will bring better tidings.
This is worse than putting no effort. They had to decolorize the cards, *effort was invested in making these cards a worse product.*
It's as if there were plans to curate/alt art a subset of cards, but then something went wrong internally and this is the stop gap response
Reprint sets are never cool in my opinion. New cards are just far more interesting. Battlebond/Jumpstart >> Master sets in cool factor.
@@DreamingIconoclast did they intentionally set the bar so low in comparison to the next set because they want to sell more of it? Maybe this is business strategy to illustrate how bad a product can be, so other mediocre products look like gold. 🤔
Those movie poster cards look so cool! A full set of that I'd say would definitely be worth the cost as a novel experience. This feels like peak money grubbing laziness
Thanks Professor!!! I discovered your channel a few weeks ago and I'm loving it, you made me rediscover my love for Magic (I left the game some years ago due to various circumstances). I was planning to get this product because I like Innistrad and I actually like the black and White artwork but seeing this maybe I would grab something else. Or wait for the Warhammer 40k crossover
Cheers and welcome!
That was all without mentioning how difficult it is to evaluate an opponents board state at a glance with grayscale cards
First time someone played one of these, the whole game ground to a halt while everyone figured out what was happening. They're particularly disorienting in a mixed manabase; "I'll tap this all black card for a red mana, and..."
Damn. True.
So it’s perfect for cheater X)
I didn't find the Gray scale to affect my experience. Even though it was reprint and quite expensive I like the rest of the draft and how good the cards looked! Except the foils... dear lord those sucked
They used the "select all" function to select the cards.
Underrated reply
I remember from one of your previous videos the idea that the customer expectation ought to be that every set hits a home run. There was a consideration that this is not always possible, but despite this it should not force us to lower our expectations. This product in contrast makes it seem like they did not even swing the bat.
I don't even think they got on the field with this one, let alone swing the bat...
I think this counts as a repeat of first 2 Swings and misses of Innistrad "block"
I gotta say, I like the little detail of the subscribe reminder popping up in a way that lines up perfectly with the play button on the wall. Nice detail Prof!
From moment one when it was announced, I was certain: This is a 4 dollar product. At most a 5-6 dollars but that's really pushing it, its just the previous 2 sets again but with some curation and novelty.
And sometime later I told my friend: What if they sold this at premium price?
And we laughed.
But who's laughing now?
Still us. At this.
It's just the previous 2 sets again but with no* curation and worse art*.
Fixed that for you.
when i first heard about it i thought it was a going to be both set mashed together but a bigger pack like a 20 card booster pack for twice the price of a pack then i seen it was black and white and it kinda made me go uh maybe not and then it was only the special stores that got it and i was like yeah thats a hard pass im not driving 40 miles one way just to get the packs and play and now im glad i didnt but i still think it would be better to just do a draft where u use either mid or vow or use a mix of them
in reality its a 2 dollar product
By "curation" you mean "removing the Full-art lands that for some people would be part of selling point"?
It's genuinely kind of depressing how transparent the man behind the curtain has become at WotC. Where you can just look at a set and the first thing that comes to mind is "they definitely made sure to spend as little money as possible on this to drive up profit margins this fiscal quarter".
i remember sitting in my LGS with some friends when this was announced. we were playing commander and talking about it and the general consensus between them was that double feature was going to be lame and dumb.
i personally liked the idea! sure, i prefer my cards to have color in the art and whatnot, but i really appreciated the nod to horror classics with the black and white and the old monster movies vibe. i wouldn’t buy it, but i just liked the concept.
well now that it’s out, i cannot believe my eyes. wizards never ceases to amaze me with how blatantly insulting they can be to their customers. this is borderline stealing. not only did they lie about what the set was, saying it was a curated selection of cards to make a unique draft experience, they are selling this product that there really is no need for for ridiculous amounts of money. it actually makes no sense and i was racking my brain as to why they would do this.
and then it hit me.
because they can. they’re essentially running around unregulated pulling these ridiculous stunts again and again with seemingly no end in sight.
thank you prof for continually bringing awareness to their scummy business practices. it’s all anyone can really do against a monster as big as this. just make other people aware of what’s really goin on in these situations.
shame on you wizards. this is fucking ridiculous
I cannot get over how smooth that "Subscribe" prompt over the silver playbutton was
FINALLY. Someone actually being HONEST about this product. This looks like a downgraded mishmash of 2 sets ironically sold as a Premium product. The foils look like crap, the cards look like crap, the packaging looks like crap. The original base and showcase versions look better than this garbage. The only reason I see this being desirable is years down the road because no one with a brain will spend their $$$ on this now, causing supply to be low. I saw a foil copy of The Meathook Massacre and it looked like I made it on a Xerox copier. And it's supposedly the most expensive version of the card. The ext art foil CE Meathook Massacre makes the DBL version look like a bad proxy...
