Mana Crypt is A Weirdo
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- Опубліковано 11 лют 2025
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Mana Crypt is as little freak, and I think that's pretty interesting. Rest in Peace, little mana rock.
Source for ban timeline:
mtg.fandom.com...
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The book has literally nothing to do with Mana Crypt. They think a strange mcguffin is a mana crypt for a while but it turns out not to be one after all. I really regretted not sending in the proof of purchase as a kid. Giant Badger on the other hand was a key element of the book.
I copied the mail in form and my receipt to get four when I was in High School. I mailed in for just one of the other book send ins.
I think a lot regret not sending in the proof of purchase, I got lucky and inherited 4 of the crypts.
I read the books when they came out, and other than the Arena and a reference to a city called Estark, I don’t think the cards really had anything to do with the books. They were promotions to sell books (and, ostensibly, get kids reading).
I was dumb and didn’t send in the order form quickly enough and couldn’t get any of the cards. Years later, I bought them all. Fortunately, I bought a good Crypt way before it shot up to an unreachable price.
Videos like this are really interesting for someone like me who only started playing Magic within the last few years (and 90% of that has been commander). Interesting little tidbits of history like that really add to the intrigue around the game for me. It's always cool to see that hot-button issues of today have had iterations going much further back in the past than people often realise (e.g. your comparison to Secret Lair).
This videos original idea was to fill in newer players on something I thought was interesting. Hope it did that. :)
Just like how the Arena Alchemy cards weren't the first time Wizards attempted digital only cards. The 1997 game had special cards with random effects that would only work in a computer game. Magic has lasted long enough that what appear to be new gimmicks are just variations of old gimmicks from the past.
I sent in the redemption from Final Sacrifice and never got my Crypt. I'm still salty.
No way! That SUUUUUUUCKS. What year was this?
@@PleasantKenobi late 1995 or early 1996. Two other people in my playgroup got theirs at the same time. Also, if I remember correctly, the initial stance on Crypt and the other mechanically unique promos was that they were not legal at all in tournament play, which I think ended when they separated Type 1 and Type 1.5.
@@xyryynThe original tournament rules stated ABU only except at judges discretion. The book promos were definitely legal at some point before 1 and 1.5 were split and renamed, mana crypt was restricted in 1999, but the two didn’t separate until 2004.
One friend of mine said he grabbed one that was inside one of the books in a library, used as a bookmark for it. This like 20 years ago. In Brazil the Crypts came bundled in with the books so many copies could show up at random in places like that...
I once left an urza's block deck on an airplane, losing it forever, which contained 4x OG Harper prism mana crypts, and had playsets of Tolarian Academy, Time Spiral, and weirdly Great Whale. Maybe phyrexian processor too.
I am not saying this deck was legal in any format. Only that I had it, then theft the damn thing on an airplane and lost it forever. Carried it on to be extra safe with it. 😢
1:09 Four Matts
4:19 Just here to say that Tedin is pronounced teh-DEEN. It even says so on the illustration credit of the promo Circle of Protection: Art - Mark "It's teh-DEEN" Tedin.
Sounds like you're feeling better man, good to hear!
Genuinely great video! I hope you're feeling better than the last couple videos!
Type 1 technically was never created as a format. Constructed rules were formalized around winter of 94. Type 2 was created in winter of 95. Type 1 was just the old way of playing and was called type 1 because type 2 was created. Really, type 1 is the way the game was always made to be played, and all other formats were just forks on the original intention as the game became too large and unwieldy. I do remember playing a few tournaments that didnt restrict crypt, but it got restricted pretty quick. That doesn't mean it wasn't supposed to be restricted earlier. Just very few of us had internet and so information was harder to get out from Wizards.
Love the look back on the history of a ridiculous card.
This feels like a video Rhystic Studies would make, well done. 🥂
I find it weird how for such a hot topic card in commander it's only been somewhat properly printed for the last 8 years, and that for such a long period it was just a collectible oddity even in the early years of commander, think I got mine from a mystery booster just before the pandemic so it's not even a card I've used that often spending most it's life in my yawgmoth and eventually other black centric decks, and I'll keep it just as a weird piece of history.
what I find more interesting is how the og Giant Badger flavour text said it was summoned by Greensleeves, and nearly 30 years later when they printed Greensleeves it landfall trigger makes badgers.
For a long time early Magic characters from the novels and comics (a good chunk of the early storylines are in the comics) did not have cards. Greensleeves might have one of the longest gaps between character introduction and getting a card.
I loved the history! Thank you! I was around for the Walking Dead uproar. It was crazy.
