taking good ideas and pushing them to their breaking points is important to do when you're creating. part of getting a good idea of what works and what doesn't work involves... making a lot of things that don't work sometimes! it's okay! ultimately, mistakes are how you learn. we'll probably make similar kinds of mistakes right here on this channel. we're all growing all the time. hope y'all enjoyed this one, cya next week
To me its the art itself that fails. If it was that mage but upgraded casting the symbol magic, it would have been fantastic, instead we get a fish hand and a symbol.
It would have actually made more sense for the textless cards to be creatures. Specifically vanilla creatures or iconic creatures, woolly thoctar, llanowar elves, birds of paradise, serra angel....Simply cards that wouldn't cause too much confusion in their function.
Speaking as a person whos 1st tournament involved a textless cryptic command, i think they should require you to have either a local language copy or at least its entire effect written/printed for reference, same for foreign cards. This is how yugioh handled the problem
Matty Zee Not a bad idea but 2 problems.1 ad far as im aware you're not supposed to have cellphones out while playing, also reception isn't the best in alot of venus
I love this series, it combines Magic history for newer players like me whilst inciting discussion about things that had happened. Don't ever stop this show, it is insightful.
I don't agree with textless cards beyond very basic ones. Negate, Counterspell, Lightning bolt are fine. I use these negates nowadays. Ultimately, I think full arts like they were made for Game Day, where they have text with transparent textbox is perfect fusion of having full art and having text.
Agreed the full arts with some text over it is still super Sweet. I wish they would make more cards that way, I would pay 10 dollars a pack for boosters that had textless or full art cards in them.
@@tropingreenhorn agreed but respectfully disagreeing from the stand point of it looks good but your eyes are drawn to the text the whole point of it is to be articulated in the picture o get cryptic but for stuff like that you could just do a better foil job so that the text image on the back reflects through the text and honestly it's cheaper then regular foiling simply cause it's less chemicals one might argue it's more like putting a layer of gloss on it
You just brought back a memory I had totally forgotten about. I happen to be out of those people who got full-art-Cryptic-Command’d before I had ever seen the card. Just as you said in the video, my buddy didn’t explain all the modes. He just said, “I counter your spell, and return that permanent to your hand.” This caused a lot of confusion when he cast it again-this time, to tap out my creatures and draw a card... DX
Generally a fan of textless cards, but agree they should be absolutely restricted to simple effects. I have a textless harmonize; the rules text is precisely three words: draw three cards. Perfect. Cryptic command shouldn't be textless.
kaleb esancy that is exactly what i did unfortunately he didn’t have a written one and twelve year of me didn’t have a phone to look it up so I had to take him at his word. Thankfully he told the truth, that said I don’t think any lie would be more powerful!
Speaking as someone with no particular interest in getting into the game, I've really been enjoying your vids! You do an excellent job of combining all of these tidbits and insights into an accessible story, and props to the editor for making it super easy to follow! (and for minimizing the time I spend pausing to look up card text in other tabs, even with a topic like this)
The textless Cryptic was my first encounters with these cards funnily enough at my first FNM. It was a NIGHTMARE. The exact scenario you described happened to me and it was beyond frustrating.
I started a long time ago, and came back so I wasn't playing magic during the time Cryptic Command was seeing play, but I can only imagine how awful that was. It pops up from time to time in commander, so I vaguely recall it's modes, but it's definitely not the kinda card that should have ever been textless. Anything with multiple modes should never been considered for this sort of thing. I wouldn't want to have to recall all modes off hand anyways, as I'd never play a textless version of something like that. I came back around M12 to playing after quitting around Apocalyspe. I saw some players using textless doomblades, mana leaks and day of judgments still being played. Those all made sense, as I knew what those cards did, and they were easy enough to remember. I didn't realize they made cryptic command like that till this video.
The Dominaria promos of Llanowar Elves and Steel Leaf Champion are full art promo cards done right. They still have the text but have a larger area for the art by simply omitting the normal background for the text and type box.
I'd never forget when i started playing edh, and i was trying to assemble an Endrek Sahr deck, and while i was looking for cards in the internet i came across with damnation, thinking "wow, that card is cool but is really expensive, i don't think i'd ever have one". That same week i got a foil textless damnation from wotc :D.
Could you do a video on block constructed? I'd be interested in learning its history and why it went away, it sounds like a cool idea and I wish it were around now.
I love this series and I really miss it, I don't know if anyone is gonna ever see this comment, but... I miss it a lot, it was so cozy and fun, this turned magic from a hobby to a passion for me.
I disagree. I wish they would bring textless cards back. If someone is unfamiliar with what a card does it only takes 15 seconds now to find it online.
Yeah, but if you are a new player and need to search for their effects often it slows the play and make it boring, also, almost nobody likes to be reminded costantly that they do not know every card in the game and beacuse of that they need to google it. (And i add that for exemple, the nearest shop where ilive that organize magic tournaments has a terrible internet coverage and if you want to use internet or even just receive a message on whatsapp you need to head out the shop, maybe in the middle of the tournament, to check on your phone what a card does, even multiple times for game).
My solution to the textless card issue would be to print the normal card on the reverse side (so no proper back to the card). Since very few players would play these cards without protective sleeves, you can safely print the text on the reverse side of the full art for quick reference if there is ever any confusion about the card effects.
I've recently returned to magic after almost 10 years. Pretty Deece is super interesting and well made, especially for someone coming back! Keep it up!
First of all, I love this channel, just found it the other day and have been loving every video I've watched. As for textless cards, I do the same thing as foreign cards. I keep an original, english text version of the card in one of those hard plastic sleeves off to the side. Mainly as a reminder for myself, but also in case I come across any newer player. Not the most cost effective, but it works well.
They should have made this a promotional product like FTV: Textless, or something. That way, everyone who wanted the card would get it, and they probably would double-sleeve it and put it away for safekeeping. :D
For my commander deck, I got all the textless cards available that were relevant for it (Rampant Growth, Harrow & Harmonize). Everyone loves them and it makes for great conversation!! Definitely a great way to stand out and earn some style points. However, regardless of how well known you think a card is, others who don't play in your colors might not know so what I do is always keep a version of the card with text on it to show any opponents who isn't familiar with it.
The way I always run textless cards is to have a non textless version on standby to pass to a new player when they ask what it does all the better if it is the same art. It also helps me remember what the card does too, when I forget.
