4:28 Colossal Dreadmaw showing up in RIX and M19 was odd, but what really set it off was Masters 25. For those who don't know, Masters 25 was the 25th anniversary set and featured one or two cards from every set thus far. And for some unknown reason, Colossal Dreadmaw was *Ixalan's* only card.
Just finished watching this part and I'm glad to see this is, currently, the top voted comment. Reprint in Rivals? Sure. Reprint in Masters 25? What? Silly Wizards! Reprint in M19? Okay, now it's just a gag. Please stop.
Why do you say for some reason? The set’s goal was to have at least one, but not required to be more, card from every set up to that point. Ixalan needed a representative, but why should it have had more?
So realistically the reason for this is probably because Masters 25 was only released two months after release of RIX. This means that during development of Masters 25 they needed to find a card from RIX, also still in development, that would fit in M25, was specific to Ixalan, would work well in the limited environment, and was unlikely to be meaningfully changed before RIX was released. The solution? A big dumb green dinosaur.
Yeah, and in addition, the set needed to fill out 101 common slots. If you have to pick a big green idiot for a common, you could do a lot worse than Colossal Dreadmaw. Nobody's out there going, "Man, if only this slot had been Canopy Gorger the set would have been so much more iconic".
I have such fond memories of Ixalan pre-release so my view on the set will always be slightly biased. People dressing up as pirates (myself included), treasure themed giveaways, and the person who ran through the store in the ubiquitous inflatable dinosaur costume. Draft-wise it was fun, but I don't remember too much about the format overall.
Colossal Dreadmaw was also reprinted in M25 as the iconic card for Ixalan too. So what Graham is trying to tell us is Colossal Dreadmaw needs a reprint cause it'll be cycling out of Standard with Core Set 2021.
The spoiler season for that set was so insufferable with people thinking it had to be all “Iconic” cards. Like it was supposed to be a set full of rares and competitive commons/uncommons.
To be fair, Wizards marketed the set as iconic cards from Magic's history and while no one was expected the set to contain all rares and Mythics. There were some questionable calls that Wotc made like Tree of Redemption to represent Innistrad. If I remember correctly, M25 was the set that kicked off all the memes about Colossal Dreadmaw, cause it had already seen reprintings in Rivals and a couple of other products.
I like how much he emphasized Colossal Dreadmaws. Like he knew that if he said anything else, people would get mad. Please note I would get mad if ever called anything other than a colossal dreadmaw.
Man, I always find it fascinating to see the non-dinosaur Ixalan stuff. I forget they exist, because why would I pay attention to anything that wasn't *dinosaurs*?
Deeproot is a reason to go into merfolk. Those tokens are the second best thing to put counters on behind the hexproof merfolk in the set and that was merfolks mechanic.
I ran temur spell slinger in this block and Shapeshifters Sanctuary did SOO MUCH WORK for me helping me find my deep dives and other protection cards. I used Deeproot Champ for cheap +1/+1 counters with it. SS is an underrated card.
I remember Shaper's Sanctuary being fairly decent as an Infect sideboard card. At worst it was a cheap way to mitigate removal, which was alright when you were trying to max out at 3 lands anyways.
3:48 surprised to hear Graham’s in favor of the single-set system. I’ve only ever heard distaste for it, and as a Vorthos who is overwhelmed by the constant new worlds and has trouble getting attached to the characters, worlds, and stories of single-set blocks, I personally share that distaste. It’s one of the few changes to the game I genuinely believe is “ruining magic”; That phrase is almost universally used hyperbolically, but I sincerely think the game was vastly more enjoyable to me when we spent more time exploring various aspects of individual planes. Of course, I’m sure the Sales Data probably says it was a good decision; I can only speak to my own feelings about the change.
Story wise, yea, it's been a bit of a bummer (although I think what they're doing with innistrad is a good idea) but I think the general success of the single-set system has been in regards to limited formats, which have on average been much better since the swap. It allows the sets to be more focused and either not reliant on unreleased sets to be good or conversely have a good set made worse by new sets in the block.
The internet Magic discourse is often quite negative about most things, honestly. I'm also a Vorthos and I think that while the story has definitely suffered heavily within the last few years, no-block model isn't among the culprits, and it has upsides in other areas.
