The rarity of the new cards in the Commander products does indeed correlate with how many decks they're in. Soul Snare and the Vow of Duty cycle are in each of the three decks they'd be allowed in; Collective Voyage and friends are in just one deck each.
So that doesn't necessarily correlate with what rarity they'd be in a real set. I agree that Chaos Warp is sensible as an uncommon. But this one, by analogy with New Frontiers, I think should be rare.
@Link: Oops. I just looked it up, and you're right. I could have swore there was only one in each... but this is what happens when you don't do the research, I guess.
What? I thought there were three of the vow cycle in each deck. Am I not remembering that correctly?
Anyway, I had assumed that they based the rarities in these products on what a viable rarity for them would be in a normal set, so that they wouldn't need to changed the rarity if the cards could be feasibly reprinted.
Yes and no. The Vow cycle, such as Vow of Duty are listed as uncommon, even though there's only one in each deck. It's obvious they're tied together... but aren't the Join Forces cards tied together with similar flavor?
I think there isn't a hard and fast rule when it comes to what rarities the casual products are getting. Though, as a basic guideline, if the card requires more than 20 words, I'd personally say 'no' to common (barring complicated but easy to grock reminder text, such as morph or suspend). I try to imagine someone opening a pack of my cards for the first time, and how they'd react to what it looked like. If the commons had that many words on it, they probably would ignore them, as opposed to read them, and focus on the cards they can grasp quickly. That's not laziness... that's a survival skill in action. Too many chunked up blocks of text, and they'll only be absorbing 5 cards out of a pack of 14.
By the way, you're more than welcome to call me a hypocrite. It's a good standard to live by, but I commonly fail to live up to my standards. A quick look in Mashup: the Gathering Alpha shows how often I can fail to achieve them. I'm working on it... mashups are hard. ;)
Yes basic rarity represents timeshifted.
Interesting. Both are hard to get killed, in different ways.
Oh, very sensible replacement; Filth was always very underpowered compared with the rest of its cycle, so it's definitely due an upgrade.
Not sure about the "basic" rarity - unless that's representing a kind of timeshifted slot?
The rarity of the new cards in the Commander products does indeed correlate with how many decks they're in. Soul Snare and the Vow of Duty cycle are in each of the three decks they'd be allowed in; Collective Voyage and friends are in just one deck each.
So that doesn't necessarily correlate with what rarity they'd be in a real set. I agree that Chaos Warp is sensible as an uncommon. But this one, by analogy with New Frontiers, I think should be rare.
@Link: Oops. I just looked it up, and you're right. I could have swore there was only one in each... but this is what happens when you don't do the research, I guess.
Also, compare this to New Frontiers, which was printed as a rare in a "real" block.
What? I thought there were three of the vow cycle in each deck. Am I not remembering that correctly?
Anyway, I had assumed that they based the rarities in these products on what a viable rarity for them would be in a normal set, so that they wouldn't need to changed the rarity if the cards could be feasibly reprinted.
Yes and no. The Vow cycle, such as Vow of Duty are listed as uncommon, even though there's only one in each deck. It's obvious they're tied together... but aren't the Join Forces cards tied together with similar flavor?
I think there isn't a hard and fast rule when it comes to what rarities the casual products are getting. Though, as a basic guideline, if the card requires more than 20 words, I'd personally say 'no' to common (barring complicated but easy to grock reminder text, such as morph or suspend). I try to imagine someone opening a pack of my cards for the first time, and how they'd react to what it looked like. If the commons had that many words on it, they probably would ignore them, as opposed to read them, and focus on the cards they can grasp quickly. That's not laziness... that's a survival skill in action. Too many chunked up blocks of text, and they'll only be absorbing 5 cards out of a pack of 14.
By the way, you're more than welcome to call me a hypocrite. It's a good standard to live by, but I commonly fail to live up to my standards. A quick look in Mashup: the Gathering Alpha shows how often I can fail to achieve them. I'm working on it... mashups are hard. ;)
I thought it was based only on the number of decks in was printed in, i.e. common in 5 or 4, uncommon in 3 or 2, rare/mythic in 1.
I disagree. It serves as an indication of what Wizards sees as the card's level of power and complexity.
The rarity in supplemental products, like Commander, means nothing.
Collective Voyage is currently printed as a rare.
Common or Uncommon? I'm unsure.