Oh man THEY’RE BRINGING BACK TIME SPIRAL IN 2021 I AM PUMPED Well to be honest I wasn’t around for the first but it looked like a blast and I can’t wait to be a part of the next
Textless cards are what make me love my UW Control Deck in modern. Cryptic Command, Mana Leak, Negate, Celestial Purge, Condemn and Disenchant. These make me smile everytime i draw them. Sure once a week someone asks what condemn does, but frankly it's easy enough to google on your smartphone and that's not to mention judges
I have textless Ponders in my Pauper Inside Out deck, because pimping out a cheap deck makes me smile. I purposefully keep one normal Ponder as a kind of "token" to give to an opponent who doesn't know the card. It's a very simple practice, people already pack in their own tokens, it takes less than a second to bring the token text version of the card out. It's the same principle as people running tokens for double sided cards in their deck, and then placing the real double sided card into play from their deck box. With all that in mind, I think they should bring player rewards back AND textless promos in particular. They are beautiful cards, and they provide an incentive for long time players, as well as free loot for new players. And nothing hooks someone into something new like free stuff.
i still think that cryptic command is one of its best arts and possibly one of the best arts from the entire textless series! id give a kidney to get one of them, or just to bring back the whole idea
I seem to remember reading an HP Lovecraft story where deep ones (fish people) had symbols that resembled swastikas. I think Cryptic Command is probably an Easter egg of that.
As a newbie player in tourneys back then, it was the textless cards that kept me playing in tourneys. I still remember being pleasantly surprised receiving mail from USA back when I received my first batch of textless cards. I still have my foil textless Day of Judgment from the final rewards mail with me to this day. I would play Standard again in a heartbeat if WotC brings back textless cards.
I love textless cards I admired that the art took center stage and not the cards strength. The art on cryptic command is simple and easy to remember, It has the iconic symbol and a creature (merfolk most likely) that is for the most part blue. It's recognizable and shines over every other card in a deck. Plus new players don't need to know what it does, we have phones. To Google a card and it's rulings.
Cryptic is especially a bad one, as the only two modes everyone can remember always correctly are "counter target spell" and "draw a card" Now, without looking it up, what does the tap mode say? Does a leyline of sanctity save you from the tap mode? What does the bounce mode do? Can it bounce lands? Or perhaps only creatures? Answers are: "Tap all creatures your opponents control." and "Return target permanent to its owner’s hand."
I love these textless cards, always pick up ones that I don't have when I see them. I think I probably have about half of all the released cards. Hope to someday have them all. Not sure if it was a fail, just a barrier to entry that a lot of people did not like. Would love to see more released someday.
You covered a lot of sides to this issue. I would like to add one thing though: in 2008 it was far less likely that you were walking around with a smart phone. Once I had a smartphone app and/or an LGS with wifi I used it, be it for trading or looking up foreign/textless/altered cards. The caveat was of course I didn't have a smart phone in 2008. If I wasn't researching the meta online to memorize the typical offenders I would be THAT guy calling the judge over each time one of those cropped up. This is probably why I am fine with large art alters as long as none of game-mechanic-important text is not obscured (flavor and reminder text being removed is your choice as it is your card, I don't NEED it to know how the card is effecting the game, just the story). Speaking of flavor text... has anyone ever made/seen a card altered to be just text, as in: the necessary text and symbols and then a truckload of flavor text in a different font? Is that a thing? I think we should make it a thing as a counterpoint to "textless" cards. What would we name them: Artless Cards? Blegh. Text Cards? Meh. Lit-Cards!
I loved them and still use a textless bombitus blast, and i didn't even play when these where around i had to hunt it down because i liked the art so much and now with so many apps saying what cards do they could and should come back.
I remember playing in my first ever Modern tournament and it was SCG Worcester. First round, faced a taking turns deck with those cryptics and my opponent was offended that I both didn't know what cryptic was and asked to see one that said what it did. Tough card to make textless as a new player back then, as if playing modern as a newer player wasn't tough enough
I am constantly on the hunt for all the old textless cards and would love to see them brought back. Maybe in a casual environment where the person has time to look up the card. Maybe a commander deck or a one of in a conspiracy pack.
Also worth keeping in mind textless cryptic came out in 2013. The year the iPhone 5 came out. Not everyone had a computer in their pocket which can get a picture of any card in seconds
Back in the day, I always kept a non textless version of the cards in a different sleeve (to avoid confusion on either of our parts) to give to my opponent to look at. That way I could enjoy my pretties and they would know how best to respond.
Just last Wednesday I discovered that my LGS was selling full art and text less cards. I got my hands on their last textless foil Day of Judgement for one of my EDH decks. As well as a full art Nissa's Chosen for my Elf EDH. I love these cards, the only other ones I already owned were Nameless Inversion, Mwonvuli Beast Tracker and Mortify. I plan on buying a copy of every one I can get that I'd possibly use, for Commander. But I agree, older formats with more experienced players are the place for these cards.
Textless cards is one of my favorite features of the online TCG "Hex", In Hex you can pay gold (the ingame currency) to turn any card textless. As its played virtually you can just hover over the card to see what it does. I did it with all my cards as i find the artwork to be beautiful.
this is one of the reasons i like digital tcgs all the cards are text less but you just click on them for a full explanation giving the board a clean look
Those Where the Times When DCI Players recieved Textless Lightning Helixes, Terrors and Bolts! Those Textless Pyroclasm saw a lot of play in my Type2 days.
Honestly, I’m thinking about getting some of these textless cards for one of my Commander decks (one of them being Cryptic Command). To combat any confusion, I’m going to have the text versions of these cards in the same box as the deck. This is also to remind me what the card does for when I haven’t played in a while.
My playgroup played with the rules that you needed to have a copy of any textless cards in your deck that has text on it on hand. So you play "cryptic command", the player who doesn't know what it does says "what's that?" And we can hand them the copy with text, so they still have all the rules for it. We allowed just any written out version (commonly spoilers printed in black and white) because it's easier and noone tried to trick anyone with it, but I don't think I would have gotten into magic if my local group hadn't used that rule.
I remember casting a japanese Cruel Ultimatium against a new player. It was absolutely priceless when I told him what it did and he called a judge over
Burn spells probably lend themselves to the most obvious art, and perhaps artefact removal, and board wipes, and perhaps clones, and lands, and some others.