These are Standard products that are still in print, there was zero reason to make this. There's NOTHING different except the low quality.
This is a lie lots of peope called it out
I like the design of the cards personally but definitely not enough to pay masters prices. They are cool if it was like 6 bucks a pack at most. Also would have liked the design more if it wasn't every single card. Probably feels weird to do a draft with a fully black and white board state.
@@Crusina what is?
This product really should've been "innistrad cube in a box." Mystery booster style with every innistrad card and even some curated from outside those that fit the themes of the plane and new chase art for fan favorite cards. Imagine a movie poster treatment for Emrakul the Promised End or something like Delver of Secrets. This product was an easy homerun with a little effort and Wizards didn't even swing the bat. Disappointing.
Don't buy it then lol
Something I've been wanting to try out with some friends would be like, plane EDH or draft or something. Like everyone either builds a theme deck or it's a cube based around sets from one plane. Ravnica EDH, for instance.
A spinoff of that idea is EDH with planeswalkers as commanders... but you can only use cards from sets on the plane that Planeswalker is from. Would probably need to ban Dominaria for obvious reasons lmao.
Dude don't make me sad. I would have loved a Best of Innistrad set, with a curated selection of VOW and MID, and one Horror Movie Poster card per pack of a chase card from a previous Innistrad set. THAT I would have paid 9.99 for
@@johnsargent1668 What is the point of your comment? Obviously you wouldn't buy it, but that's not the issue. There are only so many products released every year, and this takes up valuable real estate that could have been devoted to an interesting and exciting product, rather than a cynical experiment into how little can be offered at a profit. It's a valid observation, and I'm disappointed, too.
Can you imagine what a great product it would be if it was curated of all the innistrad sets old and new, featured snapcasters and lilianas with new 1950's horror aesthetic. THAT product would be worth $10 a pack easily
im EXTREMELY new to the MTG fandom but i cannot believe how useful and helpful you are to the community. Few hobbies have a genuine lover / critic as put together and earnest as you. What a value you offer. Thank you!
I usually just play draft at my LGS and some kitchen table magic and I don’t ever buy booster boxes. But when I saw this box I was super excited! I liked the archetypes and thought I would b a curated draft w/ all new art. When I found out what this box really was I was so incredibly disappointed that I have stopped playing magic for a bit and I’m taking a break until Kamigawa because I’m genuinely so upset.
I'm probably the only one who really likes the black and white art (though not gonna lie, some of the grayscale doesn't work with some of the art), but doubling the price while adding NOTHING new - REMOVING full art lands??? DUPES!? HALVING TWO SETS IN ONE PACK?! 9.99 PER FRIGGIN PACK??? Can't even draft well cuz synergy's all whack now that two sets in one **uncurated** pack means drafting will be frustrating. What a joke, I'll just buy singles for some of the black and white cards I like.
I love the B&W art too, but I don't draft, so I'll just be buying some of the singles for my commander decks.
People have posted online "what if" lists of what a proper drafting of these two sets could have been. Imagine it: werewolf tribal without the sucky werewolves of midnight hunt, a better Crimson Vow draft format that isn't as bomb heavy (no hexproof mythic werewolf!). There could have been potential here and it wouldn't have costed WOTC not that much more to make a far, far better of a product. Heck it could have been a way to include some non-standard Innistrad reprints as valuable chase cards, making it worth a slightly higher price.
Its mind blowing that they "chose" NOT to add any original innistrad cards.... Or notice that the vampires were incredibly weak and maybe add 1 or 2. Or add 2 older cards for each of the main creature's in these 2 sets...
blah blah blah
I'm offering 8 bucks a pack. You'll get the the same rarity if 2 items at the same price with 1 guaranteed foil that could be a 3rd rare or mythic. I think at that price it doesn't sting quite as bad
Even knowing how bad this set was, I thought maybe I’d buy a few packs at a discounted rate but then to learn that there’s no full art basics either? Just insulting.
My LGS has been telling everyone how terrible this set is and actively encouraging people not to buy it. They were excited for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty though, so there's that.
This? Future Tokyo cyberpunk stuff? :p
@@CJ-nd9gg I'm not invested in the cyberpunk theme myself either, but the new card mechanics are definitely what got me interested. Function over form.
@@TheOtherAngle Function over form is great for tables and chairs. For magic, meh
I feel like Double Feature was a missed opportunity to be a mix of all Innistrad sets meshed together into a curated set as you said.
More so it presented a chance to do a ‘Planes’ themed booster. Imagine how cool it would be to have Planes themed curated sets that lean on each product that has been set on that plane, and even sprinkling in commander cards or supplementary products cards that were set on that plane.
