I don't think anyone should be joking about this. If the aforementioned accusation is true, it could mean that UDE is "endorsing" certain teams and players. This would be a dramatic and unforgivable offense. But I'm not sure how much we could do about it without actual proof (names, confessions, and physical evidence). Otherwise, UDE will simply deny all accusations. Now, I'm not saying I believe this, I'm simply stating what if. But, frankly, I wouldn't be suprised if it were true.

I'm going to believe this is true because I trust all the sources I've heard it from. If it isn't true, it's a very elaborate ruse

I think this is flat-out ridiculous. You can't let out information like this and then expect people to believe you have a hard line stance on cheating (the Hans situation). This is obviously giving a huge advantage to anyone who gets this spoiler. like Tim said, X-Men is half the format. Knowing it so far in advance of everyone will be a huge advantage.

Something should be done, it's just not good for the game.

I dont doubt that there are leaks in UDE, tons of people know that spoiler alreasdy, UDE has those people under contract not to leak it, and the only people who are supposed to know arent allowed to play at the tournament lvl anyways, but I can think of a few people who work for UDE that would more than likely give out the information to at elast 3 different people I know of, none of which I will mention cause I mean hey I could be wrong and then Id just be giving someone a bad rep, but I think it is pretty poor that UDE wont release the spoiler for Xmen I mean its been finished since before August of last year, so there really isnt an exucse not to give people the heads up for a format that starts less than a month after the sets supposed release. Its bad for the format and for business, unless there hoping just to cath at the beggining of the PC Season and its a diabolical plan to make tons of money from people buying all they can to find the "best" new deck for the format or hoser cards for the already existing environment. Regardless, at least it will be better than PC GLEE.

I agree with everyone who said that the full spoiler should be released before hand. Hell, even if it isn't true, the spoiler should still be released early just to give people more time for Atlanta.

Playing Devil's Advocate here...

It occurs to me that UDE may be outsourcing their playtesting department to proven players because... umm... well I get the feeling that UDE's in-house testing *isn't really that good*.

Case in point #1: Squadron Supreme. UDE never intended them to be a competitive team, certainly not the reigning king of the metagame- the cards suggest that they were intended to be a cute gimmick team, with bonuses if you could meet some silly and inefficient condition. And, if you try and run Squadron with their discard effects, that's exactly what they are, a gimmick team that is pretty much unplayable. It's only when you add equipments and play-anytime plot twists that emptying your hand on turn 3 or 4 to great effect becomes a viable strategy. Did it ever occur to UDE to test for those kind of synergies?

Case in point #2: Avengers Scarlet Witch. Clearly, this card's purpose was to help Avengers meddle with Titans and other ability-centric decks. But apparently, they never considered that nearly every ability you would want to stop by the combat phase has either already gone off, or can be chained to your activation of Scarlet Witch's ability. The only exception is abilities that have to be used during your opponent's attack step, and those are sparse. Does anyone at UDE understand how the chain works?

Case in point #3: Rama-Light. This is just five hundred different degrees of cluelessness. The potential for disaster in combining Rama-Tut with Dr. Light was caught by certain clever players THE DAY DR. LIGHT WAS PREVIEWED! And yet UDE not only let this idea see play, they let it terrorize the metagame for two $10Ks before doing anything about it. Again, no-one in their playtesting department caught this?

Think long-term. In those heady early days of a new expansion, we may take losses for being unfamiliar with the new cards or get burned by by unscrupulous traders that give us gilded rares for sleeper hits, but in the end, it's far more benficial to the game to have the cards be well-tested so stuff like this doesn't happen. If that means established players, who were probably going to win anyway, have a short-term leg up, that's more than a fair tradeoff. IMHO.

Its those crazy X-fans again.

UDE employees, in fear for their own and family lives, gave away early spoilers to those dang x-fans.

You know what good teams are doing while you're moaning about other people maybe having spoilers before you? They are testing JLA draft. That's why they (we?) will do better than you in Atlanta.

You will have like 6 weeks or so w/ the full spoiler for X-Men, if you can't build a deck in that time... Heck, 70% of the people that go are just gonna net-deck anyway. You'd be better off if the people you are going to copy decks off of had the spoiler earlier.

As for UDE's playtesting department, I think it is fantastic. No game I've ever played has made it this far w/out multiple severely broken cards popping up. Thus far UDE has only had 1 (Dr. Light w/ Rama-tut). I think this comes from hiring really really good players to design and test your sets, other companies could learn a lot from this.

i agree that if this is true the person(s) who have the spoiler have a ditinc advantage over the rst of us.

Yea. I guess we should just deal with it. I can see it helping out the game in the future...but UDE should just hire other ppl to do that...owell..I will just buy my 2 boxes(first time buying a box) and try to make some magic happen.

ya maybe "we" should practice drafting enough to know to take yellowjacket over klaw in a faces of evil deck.

I've never drafted before...but I've read some articles on it and have some basic ideas of how to about doing it...mayb one day I will share my packs...but now I just dont see it in me.

Can I take your apparent defense of this practice as confirmation that it exists then?

Quote

As for UDE's playtesting department, I think it is fantastic. No game I've ever played has made it this far w/out multiple severely broken cards popping up. Thus far UDE has only had 1 (Dr. Light w/ Rama-tut). I think this comes from hiring really really good players to design and test your sets, other companies could learn a lot from this.

Uh, Overload?

I respect you a ton Dalton, but this argument is insulting garbage. It is insinuating that

a) nobody but the pro teams care about testing draft.

and

b) all the scrubs out there aren't as good at deckbuilding as you are, so they're probably just going to copy you.

There are a lot of people who fit your description, but there are also a lot of people out there who are trying to test decks, matchups, and draft to prepare for this PC, but maybe don't have the resources you do. Apparently, we can add a spoiler to that list of resources which the elite pro teams have.

Don't try to tell me that having an extra month doesn't give you an advantage over the competition. Don't chide us for being mad that you have an advantage over us. To come up with the best deck in a format and test it enough to work out the best card choices and how best to play it takes significantly longer than 6 weeks. When people bring up how Avenger's decks will probably be seen more in ATL because of the short time, no one tells them they're a moron because they can't come up with a deck in 6 weeks. It's only when accusations of an unfair playing field are raised that people want to defend themselves with that weak argument.

You've always been a great guy on this forum Dalton, don't drag this elitist garbage into it.

Whether or not overload was broken is debatable. I'm glad it's gone but I don't really think it was broken, just a tad too powerful for the good of the game. Are you really trying to tell me that UDE playtesting is bad? You're kidding me.

I dunno who has the x-men spoiler. I don't have it, nor do I want it. 6 weeks is plenty of time to make a deck. I've heard the same rumors you have but I could really care less about it all.

if UDE wants guys as playtesters, then they should hire them. We saw a thread a while back where a ton of pros said they would rather work in R&D than be players. They shouldn't be giving an advantage to a select group.