I still use as many beautiful cards as possible. I sorely miss having cards that are textless. And I plan to eventually have an artist paint over the text of some of the most played cards I have. I miss the player rewards system. Nothing was quite as exciting as opening your shiny day of judgement or whatever you got.
You kinda forget WotC also printed those full art cards with rule texts on them as rewards for certain tournaments (i recall, electrolyze, for example). That wouldve been an easy way to solve the issue. They discontinued the program because it was too expensive as a promotion. Thats it. No other reason.
I just love how they look and wish I as a player who only started playing in 2015 would have had an opportunity to get that kind of stuff (without paying high secondary market prices to only get the ones I need).
It's weird because they could easily do a lot of textless or semi-textless creatures . The x/x could be either integrated into the art(imagine vines or branches for a green creature in the corner). And since a lot of creatures have one ability they could add a symbol like wings for flying.
Honestly only the most iconic spells that everyone knows as they are fundamental to their respective colors should be textless. I can only think of two of them but that's because they are Quite Literally two spells that you learn about as part of the basics of the game: Counter Spell Lightning Bolt Nearly anything else and you're dipping into the Yugioh anime where you have to memorize your deck to the bone because every card has a myriad of strengths, weaknesses, and combos
One for each colour. Counterspell, Lightning Bolt, Spirit Link, Murder, Giant Growth. That's the sort of level of complexity textless spells should be.
I have most of my textless cards. Lightning helix, recollect, hinder and mana leak to mane some. When people look at them in my binder they are amazed and shocked that wotc did such a thing.
I have two thoughts on how to fix this, either: how they do it in pokemon, how they have the text over the full art, or, make it mandatory, if you play the full art card, to have a normal version with you to show to the opponent in which case they don't know what it does
Textless should make a comeback but for cards that are staples of eternal formats such as legacy or especially commander. Simple cards that do single effects but you see in most or nearly all games. Even permanents such as Birds if Paradise or Sol Ring could get this treatment. Commander is a great format to promote these cards because it is meant to be multiplayer, so even if a new player is at a game, he has other players who can confirm the effect of the textless cards
First tournament I played in with my textless cryptics, I had a clunky hand, so I endstep bounced my opponent's land and drew a card. My opponent said "you can't bounce lands with cryptic." I had to call judge and get oracle on my own card. Of all the textless, cryptic may have been the dumbest. That said, I think player rewards is a desperately needed idea that would benefit after the last several yers of standard being awful and declining player attendance at all levels of play.
If the card is simple and has only one effect (especially if that effect is rather obvious) can work very well such as Lanowar Elves or Counterspell/cancel. Cards that are simply the most common and easy to understand
I have 3 thoughts in regard to this video/topic: 1)I'm interested in the reasoning that somehow a textless instant or sorcery would be less problematic. Yes, you only need to refer to the text of an instant or sorcery while you are casting it, but with cards like Snapcaster Mage in so many decks, it can be handy to remind yourself what a instant or sorcery does while it's in the graveyard. Which brings me to the other half of the equation, the reason to make textless cards, bringing art and aesthetics to the forefront of the game. Having cards go immediately to the graveyard and then get covered up by other cards diminishes the upside of textless cards. Sure it's possible to splay out a graveyard, but many players don't, and even if you, unless you have the space to fully lay cards in your graveyard side by side, they'll be partially covered. The obvious choice for textless cards (other than basic lands) would be vanilla creatures. (or possibly french vanilla). You can add the type line and power and toughness surreptitiously(and possibly put keywords in the other corners) without taking away from the appeal of the card. While restricting itself to (french) vanilla creatures would have left wotc with fewer options, there still some powerful options. Watchwolf, Isamaru ;hound of Honda and Savanah Lions/elite Vanguard come to mind readily. And it seems Future Sight design agreed when it included textless creatures in Nessian courser and Fomori Giant. 2)As someone whose thinking is more linguistic than visual I would appreciate artless cards that eschewed the art in favor of either flavor or reminder text. I've always been bothered by keywords that have no reminder text, whether because they're evergreen and supposedly flavorful and intuitive a la flying or becuase the card is a rare and they omitted the reminder text to leave room for additional rules text, relying on commmons and uncommons to supply the rules text to new players. While flying may have been intuitive to many players, especially if they came from dnd or other storytelling communities, it was a total enigma to me when i picked up the game. As for relying on commons for reminder text, its not a given that players will encounter a set all at once while it is new, rather than as a handful of individual old cards. Lack of reminder text(or keyword instruction text for those players who never new the mechanic well enough to be reminded) can be just as much of a gate to new players as textless cards. For cards that don't need reminder text, or have it but would still have room I'd enjoy longer flavor text on cards, even at the expense of art. While I realize that being able to look at, study, and admire MtG art is important to many players, and even people who collect or simply encounter MtG without playing, I get a lot more meaning from flavor text. I do realize that the ability to recognize a foreign language card, or a card at a distance is important for gameplay, but a limited amount of these per set could be recognized by frame color and set symbol and possibly watermarks. 3) If MtG were an entirely digital game such as Hearthstone textless cards(or artless cards as in my above point) would be simple to enable. Just separate the text from the art and let players toggle back and forth as desired, or expand the card to show more of both. Despite that and other advantages a digital game has to offer I'm glad MtG still maintains a physical card game. There's a charm to feeling the texture of a card,, its edges and its heft, to shuffling cards and dealing them out, to sharing a game with someone as you share a meal, and to taking the game camping or somewhere off the grid.So I'm glad that MtG is constantly tying to experiments with new tweaks on card layout and appearance. All of the above said: Textless Cryptic Command really jumped the shark.
Hell, when I bought my Cryptic Commands, I bought the textless version because they were actually selling for LESS at the time due to the fact that people didn't want to play with them. The curling issue on the foils had some to do with that as well though.
I think a general guideline should be If you want to play these cards at FNM just have a copy of the regular one handy in case someone asks. That seems like the most fair way to go abut it.
I just straight up sleeved and put them away. If for some reason, I have a deck that needs that card in it. I print a copy of the text card, slide it into a sleeve with a basic land, and keep the textless out of my deck. If the proxy comes up, I play it and show the textless card at the same time as proof of ownership. Because, I don't proxy a card I don't own, and I don't proxy more copies than I do own. (And yes, I'm also a foil snob and do this same thing with foils.)
