FOW NEWS! Jeff is Gone, No Playmat, Promos, and Tons More!

If you’d prefer a video version of the news, be sure to click below:

A huge week of things happened, so let’s get started.

PROMO EU STONES:

As you guys might remember, awhile back Europe created their own promo versions of all the duel stones. These were really cool looking, putting the fantasy characters against different European landmarks.

It looks like they are doing it again! This time, however, they are doing basic stones. This is not only very fitting, considering the format we are in, but is cool because it will make these stones always relevant, as basic stones will never rotate etc.

So, you can take a look at them all below!

NO PLAYMAT, EXTRA PROMOS:

Speaking of promotional material, we got some word on the next set. This information comes from Chris Härtl, of Chris Weekly FOW News Update on Facebook. Apparently, according to the distribution form, the next set will not have a promotional playmat that is usually included with buying 6 boxes.

We are not sure why this change is happening. It could be related to the small dip in quality we saw with this set’s pre release mat. Or they could be moving towards producing just less playmats in general.

But with this it was pointed out by someone that it looked like it may possibly be replaced with additional promo cards (though we don’t know what levels or how many).

CARD PREVIEW:

With this new set’s information, we also got our first preview of a card in the next set, “Awakening of the Ancients”. This happened last set as well, when we got a look at Ruined Earth’s text ahead of time.

This time around we got a look at what could be a very strong card. Below is the full card text/cost:

Sapling of the Treasure Tree|[W]|AOA-013 SR

Resonator: Treasury Item ATK 0/ DEF 100

• [Rest], discard a card, remove this card from the game: Produce [W][W][W].

• [W], banish this card: Destroy target addition.

-The wills of many have coalesced over the years, giving birth to the treasure tree.

So there’s the card, basically a re-print of ‘Sprout of Treasure Tree’ as pictured above. At the time (and currently technically) Sprout was a crazy strong card in most formats. This is interesting that they are doing a functional reprint, that is actually super good in things like Brunhild, where it actually wants to discard cards.

An ideal scenario is turn 1, you play Treasure Tree. Turn 2 you banish for it’s effect, and discard a 3 cost card (like Alice), then use that 3 will plus your 2 stones to play Misteltein, use her free 2 will to play a Rune, then grab that 3 cost out of the graveyard (all on turn 2). Obviously there are counters and such to this, but it’s important to note the power level this could be at.

MONTHLY PROMOS:

This is a weird one. So we had shown you guys the upcoming monthly promos awhile back, that we had obtained in a different language’s reveal of the cards. We then sat and waited for FOW to reveal the English (and also higher resolution version) of said cards.

We are still waiting on that. Looking back at old posts, these monthly promos are usually revealed between the 10th and 20th of every single month. We are currently on the 6th of this month and haven’t seen them revealed (so several weeks late). Hopefully they are still coming out on time, I just thought it was strange we never had them revealed to us in English.

QUINN BANNING:

I’ll go over this quick. If you guys haven’t already, I highly recommend watching it HERE (Which there is also an article here on the site).

Post the ban I’ve been keeping updates to the situation on the article here on TCGScrubs.com. It’s at the very bottom of the article. The main updates since the video is that there was another instance of cheating I added that I wasn’t aware of, and that Robert (Head of US events) has come out to say he is banned.

Now we go into more detail regarding that in this week’s Podcast, however it is important to note that as of right now I haven’t gotten full confirmation either way on whether Quinn is still completely banned or not. I got word he is unbanned from the company, and word to the contrary from Rob. The company has yet to fully back what Rob said, or double down on what they said.

As of right now it seems he may be banned, but I’ll keep you guys updated on the situation.

Thank you all very much for the great feedback and support for the video though! I’m happy with how that all turned out.

JAPAN GP CANCELLED:

It looks like the GP that was taking place in Japan was cancelled due to ‘Security Issues’. This was a month away I believe, and was the only remaining GP of the season over there (there is one that has been TBD since the beginning, so we’ll see if that plays out).

There has been a lot of concern shown about this on Twitter, but we haven’t heard any details of why it was cancelled outside of ‘Security’ reasons. Hopefully that’s simply the real case, and new dates will be put for either it, or the TBD event.

JEFF FINNIGAN IS GONE:

In case anybody was living under a rock, Jeff Finnigan is no longer with Force of Will. This is a really sad turn of events and completely unexpected. Especially coming off the success of Jeff’s recent endeavors with Alpha Investments and more.

This took the community by surprise, with everyone voicing their concern and just generally not happy with this. Even Rudy of Alpha Investments seems generally shocked and upset with this turn of events when I mentioned it to him. It’s important to note we do not know why this departure is happening, however Jeff did clarify some stuff in a post. I’ll post the images of the original, and follow up Jeff did here:

So before anyone starts speculating, be sure to read BOTH of those! He clearly states that it had nothing to do with him talking to Rudy, or anything he did in general. What all this means, we don’t know yet as he has not done a follow up post as of now (02/05).

One big takeaway for me on this was the statement that the company will also not be refilling his position. This is actually very concerning, as we have never been without at least someone literally or figuratively in this type of role before.

Overall, we are very sad to see Jeff go, and hope to find out the reasons soon. It could be as simple as Jeff is too overwhelmed (he is also a University Professor don’t forget, in addition to this job). Though this doesn’t explain FOW not filling his position, as well as them holding out telling us what’s going on.

I’ve never done this before, but I will (temporarily) ask if you guys want to be sure to Subscribe to our channel and hit the ‘Bell’ icon, at least for the next week or 2. We will be releasing videos related to this as quickly as we can, and I have heard of things that may be revealed soon that you will want to know about. So stay tuned.

Thank you very much for joining us this week!