Good memories of kitchen table running away with games or dying to Crypt
I think it's actually part of the problem that the median casual player's mentality about cards like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt flipped at some point from a POV that inherently excluded cards like Mana Crypt/Sol Ring/Power 9 by default from cards that were acceptable to put in your casual decks without reason and with rare exception despite the fact that 60 card casual had no actual banned list....to a mentality that, while it argues you don't/shouldn't *need* cards like Crypt, still has moved the Overton window on Crypt from "don't play that" to "you shouldn't need to play it", which are meaningful different. The latter allows for the possibility that you could entertain playing those powerful cards if you wanted to power game bad enough, the former removes the possibility of the card as an option. The weird part about all this is that when there was no official banned list for 60 casual play, people seemed to self police significantly better and used the Vintage and Legacy B&R lists as guideposts fairly consistently despite there being no requirement enforcing that outside of spoken and unspoken rules and expectations about what you came to casual for and what you came to 1v1 competitive formats for. It's a cruel irony that somehow the introduction of formal format with a format banned list somehow ended up leading to people being *less* capable of self policing away from cards that very obviously just shouldn't be played in casual game and an attempt at formalizing the concept of social contracts into Rule Zero at the heart of that format did nothing to stop a power-creep spiral of pushing boundaries that simply introducing boundaries seems to elicit out of most humans.
The question is, is there any way to flip the switch back so that like in the days of casual before EDH was all there ways casual culture as a whole cultivates a "I can't do x, because y" behavior/belief with regards to obviously broken and generically powerful engines and payoffs? Because the alternative is we keep cultivating a "I shouldn't do x, because y" behavior/belief and the problem just keeps going and only over gets worse in a one-way ratchet sort of hedonistic ladder as more and more people rationalize and justify their way past more and more "I shouldn't play this/I don't need to play this" type cards and play them anyway.
You don't have to be a behavioral psychologist to know that behaviors people "shouldn't" do are harder to adhere to than behaviors people "can't" do, and that even if both can't and shouldn't communicate a negative value judgement about an action or behavior, "can't" ultimately completed excludes/precludes the action/behavior and "shouldn't" ends up being a suggestion that is ultimately still inherently permissive of the behavior. "Shouldn't" lets the devil on your shoulder the opportunity to convince you it's fine, actually. That's true whether it's eating half a bag of Oreos or putting a fast mana suite in every single one of your casual decks because while you "shouldn't", you always "can".
It's sad that people in casual spaces went from "These are cards are only legal in Vintage sanctioned play *for a reason* and are just the type of card you shouldn't be putting in your casual decks *at all* as a rule that you only break rarely because that kind of power just shouldn't have a place in casual because it will immediately overshadow, overpower, and push out all of the non-tournament viable things people go to casual to build. That stuff belongs in Vintage/Legacy, go play it there" attitude of "can't" among most players regarding Vintage staples despite that noting was actually stopping anyone from doing it..... to the present state of casual where far too many people who aren't even playing cEDH are approaching casual with a "I don't care if I shouldn't play X, other people will so I'm going to and it's not on the banned list. We are all collectively going to ignore the multiple pages of format philosophy and direction and approach it in a reductive and willfully immature manner."
Lol ain't readin all that bro
I'ma ask chat gpt to summarize this.
@@revelmonger what did it say
The book has nothing to do with Crypt. The concept of planeswalkers, and representing the player was... primordial at that time. I have all the old books, they were fun to read at the time but I can't imagine what modern players would think about them.
I was dumb enough to redeem every book promo except Crypt. I was such a newbie, I thought it was bad because of the damage drawback lmao.
Those early books were just fantasy novels with each having a take on drawing mana from the land. No consistency or rules to how it represented the game, but I thought they were all pretty decent stories
Whats funny is i really like there being cards like this because they really capture "life as a resource" and create that oppurtunity to grow as a player that has to be expierenced rather than learned. Its that great "OH SHIT" moment where you can appreciate cards in a totally new way that is uniquely Magic
Arena is the best book at capturing what wizards and planeswalkers are.
Nalathni wasn't disliked because fans didn't like the distribution method, it was just a crap card and everyone knew it. Source: I grabbed my Nalathni off a folding table at the West (I think) entrance of the retailer room at GenCon way back when it was in Milwaukee.
We bought several copies of Arena to send away for the cards. My brother wanted them for his Sangire Vampire deck.
With Foglio art. Unlikely Alliance comes to mind.
Those tokens look cool af, especially the sides of the stack!
They are super cool.
Arena was always my favorite of those 5 books.