Imagine drafting Innistrad, shadows, midnight hunt and crimson vow ALL in one pack.
I think a Jumpstart set where packs were plane-themed could be really cool. Not every whole plane would lend themselves to packs but certain aspects could eg. you could have Innistrad Vampires and Werewolves, some guilds of Ravnica, maybe Wizards and Elves of Dominaria, stuff like that. Would also be a good place to reprint cards that are very plane-specific so might not 'feel right' in a set not specifically in a plane we're not going back to for a full set any time soon. Jumpstart is cool but some of the packs are a little disappointing compared to others. The Rainbow pack for instance is super mega low on theme with so many cards dedicated to mana fixing instead of letting the land base do that so you can cast multicolored cards.
can you imagine how exciting it would be to open a new alternate art Liliana of the veil or Snapcaster? I would be so excited to play an all innistrad set
This sounded so incredibly cool when it was announced, and each subsequent clarification of what it entailed just made it worse and worse. I don't think there's ever been a bigger gap between my initial hype and eventual ambivalence towards something in my life.
For me, that was Ikoria. The set sounded amazing when all we knew was the concept, and 100% of any excitement I had evaporated on day one of previews.
They lost me at black and white.... Those should have been show cases not the entire set....
When I saw the retro horror movie font on the packs, I was hoping they'd do a whole line of showcase cards in that style. I would've paid through the nose to get a full set of them in foil!! I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential here - if you're going to do horror, you'd better do it for an Innistrad set.
The ONLY saving grace, I thought it
might have been good in this is if they re printed The Wedding Ring in foil, which.... they didn't so we got no foil of the center piece of the story of the set :(
While your honesty may never get you a wax sealed invite to Harry Hasbro's House of Magic and Mystery, it always earns you a spot in our hearts. Thank you sir and keep up the great work you do for us.
Cheers
Holy cow, they really tried to push this for premium price?
I'm just sorry for all those LGS who will take a huge loss after maybe having been forced to some extent by distributors to order this product, which will either end up on the back of their storage room or in the discount pile.
Owww that subscribe animation with the play button was pretty sweet!
A friend of mine ordered a box for draft for us to do next week. I was excited for it because I heard black and white art and curated selection (was hoping for some more of those lands and some of those dope black and white arts) and now seeing this? I almost feel sorry that he bought a box.
Wait, there's more there... not there:
1. the advertised "Silver Screen" foiling looks dull, dark and uninteresting
2. the foils are just too dark, so even if the contrasts was adjusted, it is wasted here again
3. red foils have an orange border (this is notably not red, even without direct comparison)
4. many cards have scuff marks or nicks (one even glue residue)
Not a contra point, but noteworthy:
All cards have an "etched" foil treatment, similar to the Japanese Archive from non-JP Collector Boosters or the black and white lands. It is strange to have these glossy borders contrasted against desaturated artwork.
So, all in all I think, this is definitely the worst product in years, even below the Gift Pack back from 2017.
Well, let us just wait, 2022 could bring even worse products from WOTC. Let's see, let's wait and see.
And yet Mark Rosewater's biggest regret about the product was the "announcing it and making players understand what it is".
It's not like he would actually admit that it was a terrible product.
I am very much "looking forward" to reading his year in review article next time around.
Hey prof. You thought me how to play pokemon years ago, and that was about it, then I watched all your command zone and I hate your deck videos recently, I love watching you play and enjoyed that so much that now I'm back on your channel. Thanks for all the lessons
Excellent video, as always, but you already had me by @3:46
Freaking wow... That's just... wrong. Isn't it? Total mis-step, especially with Kamigawa just round the corner. However, it might explain (partially) the laziness in the artwork choice, if this was in development alongside Kamigawa. With how excellent that set is looking so far, seems all the budget may have been allocated that way instead.
Back when it was teased in August of was sooooo excited and my imagination was going nuts wanting to know what cool collectible artworks or frames. When it got spoiled I was sooooo disappointed with the look and contents... I don't even want the cool looking booster box on the shelf anymore for display
I already thought this product was an absolutely pathetic cash-grab gimmick on WoTC's part when I first heard of it. And now the Professor has solidified it.
Totally agree, ‘cash grab’ is what leapt to my mind when I first heard about this months ago.
I thought this was a lazy product when I heard it was every card and that the "black and white art" was just a filter, and that was when I thought it was the same price as draft boosters!
