Aaron’s Random Card Comment of the Day #47, 12/9/10
Like Lightning Elemental, Earthquake is a card that would likely be in my “perfect Core Set” that I’d want to put in a time capsule. Unlike Lightning Elemental, Earthquake has a huge impact on Standard environments that it’s in, so it sees print less often these days as we like decks full of little ground creatures to be good sometimes. There’s probably some good reason why we’re okay with Wrath of God/Day of Judgment being more or less perpetually in print but we modulate Earthquake, but I don’t know that I’ve ever actually thought it through. I just remember hearing early on in my career that “Earthquake isn’t a card we want around all the time,” and that made sense to me on some level without having a bunch of explanation behind it.
The card was in print continually from its inception in Alpha all the way through Seventh Edition, all of which happened before I worked here. It was removed for Eighth Edition and didn’t resurface again until M10. It says a lot about the card that was one of the first cards ever created, yet it holds up perfectly today in all aspects--flavor, mechanics, and power.
I went into Multiverse looking for comments on the Seventh Edition Earthquake in particular to see if there were other cards being bandied about for this slot in the set, or if they had begin to worry about its impact, but there are no comments in that file because (1) Seventh Edition predates the current version of our Multiverse database, and (2) Core Sets weren’t built in databases back then anyway, but rather in physical card binders, as they contained only reprints. People would move cards in and out by hand, look at how the set felt, and discuss things with the team lead. There was no real need to play the set in limited--not much, anyway--as core sets weren’t used in that capacity in any large events. As a result, there wasn’t much electronic commenting going on.
I remember when I first got to Wizards seeing the binder slowly coming together for Eighth Edition, but I think that practice was abandoned shortly thereafter in favor of building the set in a database, a practice I enjoy much more if for no reason other than the historical records such a practice generates.
ChibiUnunnilium
★★★☆☆ (3.4/5.0)(5 votes)
Earthquake vs. Wrath makes sense; Wrath kills everything, but Earthquake will usually kill weenies.
Comments (3)
Like Lightning Elemental, Earthquake is a card that would likely be in my “perfect Core Set” that I’d want to put in a time capsule. Unlike Lightning Elemental, Earthquake has a huge impact on Standard environments that it’s in, so it sees print less often these days as we like decks full of little ground creatures to be good sometimes. There’s probably some good reason why we’re okay with Wrath of God/Day of Judgment being more or less perpetually in print but we modulate Earthquake, but I don’t know that I’ve ever actually thought it through. I just remember hearing early on in my career that “Earthquake isn’t a card we want around all the time,” and that made sense to me on some level without having a bunch of explanation behind it.
The card was in print continually from its inception in Alpha all the way through Seventh Edition, all of which happened before I worked here. It was removed for Eighth Edition and didn’t resurface again until M10. It says a lot about the card that was one of the first cards ever created, yet it holds up perfectly today in all aspects--flavor, mechanics, and power.
I went into Multiverse looking for comments on the Seventh Edition Earthquake in particular to see if there were other cards being bandied about for this slot in the set, or if they had begin to worry about its impact, but there are no comments in that file because (1) Seventh Edition predates the current version of our Multiverse database, and (2) Core Sets weren’t built in databases back then anyway, but rather in physical card binders, as they contained only reprints. People would move cards in and out by hand, look at how the set felt, and discuss things with the team lead. There was no real need to play the set in limited--not much, anyway--as core sets weren’t used in that capacity in any large events. As a result, there wasn’t much electronic commenting going on.
I remember when I first got to Wizards seeing the binder slowly coming together for Eighth Edition, but I think that practice was abandoned shortly thereafter in favor of building the set in a database, a practice I enjoy much more if for no reason other than the historical records such a practice generates.