FOGLIO TOKENS SPONSORSHIP
MORE FOGLIO ART IN MAGIC
Let there be infinite Fogliokens
5:19 I love Sewers of Estark 😢 (with Toshiro Umezawa spellslinger 😅)
Aspect of the content
Remember, don't forget to check out Phil Foglio's new Kickstarter here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/originalmagicart/fogliokens-tokens-with-a-twist?ref=2jp3ty
You confused me and I pulled up sheoldred to double check legality lol. Legal in all formats
This doesn't mention the fact that tapped artifacts were "off" at the time this came out, but mana burn was a thing. So, if you could spend the mana from the crypt during your upkeep, you didn't have to take damage.
Final Sacrifice was the one book I didn't get for some reason...maybe I thought the card looked bad at the time, or was not impressed by it. I can't say for sure. But I did get the others.
Lol, wouldn't have mattered if Crypt wasn't restricted for a bit. At that time, I highly doubt ANYONE had 4 of them😂
I did. I copied the form at the back of the book and my receipt, for it. I got four copies when I was 15. I did the same for Arena. But didn't for the Badger or Centaur. I didn't mail in for the Sewers.
Arena was an enjoyable read to my younger self. None of the others were.
Wont be missed.
Just not going to talk about the arena card are we? Talked about the rest in the crew lol
I have Final Sacrifice on my shelf, with the cut out on the back... I got Arena as my card...
I lost a special guest mana crypt to my brother in a highcard, at least he got it and not someone else.
Is highcard a version of ante, or did you open packs?
I used to run 4 crypts before restrictions
As did I my good Sir. Goodtimes. No one else had one.
What format was this? Kinda kitchen table?
@@PleasantKenobi On the 4 train to. Crypt was legal and unrestricted in Type 1 and 1.5 until Oct 1999 . It far out stayed its unrestricted welcome for way too many years. Competitive players were aware of it's power immediately when 1st printed in 94 / 95. It was the best card in 1.5. and very hard to find.
@@PleasantKenobi Oh the good Doctor beat me to it
Giant Badger is by far one of the best flavor cards in all of magic.
Also fun fact not all of the cards from those promos were actually released, a pretty large percentage of them were destroyed because the publishing contract for the books was cancelled early.
I don't see the fringe reasons not to play sol ring or mana crypt in the comments yet so I'll get us started with Shape Anew. If you want to Shape Anew combo you can't run artifacts in your deck aside from your combo target, Blightsteel Colossus is my target of choice.
I played back then and crypt was restricted in type one, therefore not legal in type 1.5. Mana crypt isn’t nearly as good when creatures are terrible, and the best cards are StP, FoW, WoG, Disenchant, counterspells and lightning bolted. It lends itself to a control heavy environment that’s slow. It was played in a deck with all the mana positive mana rocks, control elements, and hurkly’s recall, and it usually controlled the game and blasted the opponent with a fireball and a couple bolts to win in a single turn. The mana positive rocks like vaults, moxen, crypt, lotus, sol ring, and accumulated lands were usually enough with a hurklys recall or two to fireball/bolt for lethal. It was kinda a combo deck even before Prosbloom dominated mirage block constructed.
Cheapest price of a mana crypt at the time of this video coming out is $166
I wonder why it never became a Reserved List card
Arena was the most on point promo. I never got the Sewers.
At one point, ALL artifacts were restricted in Type 1, as there were only like 7-8 ways to deal with them. Crypt would of gotten caught in the umbrella.
Imo it's sad that crypt is practically a commander only card, similar to sol ring, that had recently been getting reprints to be more obtainable (even if only barely) and then it gets banned.
This card makes playing the game a lot less fun. I'm happy with the direction the format is moving towards!
5:25 psst early nineties were 30 years ago.
Literally had a player the other day complain about the bans because they proxied mana crypt (and jeweled lotus for that matter) into every single deck he had
I’m happy it’s banned.
How many decks was that? :|
@@PleasantKenobi I believe he brought 4 that night.
The fact that I have a foil crypt pulled from double masters and a non foil from mystery booster tells me to only buy proxies going forward. I'm done chasing cards and giving Hasbro money. Proxies and Cockatrice for the foreseeable
Let's see if it stays that way. I'm really curious as to how WotC will approach the Commander ban list once they get their bracket model rolling.
Sounds like the cards aren't the problem. It's the player.