The rub of it isn't "how little work you can do" (that's just "reprint an old set"), but how little you have to do that someone might actually buy the thing. In practical terms this means you have to come up with unique cost-cutting gimmicks that you can't mix and match, each gimmick has to stand alone. So here are my additions to this ingenious "just run every image through a photoshop batch filter" idea. Cost-cutting measures sure to make the big returns:
* Reprint... a bunch of old sets in one! Maybe have a program pick cards at random for an illustrious "chaos mystery set". What's in the box? Nobody knows! Having the program output a list would take 15 minutes of work (most of it QA), and that's 15 minutes of wages we didn't want to pay!
* Have all the art done by the design and dev teams! It BETTER be half-assed in MSPaint and crayons though. I don't wanna see any GOOD-looking MSPaint/crayon art. You have five minutes a card chop chop, Marky.
* A Magic The Gathering set... MADE UP OF NFTS! Yeah! The physical set would be kind of tricky, so we'll just have like 50 sheets with different horrible mix n' match paper doll art. Every card, sort of unique. Gotta collect'em all, like Pokemons. You know you want it!
* Disco inferno set. It's just a reprint of an old set or two, but with a disco ball shooting rays of light on every card. Actually, this is one that'd work really great with Double Feature. They should just reprint Double Feature with disco balls and call it Vampires and Werewolves Boogie Down. This just keeps getting better and better!
* Ahhh let's see, kids like video games and animes. They should do a collaboration with another property, and use stock assets for their art. Many a defunct card game has gone down this route. SSS+++ if they do the Uwe thing and include SCREENSHOTs of a video game in their set. Naruto+King Kong+Space Invaders.... imagine pasting Naruto on top of an image with King Kong climbing the building with Space Invaders pasted on top. Oh yeah, this feels good.
* You know what few have dared to do? That's right: Make a card game... OUT OF TEXT! You could just have textual descriptions of the art in the art box: "A vampire with blood on his fangs hisses menacingly at the camera! Oh, scary!" Or, if they wanted to get fancy, run the existing art through an ASCii art filter. I feel like art descriptions with custom curated font colors and sizes would be better, tho..
* We've been talking about art a lot here, but we haven't considered how we can mess with unique mechanics while still being dicks. So I give you the worst MTG mechanic of all time: RANDOMIZED STATS ON CARDS. [Maybe Lightning Bolt] might be a lightning bolt, or it's a red spell that costs RR and deals 1 damage! This will reduce the average value of product and make chase cards even pricier. So much money we'll make!
* That brings up the elephant in the room... it's been too long since we've introduced the Mythic Rare rarity to the game, and it feels like it's high time a new one's been added. Super Duper Rares will appear once every 100 hundred packs. We'll make the same number of cards (or less), but we'll sell way more packs this way. And in another ten years, we can a new rarity. And then another! Forever!
I'm gonna peter out here. I feel like there's a much deeper ice berg still left to explore here, and remembering the Mythic Rare ripoff kind of bummed me out. There's a whole ocean of gacha mechanics they could try here.... break up a card into multiple pieces like that unset big monster thing... um... actually not, as a gacha game they've already used most of the tricks... maybe they could push players' sinful horny desires more. Hey, a yearly Summer Set is something they haven't done! Your favorite planeswalker in swimwear! Werewolves in bikinis! Hot naughty merfolk somehow made lewder by the ADDITION of some underpants for a change.
... I'm still going aren't I. Sorry.
Never forget: There's always more and there's always worse. They have to use my Gacha-game limited summer series edition idea - the well is only so deep and they have to use it *someday*. There's money down there, in the darkness deep....
Love the video, and love the Stein quote at the beginning. As a fellow English Major, I've always been a fan of her writing. To the issue at hand though, WOTC has been killing my trust in them for awhile. I haven't bought sealed product from them in over a year.
This is where I heavily question what magics goal really is. After Hasbro announced that Wizards would need to double its profits I knew we were in for a rough ride and some expensive products. As I saw the doubling of prices for premium products such as double masters I was hesitant and worried, but I saw some really fun sets designed. Never would I have thought in the history of magic would a set feel less like a game they were putting out for us and more a money grab, at least never to this degree. Comparing this to all Secret Lairs and all higher priced master sets, I would rather spend $200 on 2 secret lairs than on this. This is not magic, this is a lack of heart and a lack of understanding why we play the game. I’m really sad this is what the product became.
The goal of magic is to spend as little money as possible on the labor who produces and distrubutes the product while charging the most amount of money for that product, to take that value produced and line their investors and managers pockets with gold and boats. Everything else is a far distant concern. Profit over people, profit over playability, profit over all.
As with many other things this is a company testing if an idea will sell. If this "product" brings in sales, expect to see more of it. And those sales don't have to be particularly big given that this is just a grayscaled mashup of already existing goods.