I'd owned a Player's Reward Cryptic Command and would always only every pick the same two modes because I could never remember what the other two were, and I didn't want to stop the game to look it up. Visually, the full art Cryptic Command definitely invokes the idea of being cryptic. You just look at it like "What even is this? Never mind what does it do, what am I even looking at?" It always wasn't until I saw this video and the art up close did I realize that that doodle had four little squiggles and realized "Oh! Oh... Those are supposed to represent the module choices? That's...not intuitive at all."
I personally love textless cards and the problems they pose is rectified by carrying another copy of the same card with text or simply looking up the card text on a smartphone.
Pretty newbie player, still learning at the Kitchen Table. :) Yeah, Cryptic Command is a terrible choice imo. I did my research, and know the effects, but I feel like even years from now I would want to look at the text to remind myself all of what it can do. On the other hand, I REALLY want to get my hands on those foil Wrath of God and Damnation cards for commander. I think Commander is the perfect place for gorgeous art like that.
I agree! Especially on sweepers like wrath of god and damnation, which are very recognizable in what they do to commander players, and simple in their exact wording.
I feel as though a simple answer would have been to send out reminder cards that you kept out of your deck, so therefore when you played a cryptic command with the textless card if your opponent asked "huh?" you could simply crab the reminder card and hand it to them. Heck, sending out a non textless copy of the card with the textless one for the purpose of having it out of your deck and available to read would have worked just fine!
I started playing magic in December of 2016 and the very first time I was playing my opponent played a full art cryptic. I asked what it did and he told me. To say I didn't believe him is an understatement. smh was I really like wtf is this, not only to the card in general, but the fact that it was tactless when the card did that much kinda floored me.
I do agree that the textless promos were somewhat problematic. However, the problem was the choice of cards, not the fact that they were done at all. Cards like Lightning Bolt are simple enough to not warrant any gameplay issues. What can alleviate the complexity issue entirely would be a small printout sent out with the promos and/or to local game stores that explain what each card does. Ultimately, I'd love to see these come back, as it truly made players excited and happy to play the game.
My Texteless Cryptic Command story is me casting it during a states event, and when my opponent asked what it did, I told him call a judge. He said “Nah, you seem like a decent guy, just tell me what it does.” So I told him it was an instant with 4 modes and I got to pick 2. He then apologized and called a judge. I told him that’s why I said “call a judge” when he first asked 😂
When I started, I bought some cards at my LGS. We would play TINY LEADERS, (YES) and I play a very violent one-hit Shu Yun, who made my friends kinda quit. I bought a ponder, a pyroclasm, a mana tithe, bolt and helix. (Cards I had searched for on the internet beforehand, cause getting to know cards is hard.) I was absolutly blazed and dazed when I saw the textless versions of them. I had sparkles in my eyes for weeks and never bought one. (Helix is litteraly 1000% more expensive...) And after a year of playing, for my birthday, the three friends I play with offered me 3 Helix, to build a modern burn deck. Absolutly awesome. I do understand that they are very hard to begin with, but I think owners of such cards should make proxies in a binder, just in case. But for my part, as a beginner, those weren't close gates. Those were the ultimate "i want" cards. Cheap, useful spells. Very beautiful art. *good* spells. (double-faced tokens, c'mn wizards) 10/10
ad45376 what if the location of a magic tournament has terrible internet coverage and it's almost impossible to search for something without leaving the place, it's not that unusual.
that's a fair point, considering some places might have terrible coverage, but I suppose it would be cool to still get them lol maybe as FNM promos or something, ah wishful thinking
I used to have to carry a spare normal copy of any of my textless cards in the deck box just for new players so I could shoe them the card text. That being said I stopped using them when I had a brain fart one FNM and forgot all the modes on cc, just like text on the card my mind was blank.
taking good ideas and pushing them to their breaking points is important to do when you're creating. part of getting a good idea of what works and what doesn't work involves... making a lot of things that don't work sometimes! it's okay! ultimately, mistakes are how you learn. we'll probably make similar kinds of mistakes right here on this channel. we're all growing all the time. hope y'all enjoyed this one, cya next week
Woah; that was deep
This is why editors exist.
Cryptic command being cryptic, flavour win.
yes
To me its the art itself that fails. If it was that mage but upgraded casting the symbol magic, it would have been fantastic, instead we get a fish hand and a symbol.
Beatrix Sevenhearts Yeah, not in my top 1000 mtg illustrations.
*flavor
@@aidstew flavour with u isn't wrong, wtf??
It would have actually made more sense for the textless cards to be creatures. Specifically vanilla creatures or iconic creatures, woolly thoctar, llanowar elves, birds of paradise, serra angel....Simply cards that wouldn't cause too much confusion in their function.
they eventually did something close to this in future sight but as someone who played it in extended, textless wooly thoctar would have been DOPE
Textless creatures would have been nice even at that time.
Speaking as a person whos 1st tournament involved a textless cryptic command, i think they should require you to have either a local language copy or at least its entire effect written/printed for reference, same for foreign cards. This is how yugioh handled the problem
Yeah I have to keep regular copies so new players don't have to take me at my word
Indeed. A saw a dude casting a japanese "balance" and I asked "what does it do". He said "Erm...". That shouldn't be possible.
ooooof. sorry about that brad!
Brad Lopez call a judge, they can look up the oracle text of any card during any tournament
Matty Zee Not a bad idea but 2 problems.1 ad far as im aware you're not supposed to have cellphones out while playing, also reception isn't the best in alot of venus
I love this series, it combines Magic history for newer players like me whilst inciting discussion about things that had happened. Don't ever stop this show, it is insightful.
i promise to never die.
Really interesting topics too.
@@tcgplayercom I love the implication that you will never stop doing this show as long as you live.
Cry
I don't agree with textless cards beyond very basic ones. Negate, Counterspell, Lightning bolt are fine. I use these negates nowadays.
Ultimately, I think full arts like they were made for Game Day, where they have text with transparent textbox is perfect fusion of having full art and having text.
LOVE the game day promos. those are great executions of the idea
I think too, transparent textboxes are the better solution. I don't like this textless full arts.
Agreed the full arts with some text over it is still super Sweet. I wish they would make more cards that way, I would pay 10 dollars a pack for boosters that had textless or full art cards in them.