Again... All of the casual players hating on cards that were abused in low power pods by POS players. Please make the distinction. Most of us with high power/cEDH players only verse it into other high power/cEDH and are now having OUR play experience negatively affected by this. I'm totally against shit players abusing high power decks to pub stomp casual/low powered pods. But true high power/cEDH players don't do this and shouldn't be penalised when we should have our own format/ban list to begin with. We want to play with broken dumb stuff on our own. (Please don't comment Rule 0, it doesn't help with sanctiioned tournament play). I've been playing since the EDH days of old when it was made by the players. cEDH is a descendant of that, not commander which was made by WOTC when they realised it was an untapped market. It should be a format in of itself.
As an occasional cEDH player, I totally agree. I’ve seen some players sit down at tables where literal newbies (learned to play 2 weeks earlier) with precons and stomp them with their almost cEDH level decks. Almost turning away those new players. I like playing with newbies. I will take out my ‘highpower’ deck and let them know it’s a bit better then a precon (which it isn’t) and that I don’t mind them ganging up on me. Having them gang up on me helps me easing them into the politics side of the game. I’ll always lose, but never on purpose. And I ask for rematches. I also advise to build a small collection first before looking into high value singles, play lots of games with different decks to find their favorite play style. And only buy with money you can afford to lose.
That's the one side of it. The other side is when filthy casuals like me shove all this powerful stuff into one deck so they have at least a theoretical chance when the last free table at the LGS is the one with the more spikey players, the ones who are not quite playing cEDH, but still highly optimised stuff.
@@Volkbrecht you should play that highly optimised deck against cEDH players. You’ll take them by surprise more often then you’d think.
@@Issblodh Not really. I tried :) Matter of fact, I keep up better with the kind of deck that has answers instead of dumb power.
@@Volkbrecht come over to the dark side. We have multiple free rocks. 😂
Sheoldred still being 70-80 seems really bizarre to me. She's barely played. Mono black discard is the only deck I can think of and that deck is quickly moving towards fringe meta. I think it's commander players buying her.
Being moderately playable everywhere (Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy) AND Commander will do that, I think.
@PleasantKenobi probably right, I guess the mental hurdle for me is I think there are other cards with similar playability that cost a lot less. Elesh norn comes to mind, though maybe that's less playable or whites less popular. Rakdos is incredible in most constructed formats right now.
Sheoldred is the most overpriced card ever. It's just a good midrange stabilizer and finisher. They even printed a mini sheoldred in red for 2 mana in duskmourn
Great video!
How awkward do you think it is gonna be when WOTC unbans mana crypt. Thus nullifying the inspiration for but not the content of the video?
I personally hope they don't, but I think the video topic is still relevant and interesting if they do.
@@PleasantKenobi agreed!
I don't think they'll do it right away but instead trickle the cards back into the format ahead of premium products that include them.
Or, they just print functional reprints/slightly downgraded versions of them
@khub5660 maybe im cynical. But I personally think WOTC will just flat-out reverse the bans in the coming weeks on principle. And i will be upset and disappointed when they do so.
Cards like lotus and dockside are big money makers when they slide them into sub-par sets as chase cards. I don't think any reasonable business would deny themselves such a lucrative opportunity.
Perhaps
1:09 fromage
Bro I have been done in by crypts damage multiple times. The opinion that the damage doesn’t matter is nonsense. Roughly half the games I played crypt in commander the damage mattered to be clear.
Why? The secondary market in collectibles is all a scam
Took them 15 years to reprint mana crypt.... Sounds like WoTC do actually care about secondary market, despite their constant denial regarding this 🤔
Crypt is only legal in one format and its still 150 dollars lmfao
UNBAN CHAOS ORB
Mana Crypt has always been the golden goose of pubstomping edh tables. It's never been made as a balanced option but only to those who could afford it or were lucky enough to open one in their $30 boosters of Eternal/Double Masters. It really put the disparity under a lens when Timmy could sit down at a table and pubstomp the whole group because he owned a $200 card that no one else at the table was fortunate enough to obtain.
Glad the card is banned and I hope to never see it again. This coming from someone who owned 3 copies, one being the book promo itself.
EDH should be accessible.
isnt that the entire point of having high rarity cards in the game? The thrill of opening something amazing is the literal reason we buy booster packs. Like, whats the alternative here?
EDH is the most accessible format, as it's proxy friendly. You may not have realized that though. Also if you paid $30 for an eternal masters or double masters booster pack, you're an absolute dunce
@@khub5660 Even being proxy friendly meant cards like Crypt showed up way too often in casual pods and I'm speaking from experience. Playing against someone who has an all-proxy deck and play Lotus, Crypt, sol ring, land into their 7 Mana commander turn 1 wasn't uncommon. The cards needed to go
@AdmiralAlfredo they were and still are fine for the format. What it looks like to me is that you and everyone else in your LGS were too much of a b*tch to actually hold discussions about they are and aren't willing to play with/against.