I dont see this selling much i bet within a week noone will be buying anymore boxes just singles they want
@@dakotarouse8742 Arguably even that's too good for Double Feature - if people want singles from this set (which they shouldn't because the greyscale art looks horrible applied to anything but the full-art basics and this apparently lacks those), that means the resellers have to buy packs in bulk to crack for those singles.
Also, if they sell little product, the B/W cards will end rising in price at the secondary market as there will be less in circulation, and they can try to tell us it as proof of its success. They can try...
@@KalElelVigilant They'll say it's the best selling thing ever, just like the Walking Dead SL allegedly everybody and their mom bought, but no one actually owns.
They don't have to disclose their failures to us or to their shareholders so long as they make one dollar more this quarter than the previous one they succeeded. That's one boycotting one product doesn't do anything if we just go and buy another. People need to stop buying anything Magic cold turkey for at least nine months for the loan sharks to notice and demand something change in the way they're doing things.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and judgment on this matter! Greetings from Germany and stay healthy.
They could have also wrapped the double feature cards in the original wrapping for midnight hunt and crimson vow to really stick it to us. I'm surprised they designed new wrapping at this point.
I couldn't stand this product due to the art treatment. Some cards look nice in black and white but the vast majority just start blurring together.
I'm not even sure a draft with this would be fun because I'd keep forgetting what cards my opponent had played because of the lack of distinguishing art now.
To be honest, I feel like they should've gotten through playtesting with the full art Black and White lands and realized this was a mistake; the game simply depends too much on being able to remind yourself of the board with a glance.
Especially when the Innistrad plane often already has a gritty art style where the light and dark values tend to be more polarized (like that Snarling Wolf art, where it's very light mixed with very dark). Turning that art style into black and white works even worse than it would on most planes, and makes the cards into a muddled indiscernible mess..
@@Dawnfeethers I think the full-art basics were fine enough. There's only one card they could be and they have colored borders to remind you which color they tap for. If anything, Double Feature makes them way worse because now there's a whole set of "black and white with colored borders" cards to confuse you!
Would have been so cool if this was an INNISTRAD DEFINITIVE DRAFT featuring cards from across all 7 Innistrad sets.
I would buy that product.
But not in this black and white bullshit tho.
Damn, 7 sets, really? That's almost as many as Ravnica.
Prof you are so well versed on the topic and sound so real, thanks
This one actually made me sad. My playgroup at work was all about getting a box for a draft pod.. and then we saw that it was just two sets mashed together with premium pricing and no new artwork or full art land. Needless to say, that draft did not happen at all.
I work in the print industry and I can tell you that this is a pure profit grab. No new art work, way less ink costs, bigger print runs for the double amount of cards. The only thing they really had to pay for was the time to grayscale shift and the 6 or so new frames along with the pack artwork and box artwork which they have to do anyways. It probably cost them around .02 cents per non foil and around .04 or .05 per foil card to produce normally. I'm guessing they cut that by 30-50% and they are charging double. absolutely absurd. If anything this should cost less per pack.
Has BRUH
Wotc deserve to fail as a company nowadays
Would be great if print industries would ban sets like these.
@@SeniorAdrian I'm sure that WOTC has their own presses. If they don't they are fools.
@@haileydee9954 yup sounds about right.
I'm glad you've publicly voiced everything I've been loudly complaining about to my friends! The Movie Poster art as special alts would've been amazing. But also, imagine if they had've done black and white photographic horror stills. High contrast, film grain, low budget sets, etc. I think that could've been amazing and looked better.
Well said! Went into my lgs, to see if they had any packs. When I saw the £10 pack prices, I picked up some much cheaper other packs.
I think the worst thing is how much I was looking forward to this! Wow- curated draft experience with great themes. Combining some removal from MID, powerful creatures from VOW, tribal shenanigans, neat art style. Was so stoked to play this in paper.
...and then like, nope, just smashed together and overcosted. Could just buy separate packs or smash together set boosters and draft for about the same price.
Lgs that ordered this product will be devastated by this, I doubt many ppl will be ready to buy double feature at more than 100$/box for a 24 pack of standard cards with worst art on them and stores payed a lot more than 100$/box. Stores already had a problem with moving midnight hunt, even more with crimson vow, with this product on top of this... just like Olivia would want it, it's gonna be a blood bath!
Its a WPN premium product only....so the smaller LGS will be spared the carnage.
Exactly this.
I had to confirm orders for this release months before I knew what was in them.
Total junk, and I'm having a hard enough time shifting Magic these days.
@@drwtng It is a WPN product, but not Premium exclusive. I hope it does not, but this product could sink an LGS if they believe the Wizards product advertisement.