I use a textless Celestial Purge, but I agree with all of this, + the game day promos look sweet af
@@tropingreenhorn agreed but respectfully disagreeing from the stand point of it looks good but your eyes are drawn to the text the whole point of it is to be articulated in the picture o get cryptic but for stuff like that you could just do a better foil job so that the text image on the back reflects through the text and honestly it's cheaper then regular foiling simply cause it's less chemicals one might argue it's more like putting a layer of gloss on it
You just brought back a memory I had totally forgotten about.
I happen to be out of those people who got full-art-Cryptic-Command’d before I had ever seen the card. Just as you said in the video, my buddy didn’t explain all the modes. He just said, “I counter your spell, and return that permanent to your hand.” This caused a lot of confusion when he cast it again-this time, to tap out my creatures and draw a card... DX
How do you do the foiling effect on the cards? I could use that in my videos.
Generally a fan of textless cards, but agree they should be absolutely restricted to simple effects. I have a textless harmonize; the rules text is precisely three words: draw three cards. Perfect. Cryptic command shouldn't be textless.
My first encounter with cryptic command was it textless variant I was 12 and had no idea what it did...
then this video was for you
Paladia_ Gorom just ask your opponant what the card does, or look it up. Its the same with foreign cards.
kaleb esancy that is exactly what i did unfortunately he didn’t have a written one and twelve year of me didn’t have a phone to look it up so I had to take him at his word. Thankfully he told the truth, that said I don’t think any lie would be more powerful!
Speaking as someone with no particular interest in getting into the game, I've really been enjoying your vids! You do an excellent job of combining all of these tidbits and insights into an accessible story, and props to the editor for making it super easy to follow! (and for minimizing the time I spend pausing to look up card text in other tabs, even with a topic like this)
The textless Cryptic was my first encounters with these cards funnily enough at my first FNM. It was a NIGHTMARE. The exact scenario you described happened to me and it was beyond frustrating.
woof. sorry about that
The FNM was at a store or something, though, right? Just ask a judge what it does, write it down. Annoying maybe. A nightmare? What the fuck, lol?
I started a long time ago, and came back so I wasn't playing magic during the time Cryptic Command was seeing play, but I can only imagine how awful that was. It pops up from time to time in commander, so I vaguely recall it's modes, but it's definitely not the kinda card that should have ever been textless. Anything with multiple modes should never been considered for this sort of thing. I wouldn't want to have to recall all modes off hand anyways, as I'd never play a textless version of something like that.
I came back around M12 to playing after quitting around Apocalyspe. I saw some players using textless doomblades, mana leaks and day of judgments still being played. Those all made sense, as I knew what those cards did, and they were easy enough to remember. I didn't realize they made cryptic command like that till this video.
It's not even a permanent
The Dominaria promos of Llanowar Elves and Steel Leaf Champion are full art promo cards done right. They still have the text but have a larger area for the art by simply omitting the normal background for the text and type box.
the llanowar elves is SO good
i completely agree, full art like this is fine, as i'm still able to read the damned card
I'd never forget when i started playing edh, and i was trying to assemble an Endrek Sahr deck, and while i was looking for cards in the internet i came across with damnation, thinking "wow, that card is cool but is really expensive, i don't think i'd ever have one". That same week i got a foil textless damnation from wotc :D.
Textless Cryptic Command made me literally laugh out loud.
Love the video.
made me lol too when i remembered it was a thing. like, really?!?!
This video is a swing and a miss. Full art cryptic command is amazing.
Coming back to this video to announce that Dark Confidant will be getting a Textless Promo
Could you do a video on block constructed? I'd be interested in learning its history and why it went away, it sounds like a cool idea and I wish it were around now.
not a bad idea at all. i'm very down with it.
Block constructed decks are a lot more flavourful than standard.
I love this series and I really miss it, I don't know if anyone is gonna ever see this comment, but... I miss it a lot, it was so cozy and fun, this turned magic from a hobby to a passion for me.
I did ;)
I disagree. I wish they would bring textless cards back. If someone is unfamiliar with what a card does it only takes 15 seconds now to find it online.
Yeah, but if you are a new player and need to search for their effects often it slows the play and make it boring, also, almost nobody likes to be reminded costantly that they do not know every card in the game and beacuse of that they need to google it. (And i add that for exemple, the nearest shop where ilive that organize magic tournaments has a terrible internet coverage and if you want to use internet or even just receive a message on whatsapp you need to head out the shop, maybe in the middle of the tournament, to check on your phone what a card does, even multiple times for game).
good point. these were definitely pre smart phone though haha
Or it takes a full 3 minutes to call a judge over to search it on gatherer, since you aren't allowed electronic devices at competitive level and up.
Textless cards wouldn't be a problem today. Almost every MTG player has MTG Familiar on their smart phones nowadays.
TCGplayer
I didn't consider that when I made my initial comment.
"they could probably have gotten away with a textless...dark confidant"
Good news from 2022!..
My solution to the textless card issue would be to print the normal card on the reverse side (so no proper back to the card). Since very few players would play these cards without protective sleeves, you can safely print the text on the reverse side of the full art for quick reference if there is ever any confusion about the card effects.
Yeah, sadly these were championed in an era where sleeving cards was not necessarily the norm nor was it to be expected.
I've recently returned to magic after almost 10 years. Pretty Deece is super interesting and well made, especially for someone coming back! Keep it up!
love to hear that. thanks for watching!
Textless promos > all other promos
i dunno, the old-frame dark confidant is NOICE
First of all, I love this channel, just found it the other day and have been loving every video I've watched.
As for textless cards, I do the same thing as foreign cards. I keep an original, english text version of the card in one of those hard plastic sleeves off to the side. Mainly as a reminder for myself, but also in case I come across any newer player. Not the most cost effective, but it works well.
They should have made this a promotional product like FTV: Textless, or something. That way, everyone who wanted the card would get it, and they probably would double-sleeve it and put it away for safekeeping. :D
that's actually a great idea
Now that WOTC has fully adopted flip cards, I wonder if printing the text on the back would be enough to bring textless back. They do look sweet.
For my commander deck, I got all the textless cards available that were relevant for it (Rampant Growth, Harrow & Harmonize). Everyone loves them and it makes for great conversation!! Definitely a great way to stand out and earn some style points. However, regardless of how well known you think a card is, others who don't play in your colors might not know so what I do is always keep a version of the card with text on it to show any opponents who isn't familiar with it.
