By: Travis Allen

Whether you call them spoilers or a leak, you’re correct. In this case, it’s a leak that spoiled us. It’s the largest leak since the New Phyrexia godbook, which if you don’t recall, was when a French dope got goaded in IRC of all places into releasing every single card weeks and weeks ahead of schedule. I know what you’re thinking—who the hell still used IRC back then? Great question. People dumb enough to be taken advantage of in IRC, I guess.

If you were following Magic at that time, you’d know that the event was, on the whole, disappointing. For about an hour it was quite exciting—the entire set! this is awesome! What the $*&@ are they thinking with Batterskull!—but the suspense was gone shortly after. As official spoilers finally began firing three weeks before the street date, people couldn’t care less. Everyone had been exposed, gotten excited, then gotten over the cards already. There was a fatigued, “Yeah, yeah, stop feigning interest in pretending we don’t know everything and just let us have the cards already,” current running through the community. Taken as a whole, the experience was less fun than when all of the spoilers happen at the intended rate.

This is similar, though obviously at a lesser scale. We’ve got seven mythics, half the set’s worth, as well as the entire run of Expeditions. Regardless of what you may see a few say, this was not Wizards-approved. One could argue that the Kozilek/Wastes leak was planted by Wizards. I disagree, but you could argue it.

This, though? No way. This takes all the wind out of so many collective sails. No chance to get excited over Wasteland. Over Strip Mine. Over Horizon Canopy. It’s one shotgun blast of frenzied chatter, and now…whatever. To those that may be so inclined to do this in the future: please don’t. It’s less fun for all of us.

Well, alright. It’s sort of crummy that this is where we are, but there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. Speaking of genies, did you ever read the theory that Disney’s Aladdin is set in the future? Talking animals like Iago can be explained by radiation from a major world war that also would have wiped out most ruins of a technologically superior society. The same type of society that could have left behind hover technology sophisticated enough to be mistaken for a magic floating carpet. Like most media conspiracies, it’s almost undoubtedly untrue, but still fun to think about. I always found the St. Elsewhere theory a good party story too. (I’m terribly boring at parties.)

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By: Travis Allen

Vendor Review: Strikezone Online

It is well known amongst industry veterans that Strikezone Online is run by a fairly scummy guy. While making the mistake of visiting its website, I realized that SZO was selling Erebos’s Titan for $.69, while at the same time that exact card was on its buylist for $1. You could buy Titans from SZO, and when the package came, sharpie over the address, put a fresh stamp on it, and put it back in the mailbox for a profit of $.31 per Titan. I emailed them to point this out, and the following exchange ensued.

Please don’t give SZO business.

Article

World leaders are meeting in Paris this week in an attempt to come to a consensus on an international climate change treaty, and it’s being hailed by the Huffington Post at least as the “last chance to save the world.” The task set before these leaders is tremendous, and the opposition they face is just about as fierce as humanly possible. Attempting to stop and even reverse climate change would be a herculean task to begin with, but that it stands nearly in direct opposition to capitalism means that many find the necessary changes to be economically unpalatable. Given that the strain on bank accounts and ledgers would be immediate, but the benefits of environmental repair would not be visible within our lifetimes, you can see how this isn’t going to be an easy fight. Innate human decision-making processes are inhibited by our lifespans, and sacrificing immediate, personal gain in your own life in order to improve things in a less quantitative fashion for people that will only be born long after you’re dead requires us to step outside ourselves in a way that remains exceptionally challenging for all but the most visionary.

Reversing climate change is, essentially, acting as non-human as possible in order to fix some problems that are a direct result of people being as human as humans can be.

There are parallels between the talks in Paris and our own hobby here, and in this case it’s how our heretofore axioms may in fact be wrong. For millenia it was an unconscious assumption that the earth is way too big for us little humans to have any lasting impact. Whoops.

Up until now, we’ve taken as gospel that Legacy cards are strong investments and Reserved List cards are bulletproof. Writers and armchair investors the market over have extolled their virtues as blue-chip stocks, incapable of losing value. Articles of old encouraged you to always be trading into these assets, and encouraged paying a premium in order to move whimsical Standard and EDH product into ironclad eternal staples.

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