I had no idea how much this product cost, $200 a box is absolutely insane. I really hope this product fails horribly so that wizards will never try to do anything like this again. I don’t understand why they didn’t use this opportunity to do something like innestrad remastered, or even just have a slot in every pack that has a og innestrad card. Truly baffling.
I hadn't realized just how expensive the boxes were until I saw the comparison. Two draft boxes for 100 dollars each, for a total of 72 packs, or one box of 200 dollars, for 24 packs? You're paying double for one third of the amount of packs! For a draft experience, that's insane, especially if you're not getting a curated or somehow special draft set for your money.
The main issue is that they might come to the conclusion that there is no market for draft products... Are you aware that there are regions like Korea where they stopped printing draft Booster in local language? Only set booster are available in local language. For my part, I am going to purchase only draft Displays from now on to make my point.
@@andreasmueller337 Draft boosters are for draft, basically anyone who opens pack for fun gets set boosters instead (thus why bundles now have set boosters). I can see them eventually removing draft boosters for something like a "draft pack", like 3 draft boosters in one or some other product intended for limited.
Thx for all your knowledge and content, you really do a great job on all your information 👍
I had a draft with mates at the start of the month we used 1 Crimson Vow Booster and 2 Midnight Hunt boosters per player. It worked really well and we had a lot of fun. In Australia it cost us $16.50au for the three booster. To use the double feature boosters it would cost us $36au. Double Feature is double the cost and the professor is once again on the money.
I love midnight hunt and crimson vow but this is just lazy as you clearly point out.
Great job professor keep up the good work!
I would have loved a curated Draft Set of all Innistrad Sets. (and yes a Black&White Set needs new Art)
Just imagine the reaction if this was two early Innestrad sets mashed together? Would have sold better than this ridiculous garbage
Or even just these last two sets with a bonus sheet ala Time Spiral that was from those earlier sets. Either would have actually been an interesting product.
Honestly even keeping it as cheep as possible some of those alternate art styles in midnight hunt would work way better in grayscale than the traditional painting style.
@@jordanb7304 Literally anything would have been better than desaturating the same art. Standard magic card art is centered around colorful, detailed digital paintings with lots of shading work - AKA images that look like complete shit in grayscale.
They could have put in less effort by leaving in the full art land.
I'd probably be more tempted to buy it if it was a booster of just full art lands
Thanks for the heads up professor! I definitely won't be wasting my money on that disappointment. I love crimson vow and midnight hunt but this is just sad.
I've been drawing proxy cards the past few months. I've made me a playset of windswept heath, and a bunch of other various cards for my... seleysna knights? A Mox pearl, an Emerald. Working on my sisters blue black eldrazi thing, my moms blue white... flying chunky, it's been fun. I'm trying to get my own decks set up so they are, balanced. It's a lot of drawing and play testing lol. Hopefully I can play with people at some point (Not a covid problem, more, a people one lol)
I agree with you on every single point prof! This is a joke of a product!
I am glad you approve of my nitpicking.
Me learning about the product was a trip.
"OH cool, a third Innistrad set! And with a gimmick!"
"OOH, it's not new. But hey, the gimmick! It'll have older classic reprints, new art, and oh man, that's so clearly a reference to last year's secret lair, finally some bling for us poors!"
"OH, so no big reprints... well at least it will have... huh? Not even different art?"
It's been sitting in my head and bothering me for so long that the only thing I can figure is that it's WOTC's meta attempt at cosmic horror. An unspeakable, unknowable mystery that does me psychic damage.
That's kind of like my theory that Trump actually IS a genius, and that everything he's done since the summer of 2015 has been an epic performance art piece about how utterly broken the US political system is. I know that isn't the case, but at least there would be a reason for the madness if it was.
I think this is another example of WotC testing the market to see what they could get away with, similar to the $100 (or $90) Double Masters VIP boosters. Is it crazy? Yes, but they were hoping their players were gullible enough to buy it anyways. I'm glad to see the Magic community is smarter than that.
@@ReMeDy_TV I definitely agree, but I still don't comprehend why the greed has to be paired with disrespect. I just don't understand why instead of pushing products they know are bad to make money they didn't push good products to make MORE money, then leverage the customer's goodwill into even more profitable plays. But then again I'm not a rich coastal elite so I couldn't possibly understand the intricacies of why corporations HAVE to piss their customer base off and cost themselves sales.
@@nothing4mepls973 it has nothing to do with "rich coastal elites" and everything to do with corporate profits being based largely on short-term planning.
@@sailordaigurren8225 I still don't understand. If it's all about the short term, why don't they put out a desirable product to get immediate sales?
new camera? this video looks CRISP!
I love the idea, it just seems to haven't been thought out to an end. Pricing is aweful.
The box is looking awesome though.