I think Graham is pretty much a limited-only player, and among the limited community, the change to single-set is pretty much universally praised. The second - and especially third, back when we had 3-set blocks - sets generally either got pretty stale for draft if they shared too much mechanically with the earlier set(s) or became pretty weird if they departed from the previous set(s) mechanically since you still had packs of the earlier set in the draft environment. Single set blocks are a huge improvement.
Shaper's Sanctuary saved my butt as a sideboard card against a Black/Red deck. It's a good card if you know the situation that's coming is going to make it worth your while; i.e. sideboard.
shaper's sanctuary does see a decent bit of play in modern sideboards, idk how it was in limited (probably quite bad except in the sideboard against very removal heavy decks)
Here comes a thought: The formula of those Crack-a-Pack videos will probably run its course someday. Like, Graham has been knocking it absolutely out of the park and I'm hoping it goes on for a long time, but I think it's a safe assumption that eventually he's going to run out of novel ways to spin it and the series will end. It has been well established that LRR's CaP backlog is enormous. Given that... I wonder if any packs sent after the series, which solicits new pack influx, started will actually get opened during the series' lifespan XD
I bought 1 pack of Rivals of Ixalan and a bunch of other 1 off packs for a day me and some buddies wanted to do some chaos drafts, and pulled a Twilight Prophet. What I didnt discover for 2 years was thats almost a $40 card lmfao
Kinda surprised the rare was only a buck. Seemed like a good card draw engine for commander. There are probably other/better ways of drawing cards in XG decks, but this seems like a way to disincentivize your opponent from interacting with any sort of stompy stompy deck.
Shapers Sanctuary is a card that shows up in modern from time to time, although prismatic dumb spell has kinda pushed it out because its incredibly broken. It turns removal into you draw a card so in like elves shapers sanctuary can be an unbeatable sideboard card. And it was sideboardably great in that limited. One of the few ways you could actually beat a tetzomac deck that had a chupa or 2. Tetzomac so much worse when every prey counter draws you a card. And because Ixlan is one of the worst ev sets ever printed, sanctuary when it was at 2 bucks was like top 5-7 most expensive rares in the set at one point.
I don't remember memes being that good until Rivals when they printed actual magic cards in the set. I remember Ixlan as the make your hexproof merfolk fly format. I remember this being an atrocious limited format, but I mighta been biased due to the choice of wizards to finally do a set that is an Indigenous analog and deciding to set it in the most genocidal period of human history, and to make Jace and Vraska genocidal analogues. It makes the invoke prejudice ban so weird, obviously kkk is terrible, the conquistadors were so much worse its not even comparable tbh, they are orders of magnitude worse.
LOL "Shaper's sanctuary seems not worth having it take up a spell slot in your deck". What the fuck are you smoking? Shaper's sanctuary is awesome. That kind of shit is unsub worthy
4:28 Colossal Dreadmaw showing up in RIX and M19 was odd, but what really set it off was Masters 25. For those who don't know, Masters 25 was the 25th anniversary set and featured one or two cards from every set thus far. And for some unknown reason, Colossal Dreadmaw was *Ixalan's* only card.
Just finished watching this part and I'm glad to see this is, currently, the top voted comment. Reprint in Rivals? Sure. Reprint in Masters 25? What? Silly Wizards! Reprint in M19? Okay, now it's just a gag. Please stop.
It was also the Master's set based around nostalgia, so there were many jokes had about the nostalgia of Colossal Dreadmaw lol
Why do you say for some reason? The set’s goal was to have at least one, but not required to be more, card from every set up to that point. Ixalan needed a representative, but why should it have had more?
So realistically the reason for this is probably because Masters 25 was only released two months after release of RIX. This means that during development of Masters 25 they needed to find a card from RIX, also still in development, that would fit in M25, was specific to Ixalan, would work well in the limited environment, and was unlikely to be meaningfully changed before RIX was released. The solution? A big dumb green dinosaur.
Yeah, and in addition, the set needed to fill out 101 common slots. If you have to pick a big green idiot for a common, you could do a lot worse than Colossal Dreadmaw. Nobody's out there going, "Man, if only this slot had been Canopy Gorger the set would have been so much more iconic".
*Graham with others*: eloquent, wisecracking fearless leader
*Graham alone*: lost in a complete stream-of-consciousness mess
I love both
Colossal Dreadmaw was also printed in Masters 25, which came out like 2 months after Rivals
I have such fond memories of Ixalan pre-release so my view on the set will always be slightly biased. People dressing up as pirates (myself included), treasure themed giveaways, and the person who ran through the store in the ubiquitous inflatable dinosaur costume.
