Of course artifacts don’t really play the color game as well as auras, and as Steve Sadin points out in that article at Wizards several of the Shadowmoor hybrid auras are pretty good. The fact that there’s less outright removal in the set makes them somewhat more playable.

Since one of Shadowmoor’s design themes seem to have been “creature size matters” it’s a small step to see why they made less removal. They want creatures to shrink (and grow again) and die from damage or terminal cases of subtractivitis. Too many destroy effects take an end-run around all of this creature size business.

Initially I was looking forward to this set because of its ties to the very enjoyable Lorwyn, while there was question in my group of moving up the schedule on our looming Magic-hiatus. More recently I found myself on the fence, while the rest of my group’s members are now rubbing their hands gleefully, hoping the notch down in complexity will give them equal footing in Shadowmoor compared to my relative domination of our Lorwyn-Morningtide league play (it’s a small group )

Still, I feel a bit better knowing that they had their reasons for doing what they did.

Limited Infromation: Allies, Enemies and Auras

So when I do vote with my wallet at the theater (and to a lesser extent with DVD purchases), it had better be for the kind of movie I really want to see - otherwise I just told the studio executives to make more Swordfish clones or something (thankfully I saw that at a friend’s house and spent nothing on it).

By the same token Josh has a point about Magic sets. Wizards is not exempt from making moves to maintain and increase their profits, or in a less cynical sense to give their players more of what they want. They are by no means going to ignore “the wallet vote.”

I think this is akin to how some people refuse to pay for movies they know will be bad and get frustrated by people that go to see these movies. I think Scott has often commented on the idea of “voting with your wallet”. Basically, you are telling Hollywood “Thank you master, may I have another!?”.

At any rate, I am more than willing to give Shadowmoor another chance, both in a casual format in a week or so and then in a more formal form when it comes online.

Thanks for the post Joe. If you get a chance, could you maybe compare Shadowmoor to some other sets? My main thing at the moment is that it just dosn’t seem to measure up. I would like to see other peoples opinions on this.

Thanks Joe!