I personally like the art, I love what they did with the borders and most of the artwork looks great in grey scales too. Complete Black/White would have been even greater but I'm still satisfied.
The box price at my LGS is about double of what a set booster box so that's definitely too much seeing how I'm getting 12 rares less and I'm losing the random slot (I'm a big fan of lottery slots).
And I'm REALLY bummed out about not getting lands in that box.
Having opened two boxes this week I feel like the rate of foil mythics (I got 2 per box) is pretty high, but my sample size isn't exactly anything to count on.
Wow, Double Feature really is the greatest horror show of them all.
Thanks, Prof for always advocating for the fans.
I really hope enough people don't get suckered into this so we get better curated sets in the future but...I fear this will somehow still make a profit.
I had an argument with a guy yesterday about this product (and this was before knowing the 9.99 price.) My stance was this: Why not put a few choice cards from the previous Innistrad sets in a final slot, similar to the Strixhaven Archives in the same lazy art treatment? Not necessarily expensive cards like Snapcaster Mage or Lilliana, but a broad selection of playable cards, like Thraben Inspector, Avacyn's Pilgrim, Duskwatch Recruiter, Thought Scour, Faithless Looting, Declaration in Stone, Champion of Lambholt. Maybe some cool madness cards to go with the current vampires. Otherwise, In my opinion, there was little or no value to the set, other than the art, if the art appeals to you. We've all had a chance to buy as much of these sets as we want. He argued that it would have to be sold as a premium product similar to a masters set if there were even a remote chance of pulling a high-price card like Lilliana of the Vale, and that it would confuse players expecting standard cards. Well, they gave it a premium price anyway, which was half of his argument against classic Innistrad cards!
@Ninja Named Bob No. He was a very experienced and enfranchised player... I suspect he was more worried about the value of his own OG innistrad cards dropping than anything.
Hey professor how about a video about some of that wonderful collection you have on the bookshelf behind you. Books /boxes and such
Love your honesty professor, thank you always keeping us informed
Dang that was brutal. I really appreciate you making this video and giving the warning. A friend and I had been talking about going back into an LGS and doing some draft, and had considered this set because of it's promises, so thanks for the warning that this one would just be a waste of money!
God, imagine if they had curated cards from across ALL of the Innistrad sets and related products
We could have gotten reprints of Emrakul, Snapcaster, the list goes on
Instead we get two standard packs taped together, except if the tape costed a dollar
And half the cards fell out.
And the printer ran out of all colored ink.
And there’s two layers of one dollar tape ;)
(the $2 price difference lol)
What a bummer, I was really hyped for having a whole B&W mashup that had the best of both sets, but paying 200dlls for this product that offers no additional value it's just not worth it.
Thank you for doing the cemetery iluminator’s job!
Flesh and Blood can and does sell packs with two rares and a guaranteed foil for the same price as a Magic pack. I don't play Flesh and Blood, but this was something that stood out to me about the game, and this Double Feature set confirms just how greedy Wizards has become. Slap your two standard sets together with an extra rare and charge 2.5x more? I can't believe how greedy that is.
All digimon packs also have two rares each
This is misinformation: those are uncommons. I play flesh and blood, hell I like the game better than magic, but the packs are categorically worse when it comes to rarity levels and distribution. Commons are slightly more abundant than Magic and just as cheap; "uncommons" are LESS common (2 per pack rather than 3 per pack); "rares" are ONE IN FOUR packs; and "mythics" are ONE IN NINETY-SIX (!) packs. Granted the mythic equivalent are all "one per deck" so far so it's really like saying they are one in 24-32 packs, but still way worse than magic. Prices for singles in standard are way worse in flesh and blood outside of commons and uncommons unfortunately. Again I really love the game, but the business model is demonstrably even worse for consumers than Magic.
double feature still suck of course lol, but it wasn't my issue with your comment :D
"Rare" in FAB is more like Uncommon in MTG.
The grass isn't always greener on the other side. FAB is a good game but I find it quite off putting about the "Legendary" rarity they have.
@@lephuongnam1137 Finally someone with sense.
FAB suck in term of rarity. Who like chance to get Legendary or Fable rarity with chance of 1 out of 6 box?
1 pack you only get 2 rarity MOST OF IT.
Next year they are going to release Standard Masters. It will be 100% reprints from cards currently in standard, with no new artwork whatsoever. $11.99 per pack.
Reminds of how, when Iconic Masters released, I joked that in a few years we'd be getting "Pauper Masters" for $12.99 a pack. But you know, even that would be superior to this product. Pauper Masters would at least have a smattering of Pauper and Legacy staples that haven't been printed in foil before, with new art.