Draft-wise it was fun, but I don't remember too much about the format overall.
Colossal Dreadmaw was also reprinted in M25 as the iconic card for Ixalan too. So what Graham is trying to tell us is Colossal Dreadmaw needs a reprint cause it'll be cycling out of Standard with Core Set 2021.
The spoiler season for that set was so insufferable with people thinking it had to be all “Iconic” cards. Like it was supposed to be a set full of rares and competitive commons/uncommons.
To be fair, Wizards marketed the set as iconic cards from Magic's history and while no one was expected the set to contain all rares and Mythics. There were some questionable calls that Wotc made like Tree of Redemption to represent Innistrad.
If I remember correctly, M25 was the set that kicked off all the memes about Colossal Dreadmaw, cause it had already seen reprintings in Rivals and a couple of other products.
We’re going back to Ixalan next year, and if they don’t reprint Colossal Dreadmaw we riot
I like how much he emphasized Colossal Dreadmaws. Like he knew that if he said anything else, people would get mad. Please note I would get mad if ever called anything other than a colossal dreadmaw.
I really liked the world of Ixalan. The blood drinking conquistadors, the fathered dinos and the neat Merfolk.
That Wayne Reynolds art on Savage Stomp is just wild.
shaper's sanctuary has drawn me 15 cards in 1 turn, because my play group is high interaction commander, lol. love that card!
Man, I always find it fascinating to see the non-dinosaur Ixalan stuff. I forget they exist, because why would I pay attention to anything that wasn't *dinosaurs*?
Deeproot is a reason to go into merfolk. Those tokens are the second best thing to put counters on behind the hexproof merfolk in the set and that was merfolks mechanic.
I don't know if Shaper's Sanctuary it would be any good in limited, but its seen a nonzero amount of play in constructed sideboards.
I ran temur spell slinger in this block and Shapeshifters Sanctuary did SOO MUCH WORK for me helping me find my deep dives and other protection cards.
I used Deeproot Champ for cheap +1/+1 counters with it.
SS is an underrated card.
I remember Shaper's Sanctuary being fairly decent as an Infect sideboard card. At worst it was a cheap way to mitigate removal, which was alright when you were trying to max out at 3 lands anyways.
You see it out of the board sometimes in historic.
Finally a crack-a-pack where I recognize almost every card in the pack (Ixalan was when I started playing).
3:48 surprised to hear Graham’s in favor of the single-set system. I’ve only ever heard distaste for it, and as a Vorthos who is overwhelmed by the constant new worlds and has trouble getting attached to the characters, worlds, and stories of single-set blocks, I personally share that distaste.
It’s one of the few changes to the game I genuinely believe is “ruining magic”; That phrase is almost universally used hyperbolically, but I sincerely think the game was vastly more enjoyable to me when we spent more time exploring various aspects of individual planes.
Of course, I’m sure the Sales Data probably says it was a good decision; I can only speak to my own feelings about the change.
Story wise, yea, it's been a bit of a bummer (although I think what they're doing with innistrad is a good idea) but I think the general success of the single-set system has been in regards to limited formats, which have on average been much better since the swap. It allows the sets to be more focused and either not reliant on unreleased sets to be good or conversely have a good set made worse by new sets in the block.
The internet Magic discourse is often quite negative about most things, honestly. I'm also a Vorthos and I think that while the story has definitely suffered heavily within the last few years, no-block model isn't among the culprits, and it has upsides in other areas.
I think Graham is pretty much a limited-only player, and among the limited community, the change to single-set is pretty much universally praised. The second - and especially third, back when we had 3-set blocks - sets generally either got pretty stale for draft if they shared too much mechanically with the earlier set(s) or became pretty weird if they departed from the previous set(s) mechanically since you still had packs of the earlier set in the draft environment. Single set blocks are a huge improvement.
Can't believe Graham thinks I'm as good as a Colossal Dreadmaw
The mental image of Elesh Norn saying this, extremely happy, I love.
Shaper's Sanctuary saved my butt as a sideboard card against a Black/Red deck. It's a good card if you know the situation that's coming is going to make it worth your while; i.e. sideboard.
Shaper's sanctuary was a constructed playable card in GB Snek
personally I miss having three sets in a block. I licked the feeling of unfolding lore, and getting a bit more time to explore a mechanic.
Today I learned my brain had merged Ixalan and Ikoria in to one big MONSTERS and DINOSAURS set.