This video was incredible. Thank you, and keep it up.
Pleasant kenobi
The way I always run textless cards is to have a non textless version on standby to pass to a new player when they ask what it does all the better if it is the same art. It also helps me remember what the card does too, when I forget.
They went out because of the fact that a store was making fake accounts and fake tournaments, then and that store ruined it for everyone.
no amount of new players being reasons were the main part, textless cards were ruined by the system being abused
Oh man THEY’RE BRINGING BACK TIME SPIRAL IN 2021 I AM PUMPED
Well to be honest I wasn’t around for the first but it looked like a blast and I can’t wait to be a part of the next
I still have quite a few of these in my collection. Cool cards for sure!
Textless cards are what make me love my UW Control Deck in modern. Cryptic Command, Mana Leak, Negate, Celestial Purge, Condemn and Disenchant. These make me smile everytime i draw them. Sure once a week someone asks what condemn does, but frankly it's easy enough to google on your smartphone and that's not to mention judges
I have textless Ponders in my Pauper Inside Out deck, because pimping out a cheap deck makes me smile. I purposefully keep one normal Ponder as a kind of "token" to give to an opponent who doesn't know the card. It's a very simple practice, people already pack in their own tokens, it takes less than a second to bring the token text version of the card out. It's the same principle as people running tokens for double sided cards in their deck, and then placing the real double sided card into play from their deck box.
With all that in mind, I think they should bring player rewards back AND textless promos in particular. They are beautiful cards, and they provide an incentive for long time players, as well as free loot for new players. And nothing hooks someone into something new like free stuff.
i still think that cryptic command is one of its best arts and possibly one of the best arts from the entire textless series! id give a kidney to get one of them, or just to bring back the whole idea
I seem to remember reading an HP Lovecraft story where deep ones (fish people) had symbols that resembled swastikas. I think Cryptic Command is probably an Easter egg of that.
As a newbie player in tourneys back then, it was the textless cards that kept me playing in tourneys. I still remember being pleasantly surprised receiving mail from USA back when I received my first batch of textless cards. I still have my foil textless Day of Judgment from the final rewards mail with me to this day. I would play Standard again in a heartbeat if WotC brings back textless cards.
I love textless cards I admired that the art took center stage and not the cards strength. The art on cryptic command is simple and easy to remember, It has the iconic symbol and a creature (merfolk most likely) that is for the most part blue. It's recognizable and shines over every other card in a deck. Plus new players don't need to know what it does, we have phones. To Google a card and it's rulings.
Cryptic is especially a bad one, as the only two modes everyone can remember always correctly are "counter target spell" and "draw a card"
Now, without looking it up, what does the tap mode say? Does a leyline of sanctity save you from the tap mode?
What does the bounce mode do? Can it bounce lands? Or perhaps only creatures?
Answers are: "Tap all creatures your opponents control." and "Return target permanent to its owner’s hand."
I love these textless cards, always pick up ones that I don't have when I see them. I think I probably have about half of all the released cards. Hope to someday have them all. Not sure if it was a fail, just a barrier to entry that a lot of people did not like. Would love to see more released someday.
I get your points dude, really, I do. But as a (relatively) new player, DAT ART THO... I want all of them.
You covered a lot of sides to this issue. I would like to add one thing though:
in 2008 it was far less likely that you were walking around with a smart phone. Once I had a smartphone app and/or an LGS with wifi I used it, be it for trading or looking up foreign/textless/altered cards. The caveat was of course I didn't have a smart phone in 2008. If I wasn't researching the meta online to memorize the typical offenders I would be THAT guy calling the judge over each time one of those cropped up.
This is probably why I am fine with large art alters as long as none of game-mechanic-important text is not obscured (flavor and reminder text being removed is your choice as it is your card, I don't NEED it to know how the card is effecting the game, just the story).
Speaking of flavor text... has anyone ever made/seen a card altered to be just text, as in: the necessary text and symbols and then a truckload of flavor text in a different font? Is that a thing? I think we should make it a thing as a counterpoint to "textless" cards. What would we name them: Artless Cards? Blegh. Text Cards? Meh. Lit-Cards!
I loved them and still use a textless bombitus blast, and i didn't even play when these where around i had to hunt it down because i liked the art so much and now with so many apps saying what cards do they could and should come back.
I remember playing in my first ever Modern tournament and it was SCG Worcester. First round, faced a taking turns deck with those cryptics and my opponent was offended that I both didn't know what cryptic was and asked to see one that said what it did. Tough card to make textless as a new player back then, as if playing modern as a newer player wasn't tough enough
Crazy how now we have new textless cards, and a Dark Confidant at that!
I am constantly on the hunt for all the old textless cards and would love to see them brought back. Maybe in a casual environment where the person has time to look up the card. Maybe a commander deck or a one of in a conspiracy pack.
I say this as a form of very high praise: The Pretty Deece series is comparable to Rhystic Studies/The Magic Man Sam's videos. Well done! :]
we loooooove sam here, so that's a huge compliment! thanks!
I think that they should do the player rewards programs, but with the gameday card frame, so you get to keep the full art, and the text too.
Also worth keeping in mind textless cryptic came out in 2013. The year the iPhone 5 came out. Not everyone had a computer in their pocket which can get a picture of any card in seconds
Back in the day, I always kept a non textless version of the cards in a different sleeve (to avoid confusion on either of our parts) to give to my opponent to look at. That way I could enjoy my pretties and they would know how best to respond.
Just last Wednesday I discovered that my LGS was selling full art and text less cards.
I got my hands on their last textless foil Day of Judgement for one of my EDH decks.
As well as a full art Nissa's Chosen for my Elf EDH.
I love these cards, the only other ones I already owned were Nameless Inversion, Mwonvuli Beast Tracker and Mortify.
I plan on buying a copy of every one I can get that I'd possibly use, for Commander.
But I agree, older formats with more experienced players are the place for these cards.
Textless cards is one of my favorite features of the online TCG "Hex", In Hex you can pay gold (the ingame currency) to turn any card textless. As its played virtually you can just hover over the card to see what it does. I did it with all my cards as i find the artwork to be beautiful.
I would start playing red to be able to play that textless Lightning Bolt.
this is one of the reasons i like digital tcgs all the cards are text less but you just click on them for a full explanation giving the board a clean look
Great videos need more of these videos!