I don't usually keep up on new sets coming out, or look for previews, so when I first saw this, I thought maybe it was going to be some Innistrad themed like.. old universal studio monster theme going on, where you'd have dracula and frankenstein's monster and the creature from the black lagoon as creatures or planeswalkers. That would have made it interesting at least.
Dear professor,
I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the time you spend and the endeavor you're going through to review MTG products ! I really like your channel, your character and your content ! I hope you'll keep being awesome ! (Naa, you already are !)
You're review of this product had me thinking and here I am. I would also like to add some thought and pondering so anyone could see it and maybe answer.
As a european, playing with my non-english speaking family in the kitchen, I'm pondering a lot. And I'd like to think which path WOTC should take to offer good products. It's obviously my opinion, you're all welcome to add yours. :)
Obviously, I'm not an expert in magic, those are more some thoughts that cross my mind I'd like to see refined.
I believe that 3 set blocs are the best thing we had. They currently are going overboard with MTG products and it's hard to keep up. I believe it would be a compelling idea to design a double feature set to start a bloc, set up the story, the characters, the narrative stakes, the cards mechanics, then use a normal set to resolve the story introduced and set up some seed for the future. (As broken as Oko was, I wanted more Eldraine :/)
Plus, if the set is a good hit, the first double feature set could be halved to sell more costly packs, with a cool design, new arts, on a worldwide area. Plus, if they fear to not sell it well enough, adding some multiformat staple reprints on these sets would be a good selling argument.
So it would be a 300/400 cards set + a 200 card set. And a potential 2*150/200 + X reprints sets
And no black and white cards. It's absolutely infuriating to charge more for less.
Also, when it comes to modern master and those types of set : WOTC underestimated the power of these products. Why ? They neither translated nor printed them worldwidly. But I'd like to point out that Modern Horizons and Commander Legends are. It's a good beginning and I'd like to see more of it !
I firmly believe that accessibility should be the main goal of WOTC for some years, so as fixing the colorpie they broke. Sadly, I lack the insight to make meaningful arguments for it. I'll just keep talking with my heart :
For example lands in modern are very expansive. Shoclands, fetches, etc... I won't say "reprint fetchlands you cowards !"
I'll say that they should agressively reprint "Prismatic Vista" (Currently 25/30€) to make it worth 4/5€ at most, so EVERYONE could be considering entering the format with basic lands.
As a pauper player, I strongly believe that the guildgates are now utterly useless. That's why designing a fetchland for them at unco (1/2 €) to make them entering the battlefield tapped would be spectacular. Definitely to strong for pauper, but in modern, it would be at a decent powerlevel, especialy for thin-budget decks.
Those 2 options would be decent starting cards, but not strong enough to competitively rival with the more pricy lands. On manabase alone.
On a second hand, I can't help but think green and blue are stealing everything in standard or commander, that's why i suggest, for starter, a new Planar Chaos.
A Devotion - Divination in white, a Counterspell draining you LP on MV in black, a Fog that prevent us to untap our creatures on our next turn, something for artefact, there is a lot of options. But when it comes to fixing the pie, I can only see WOTC to just stop designing busted B/G cards.
So, if anyone has something to add, I'd like to read his voice !
Reading about all of the various artists and artistic collaborations, looking at the vibrant colors and a plethora of artistic styles and card variations in Kamigawa today, I guess it was the Neon Dynasty who sucked all the color out of Double Feature. Huh, guess who's the real vampire now!
Right? feel like innastrad got the shaft when looking at what kamigawa is offering
It’s black/white out of homage to 50s Horror… hence “double feature” which was a staple of old horror movies.
I think they liked the final contrast, out of the darkness and into a bright future full of ninja turtles and Chobits
I really thought we were getting something similar to the Secret Lair when this was first announced, at least with the rares or mythics. They came through with the classic horror film package art and "double feature" name, but this draft set has nothing to do with horror films. Even the black and white style doesnt hold up, because as Prof said, it's basically greyscale. Wizards missed out on a great opportunity. Super disappointed.
When this was announced I was HYPED!
I was imagining all this new Universal/Hammer Monster Movie Art made into a curated Draft... it sounded SO glorious!
& then we got the details... what a let down...
Nice video Professor, i am a 100% on board with what you said. I was wondering what are your thought on the extensive new product wizards is putting out and the loss of game design quality. we have more bans and more product like never before.
this set was full of unpleasant surprises for me. at first i thought the grayscale was a special thing for a few rares and mythics, but having it across everything makes the set look so dull. i thought it was curated and included a select few cards from each set so that the draft environment was good. and only now i’m learning the packs are $10…
I'm saving my money to draft kamigawa with my wife and our friends, followed by drafting the new Un set later this year.
Good call! 👍
smart!
Getting to the point at the start of the video... I like your style.
Wow, thanks for the heads up there