Whenever a new set is about to release, there’s always a debate as to which cards to spoil and where to spoil them. Actually, I prefer the term “preview,” as that makes it sound less like rotting food. Card previews, like movie previews, give people a look at what sort of things to expect from the new release. It’s a good way to get some hype going before the product hits the street. When a new set releases, retailers want to sell a lot of it right away, and hype is what it takes to do that. Stores order several cases at a time based on their gut feeling about a product, and if it doesn’t sell like hotcakes from the get-go, they panic. Previews assuage their fears, as they can predict what the demand will be by the quality of the previewed cards and what customers are saying about those cards.

You don’t want to give away the store, however.

Draw up a preview plan. Not as easy as it seems. We always want to showcase new keyword mechanics to show players that there are new innovations in the set and new strategies to embrace. But keywords are essentially new rules in a game, and that can be confusing for newer players. Newer players also might get worried because they still haven’t mastered the previous sets, and now there are new challenges already.

A good rule of thumb is to keep it simple. Most people have already heard that boost is a new keyword ability in DC Comics Origins. You’ll see a preview in a day or two featuring a character with a boost mechanic that won’t be too difficult to understand. It would be a bad idea to preview boost by showing you Scarecrow, however, as his boost power is a bit more complicated. You’ll just have to wait and see on this one. This holds doubly true for previews found in general interest card gaming magazines. We don’t want to scare off potential players by showing off the more esoteric, complicated cards. Speaking of magazines . . .

Card gaming magazines, often times, want to publish full spoilers. This is an even touchier subject. First off, the exact release date of the magazine is of crucial importance. Obviously, the magazine wants to scoop the rest of the world to sell issues. However, if the magazine hits the stands too early, the hype it creates is lost by the time the cards are for sale. Some players will make up their minds about the set without even having played a single card in it. If we don’t give them the full spoiler list to publish until just weeks before the set releases, they probably won’t bother to print it, as the cards will already be in the stores by the time the magazine comes out.

You can’t win sometimes.

May 2004 saw the first of the DC Comics Origins previews. Upper Deck Entertainment sent out some sales sheets showing off some cards. Problem was, the cards were still in playtesting at the time. Some of the cards that have been seen so far didn’t end up going to print as they appeared. Hopefully players understand that this is a good thing. We continue to playtest and make changes up until the day the set goes to print. Our prepress team doesn’t particularly appreciate it, however, as they have to make these last minute changes on otherwise fully complete 110-card sheets. Even after the set goes to print, we still keep playtesting in order to see what sort of decks people are likely to create. We want to have some control over the metagame, after all. Ultimately, the metagame and sales figures are up to the consumers.

Gain insight into the mind of the consumer by acting like a consumer. When a new set of cards starts coming off the printing presses and gets boxed up, we usually spend an hour opening packs to make sure there aren’t any collation errors or other weird printing errors (wrong backs, inverted cards, rarity issues, and so on). While we do see digital versions and full press sheet versions of these cards before they go to print, it’s always a great feeling to hold an actual card in your hand. Even though we look through these packs to hunt down errors, we can’t help but check out what rare we got and how good the pack would be if we got it at a Sealed event. We already know what all the cards do when we open them, and we still get a kick out of opening them. So it would seem that spoilers—even full knowledge of a set—are not enough to take the wonder of cracking packs out of the experience.

One thing that we do on occasion is hide a spoiler, making it a challenge for players to find the spoiler info. This rewards the dedicated players who are ravenous for any hints and protects the passersby who would rather not see spoilers.

Endurance pays off. If you’ve read this far, you deserve a reward. Hidden somewhere in this article is the game text of the Gotham Knights character Spoiler. She’s a 1-drop 1 ATK / 1 DEF character that fits in very well with the Gotham team’s "cards-as-training" motif. Good luck! And you thought this was just a hastily thrown together article about nothing. Ha! By the way, I’m still looking for more records for the upcoming Hall of Fame Column. If you’ve seen or done a remarkable play/combo/attack/etc., write me at mhyra@metagame.com.