Those Where the Times When DCI Players recieved Textless Lightning Helixes, Terrors and Bolts! Those Textless Pyroclasm saw a lot of play in my Type2 days.
I've played for years and I couldn't tell you what a cyptic command does without seeing the card text.
Honestly, I’m thinking about getting some of these textless cards for one of my Commander decks (one of them being Cryptic Command). To combat any confusion, I’m going to have the text versions of these cards in the same box as the deck. This is also to remind me what the card does for when I haven’t played in a while.
My playgroup played with the rules that you needed to have a copy of any textless cards in your deck that has text on it on hand. So you play "cryptic command", the player who doesn't know what it does says "what's that?" And we can hand them the copy with text, so they still have all the rules for it. We allowed just any written out version (commonly spoilers printed in black and white) because it's easier and noone tried to trick anyone with it, but I don't think I would have gotten into magic if my local group hadn't used that rule.
I remember casting a japanese Cruel Ultimatium against a new player. It was absolutely priceless when I told him what it did and he called a judge over
Burn spells probably lend themselves to the most obvious art, and perhaps artefact removal, and board wipes, and perhaps clones, and lands, and some others.
I think it would be neat if they made all vanilla cards like the textless ones
I still use as many beautiful cards as possible. I sorely miss having cards that are textless. And I plan to eventually have an artist paint over the text of some of the most played cards I have.
I miss the player rewards system. Nothing was quite as exciting as opening your shiny day of judgement or whatever you got.
Dude sounds like my favorite music nerd.
You kinda forget WotC also printed those full art cards with rule texts on them as rewards for certain tournaments (i recall, electrolyze, for example). That wouldve been an easy way to solve the issue.
They discontinued the program because it was too expensive as a promotion. Thats it. No other reason.
All I know from watching this, is that I need that textless Cryptic Command now.. with every fiber of my being I need that card O.O
i would shift text to Tokens, so if something unclear, i can just pull out the token that clarifies the Card.
I just love how they look and wish I as a player who only started playing in 2015 would have had an opportunity to get that kind of stuff (without paying high secondary market prices to only get the ones I need).
I have a textless cryptic command that I traded for a couple years ago. Still one of my coolest cards in the collection.
this is getting better and better ! keep up the good work !
thanks! we're doing our best
It's weird because they could easily do a lot of textless or semi-textless creatures . The x/x could be either integrated into the art(imagine vines or branches for a green creature in the corner). And since a lot of creatures have one ability they could add a symbol like wings for flying.
I mean, with smartphones today, I think it's perfectly fine to the textless insanity to come back
Honestly only the most iconic spells that everyone knows as they are fundamental to their respective colors should be textless. I can only think of two of them but that's because they are Quite Literally two spells that you learn about as part of the basics of the game:
Counter Spell
Lightning Bolt
Nearly anything else and you're dipping into the Yugioh anime where you have to memorize your deck to the bone because every card has a myriad of strengths, weaknesses, and combos
One for each colour. Counterspell, Lightning Bolt, Spirit Link, Murder, Giant Growth. That's the sort of level of complexity textless spells should be.
It's funny because the flavor behind cryptic command is literally that it is a confusing instruction
I wish they would come out with something similar to this again
I didn't see cryptic command until playing against a friend in commander and he played the textless version. It was very cryptic
I have most of my textless cards. Lightning helix, recollect, hinder and mana leak to mane some. When people look at them in my binder they are amazed and shocked that wotc did such a thing.
Textless cryptics are the absolute best card.
I have two thoughts on how to fix this, either: how they do it in pokemon, how they have the text over the full art, or, make it mandatory, if you play the full art card, to have a normal version with you to show to the opponent in which case they don't know what it does
Textless should make a comeback but for cards that are staples of eternal formats such as legacy or especially commander. Simple cards that do single effects but you see in most or nearly all games.
Even permanents such as Birds if Paradise or Sol Ring could get this treatment.
Commander is a great format to promote these cards because it is meant to be multiplayer, so even if a new player is at a game, he has other players who can confirm the effect of the textless cards
only cards with 1 line of text and that are easily recognizable and nothing else, otherwise it would be stupid
First tournament I played in with my textless cryptics, I had a clunky hand, so I endstep bounced my opponent's land and drew a card. My opponent said "you can't bounce lands with cryptic." I had to call judge and get oracle on my own card. Of all the textless, cryptic may have been the dumbest. That said, I think player rewards is a desperately needed idea that would benefit after the last several yers of standard being awful and declining player attendance at all levels of play.
If the card is simple and has only one effect (especially if that effect is rather obvious) can work very well such as Lanowar Elves or Counterspell/cancel. Cards that are simply the most common and easy to understand
I have 3 thoughts in regard to this video/topic:
1)I'm interested in the reasoning that somehow a textless instant or sorcery would be less problematic. Yes, you only need to refer to the text of an instant or sorcery while you are casting it, but with cards like Snapcaster Mage in so many decks, it can be handy to remind yourself what a instant or sorcery does while it's in the graveyard. Which brings me to the other half of the equation, the reason to make textless cards, bringing art and aesthetics to the forefront of the game. Having cards go immediately to the graveyard and then get covered up by other cards diminishes the upside of textless cards. Sure it's possible to splay out a graveyard, but many players don't, and even if you, unless you have the space to fully lay cards in your graveyard side by side, they'll be partially covered. The obvious choice for textless cards (other than basic lands) would be vanilla creatures. (or possibly french vanilla). You can add the type line and power and toughness surreptitiously(and possibly put keywords in the other corners) without taking away from the appeal of the card. While restricting itself to (french) vanilla creatures would have left wotc with fewer options, there still some powerful options. Watchwolf, Isamaru ;hound of Honda and Savanah Lions/elite Vanguard come to mind readily. And it seems Future Sight design agreed when it included textless creatures in Nessian courser and Fomori Giant.