Everyone watch the new Command Zone video! At 9:50 JLK spills the tea that WotC warned the RC not to do the bans knowing what would be the fallout but they did it anyway!
it'll come back
Mtg players need to stop calling broken cards, that shouldn’t be at casual pods, “Staples”.
Basic lands, creatures, & removal are staples. Green ramp and fair mana rocks as well. NOTHING ELSE IS NECESSARY TO PLAY EDH!
Only ppl complaining are cedh 3%ers, pubstompers, and players who paid too high of card prices for a casual format that has zero prize support.
It's really telling that you haven't played Mana Crypt at casual pods.
"Staple" does not mean "Literally necessary to play the game". Creatures, removal or basic lands are totally not needed to play a game of EDH, i can easily play a game without any of those in my deck.
Are you playing Sol Ring ?
You don't get to determine what should or shouldn't be at casual pods. You only get to determine what should or shouldn't be at YOUR pod.
@@Hemlockerthey gotta hear it from someone
How would you feel about a ban list and a restricted list for EDH? Restricted couldbe categorized by type such as fast mana, and include Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt, Dockside where a deck is legal with 1 of those but not more than that for high power and/or competitive games for example
I'm sad because I spent 200 dollars on coins and now they are worthless
Manacrypt was so broken in commander I sold mine years ago. It's existence makes the game worse for everyone. It is a card that all normal play groups should have agreed to not play. Truly no casual player should be mad about the crypt ban. Only CEDH players and Finance bros should even care.
in your opinion
Preach. For Commander to remain casual and light, all fast mana that comes even close to Sol Ring-levels needs to be banned. Including Sol Ring.
@@TrylleBanjo how about rule zero?
That’s why there was such anger. The ban justification cited the effect on casual pods, when those shouldn’t have been seeing Crypt.
Yes true, but it should've been banned right out of the gates-that's why folks are mad.
The issue with mana crypt is people didnt flip a coin but would roll dice. I rarley seen people take damage from dice rolling.
Hopefully commander dies down a bit with the banning and we can focus on Modern again. Probably not though.
You can only dream. If you want modern, entire triad of MH sets must be banned away. Otherwise, its pioneer but more expensive and more broad.
12 years too late but yeah, good riddance i guess... a small group of people made a lot of money off the fact this card was never banned in EDH.
I know zero folks whom made money off this. Who are you talking about? Nobody had a bunch of Crypts. You're just assuming but I've never seen anyone sell more than a few and I'm pretty sure you're just making it up. Wizards of the Coast made money by selling packs, everyone else lost money if they bought any.
@@lonsmithicus do you have the data from before 2011 when the original printing was dirt cheap? maybe i am wrong and yes assuming but people have always been speculating on magic cards...
As someone who bought a jl 1 week before the bans i hope they unban it, i was so happy with my k’rrik 😢
Ban was still stupid.
With all the changes recently I'm ignoring this ban. Wizards is going to change it again eventually anyway
How about you read the book instead of asking your viewers to do the research for you?
@Chadekaful I bet you love that cookie cutter paste you call entertainment. You don't have to be "white" to think this is lazy butt furts. I'm a Mexican Jew, if you must know. You privilege, Barbie.
@Chadekaful I'm a Mexican Jew so insult me how you mean it. Also, yes. This is the definition of a so-called "content creator" with the same song and dance. Can't wait to watch another UA-camr repeating or reviewing others' content. Lame, and you earned it.
@@Chadekaful Emotional level? Like, who cares? Entertain me. You're not my "buddy." I don't know you or should care in such a level. This copy-paste, person stories, and review videos of other content creators. Nah, you have your life, and this is a job
I approve of him asking for feedback on the matter and getting the video out to us sooner than later. I read many of the M:tG novels 20+ years ago but would not claim I recall them in detail. I enjoyed some of those novels and would hate to have to reread some of the others. The mechanics s of a card matter and how that effects the game matter far more than the story behind it.
@mrcatchingup All I heard: I'm not going to bother, but do let me know. Just like that one video where he is getting all upset with his opponents because he wouldn't answer his request to constantly inform him about the Death's Shadow power/toughness. It's simple math for the Death's Shadow and an easy read for the short novel with the Mana Crypt. But I guess reading a book is too much work, unlike petty life stories.
Mana crypt is legal in my groups. Rc holds no weight.
RC in gone, have fun your own way!
TRCD (total rules committee death) ☝️