I assumed the artifact represented a ship and the Castaways can't attack without it because they are stranded on an island.
It's nice to see some good cards for a change! :) Thanks for putting these out for us!
6:27 Excuse me, pretty sure you mean men-ah-chay
shaper's sanctuary does see a decent bit of play in modern sideboards, idk how it was in limited (probably quite bad except in the sideboard against very removal heavy decks)
Dino, tribal, clap clap clap-clap-clap.
Here comes a thought:
The formula of those Crack-a-Pack videos will probably run its course someday. Like, Graham has been knocking it absolutely out of the park and I'm hoping it goes on for a long time, but I think it's a safe assumption that eventually he's going to run out of novel ways to spin it and the series will end.
It has been well established that LRR's CaP backlog is enormous.
Given that... I wonder if any packs sent after the series, which solicits new pack influx, started will actually get opened during the series' lifespan XD
That Hammerskull is still good, has won me games of Historic Brawl (when you find someone not playing all removal or counters)
I'd definitely pick Deeproot Waters here just because the merfolk deck was stupid easy to force and I hated playing against it.
Remember having lot's of fun on Ixalan's draft in Arena... for some reason I was really good at those sets...
Awww, I do feel like a Colossal Dreadmaw, thanks.
Much content. Very algorithm
I'm gonna explore the engagement
Editor superpower of predicting Graham
I bought 1 pack of Rivals of Ixalan and a bunch of other 1 off packs for a day me and some buddies wanted to do some chaos drafts, and pulled a Twilight Prophet. What I didnt discover for 2 years was thats almost a $40 card lmfao
I have always wanted to be, and live my life around becoming a colossal dreadmaw
I feel Graham gets pinkier and pinkier with each video.
Anyone know the background music?
wake up honey, new crack-a-pack
I remember this set, what was it 3-4 years ago. It was my first set
According to Graham, I have trample and am a dinosaur. 🦖
Ten years ago you could make a media empire off a name like Memetown Cadets.
Did Ixalan even print any black cards? lol.
The editor's insistence to have Graham in the thumbnail when he ran out of facial expressions several packs ago needs investigation
I love ixalan
Do you have any Scars block in there or am I going to have to find and send you some? 🤔
More content to engage with. And yes, I would love to be the perfected 6-mana Green common.
I'm mad if this is my 1st pack in the draft. Graham was right; your pick can send you off in no fewer than *three* different directions.
don’t think i’ve ever been this early
I'm sorry what was the name of the channel again? I missed it.
If Graham DIDN'T call me a colossal dreadmaw i would have had to turn off the video.
I’m sorry but how do you pronounce that again? Flying and what?
Kinda surprised the rare was only a buck. Seemed like a good card draw engine for commander. There are probably other/better ways of drawing cards in XG decks, but this seems like a way to disincentivize your opponent from interacting with any sort of stompy stompy deck.
Hoe many of these do you do in a recording session? Just wondering how often we get peak verge of insanity Graham?
Graham mispronounced menacé...
I refuse to accept that Ixalan is 4 years old
psychic editor predicts swine!
Shapers Sanctuary is a card that shows up in modern from time to time, although prismatic dumb spell has kinda pushed it out because its incredibly broken.
It turns removal into you draw a card so in like elves shapers sanctuary can be an unbeatable sideboard card. And it was sideboardably great in that limited. One of the few ways you could actually beat a tetzomac deck that had a chupa or 2. Tetzomac so much worse when every prey counter draws you a card.
And because Ixlan is one of the worst ev sets ever printed, sanctuary when it was at 2 bucks was like top 5-7 most expensive rares in the set at one point.
thought it said italian
Crack-A-Pirate!
Wow
engagement!
I don't remember memes being that good until Rivals when they printed actual magic cards in the set. I remember Ixlan as the make your hexproof merfolk fly format.
I remember this being an atrocious limited format, but I mighta been biased due to the choice of wizards to finally do a set that is an Indigenous analog and deciding to set it in the most genocidal period of human history, and to make Jace and Vraska genocidal analogues.
It makes the invoke prejudice ban so weird, obviously kkk is terrible, the conquistadors were so much worse its not even comparable tbh, they are orders of magnitude worse.
LOL "Shaper's sanctuary seems not worth having it take up a spell slot in your deck". What the fuck are you smoking? Shaper's sanctuary is awesome. That kind of shit is unsub worthy