2)As someone whose thinking is more linguistic than visual I would appreciate artless cards that eschewed the art in favor of either flavor or reminder text. I've always been bothered by keywords that have no reminder text, whether because they're evergreen and supposedly flavorful and intuitive a la flying or becuase the card is a rare and they omitted the reminder text to leave room for additional rules text, relying on commmons and uncommons to supply the rules text to new players. While flying may have been intuitive to many players, especially if they came from dnd or other storytelling communities, it was a total enigma to me when i picked up the game. As for relying on commons for reminder text, its not a given that players will encounter a set all at once while it is new, rather than as a handful of individual old cards. Lack of reminder text(or keyword instruction text for those players who never new the mechanic well enough to be reminded) can be just as much of a gate to new players as textless cards. For cards that don't need reminder text, or have it but would still have room I'd enjoy longer flavor text on cards, even at the expense of art. While I realize that being able to look at, study, and admire MtG art is important to many players, and even people who collect or simply encounter MtG without playing, I get a lot more meaning from flavor text. I do realize that the ability to recognize a foreign language card, or a card at a distance is important for gameplay, but a limited amount of these per set could be recognized by frame color and set symbol and possibly watermarks.
3) If MtG were an entirely digital game such as Hearthstone textless cards(or artless cards as in my above point) would be simple to enable. Just separate the text from the art and let players toggle back and forth as desired, or expand the card to show more of both. Despite that and other advantages a digital game has to offer I'm glad MtG still maintains a physical card game. There's a charm to feeling the texture of a card,, its edges and its heft, to shuffling cards and dealing them out, to sharing a game with someone as you share a meal, and to taking the game camping or somewhere off the grid.So I'm glad that MtG is constantly tying to experiments with new tweaks on card layout and appearance.
All of the above said: Textless Cryptic Command really jumped the shark.
Hell, when I bought my Cryptic Commands, I bought the textless version because they were actually selling for LESS at the time due to the fact that people didn't want to play with them. The curling issue on the foils had some to do with that as well though.
I think a general guideline should be If you want to play these cards at FNM just have a copy of the regular one handy in case someone asks. That seems like the most fair way to go abut it.
Textless Cryptic Command is beautiful
i used to play with people who used a marker on lands to represent a card they couldnt afford and that was cool with me.
I just straight up sleeved and put them away. If for some reason, I have a deck that needs that card in it. I print a copy of the text card, slide it into a sleeve with a basic land, and keep the textless out of my deck. If the proxy comes up, I play it and show the textless card at the same time as proof of ownership. Because, I don't proxy a card I don't own, and I don't proxy more copies than I do own. (And yes, I'm also a foil snob and do this same thing with foils.)
I'd owned a Player's Reward Cryptic Command and would always only every pick the same two modes because I could never remember what the other two were, and I didn't want to stop the game to look it up. Visually, the full art Cryptic Command definitely invokes the idea of being cryptic. You just look at it like "What even is this? Never mind what does it do, what am I even looking at?" It always wasn't until I saw this video and the art up close did I realize that that doodle had four little squiggles and realized "Oh! Oh... Those are supposed to represent the module choices? That's...not intuitive at all."
I personally love textless cards and the problems they pose is rectified by carrying another copy of the same card with text or simply looking up the card text on a smartphone.
Pretty newbie player, still learning at the Kitchen Table. :) Yeah, Cryptic Command is a terrible choice imo. I did my research, and know the effects, but I feel like even years from now I would want to look at the text to remind myself all of what it can do.
On the other hand, I REALLY want to get my hands on those foil Wrath of God and Damnation cards for commander. I think Commander is the perfect place for gorgeous art like that.
I agree! Especially on sweepers like wrath of god and damnation, which are very recognizable in what they do to commander players, and simple in their exact wording.
I feel as though a simple answer would have been to send out reminder cards that you kept out of your deck, so therefore when you played a cryptic command with the textless card if your opponent asked "huh?" you could simply crab the reminder card and hand it to them. Heck, sending out a non textless copy of the card with the textless one for the purpose of having it out of your deck and available to read would have worked just fine!
I love the textless cards my favorite is the textless Ponder
I started playing magic in December of 2016 and the very first time I was playing my opponent played a full art cryptic. I asked what it did and he told me. To say I didn't believe him is an understatement. smh was I really like wtf is this, not only to the card in general, but the fact that it was tactless when the card did that much kinda floored me.
I do agree that the textless promos were somewhat problematic. However, the problem was the choice of cards, not the fact that they were done at all. Cards like Lightning Bolt are simple enough to not warrant any gameplay issues. What can alleviate the complexity issue entirely would be a small printout sent out with the promos and/or to local game stores that explain what each card does. Ultimately, I'd love to see these come back, as it truly made players excited and happy to play the game.
Came way after the promos were gone but I did get my hands on a promo textless lightning helix buying singles at my store
My Texteless Cryptic Command story is me casting it during a states event, and when my opponent asked what it did, I told him call a judge. He said “Nah, you seem like a decent guy, just tell me what it does.” So I told him it was an instant with 4 modes and I got to pick 2. He then apologized and called a judge. I told him that’s why I said “call a judge” when he first asked 😂
When I started, I bought some cards at my LGS. We would play TINY LEADERS, (YES) and I play a very violent one-hit Shu Yun, who made my friends kinda quit. I bought a ponder, a pyroclasm, a mana tithe, bolt and helix. (Cards I had searched for on the internet beforehand, cause getting to know cards is hard.) I was absolutly blazed and dazed when I saw the textless versions of them. I had sparkles in my eyes for weeks and never bought one. (Helix is litteraly 1000% more expensive...) And after a year of playing, for my birthday, the three friends I play with offered me 3 Helix, to build a modern burn deck. Absolutly awesome.
I do understand that they are very hard to begin with, but I think owners of such cards should make proxies in a binder, just in case. But for my part, as a beginner, those weren't close gates. Those were the ultimate "i want" cards. Cheap, useful spells. Very beautiful art. *good* spells. (double-faced tokens, c'mn wizards) 10/10
I think it can work now, cause gatherer is easy to access with smartphones, tablets and the such being so ubiquitous
ad45376 what if the location of a magic tournament has terrible internet coverage and it's almost impossible to search for something without leaving the place, it's not that unusual.
ya i feel that
that's a fair point, considering some places might have terrible coverage, but I suppose it would be cool to still get them lol maybe as FNM promos or something, ah wishful thinking
There should always be a judge able to provide Oracle text for any card, any time.
I used to have to carry a spare normal copy of any of my textless cards in the deck box just for new players so I could shoe them the card text. That being said I stopped using them when I had a brain fart one FNM and forgot all the modes on cc, just like text on the card my mind was blank.