April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is a day celebrated in various countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, enemies, and neighbors, or sending them on a fool's errand, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible.
Yep. It was a joke. 
When I first came up with this idea, I thought it would be too far-fetched and nobody would fall for it.
It took me maybe 45 minutes to write the thing, another 15 minutes to do the logo. I used Google to get the name "Peter Adkison" and "Renton". The team leader "Brian" I chose by random. I tried to mix in some plausible sounding things so that the totally ridiculous things like changing Pillars to Lands wouldn't be so obvious lies.
I asked Zanz for his blessing (so he doesn't kick my ass later) and posted the thread.
I knew I had to keep the thread read-only because we always have some "heroes" who want to ruin the joke by posting "It's April Fools!". This is why I also had to remove a couple of threads from "General Discussion" but they are now back.
Now is your chance to reply on this thread, saying how you knew it was a joke all along.
Wow.. just wow. Here's and email I received from Zanz about 15 minutes ago:
"Hi, SG!
2 months ago I was contacted by Wizards of the Coast. Yes, THE Wizards of the Coast behind Magic the Gathering and other games. Apparently they have been following the rising success of Elements and were interested in buying Elements. At first I was hesitant because I didn't want them to ruin my vision of the game, but after talking to them on the phone multiple times, the deal sounded better and better.
Last week I flew to Renton and talked with the owner Peter Adkison himself. After 30 minutes with him, I was confident that Elements would be in good hands so I signed the papers. Starting in May, Wizards of the Coast will have full ownership over Elements!
They will put their own man in charge of the project (Brian something..), but they will keep me listed as an outside consultant for up to 6 months. The Elements team will have a total of 7 people, most of them working on Elements full-time, which means a lot more new cards and new updates!
Idea is not to make Elements a MtG Online clone, but some aspects of the game will change. I was told I could reveal some details to the community so here it is.
Future changes to the game
- Elements will be renamed to: Magic the Elements (MtE) to make it part of the MtG brand.
- Some popular features found in MtG will be introduced in the new MtE as well. For example creatures will soon be able to block (like in MtG). Also Pillars will be renamed to Lands to keep things more consistent between the two games.
- Whether or not Elements will stay free-to-play, is still to be decided. If there is going to be a monthly-fee or something, it's most likely going to be less than $10 per month so it's not that bad really. I know that Magic the Elements will lose a lot of players it that happens, but then again Wizards of the Coast will get more revenue, part of which they can use to further develop Elements.
- There will be Legendary cards that are super rare, super powerful, and can only be obtained by buying 10-card booster packs with real-life money (actual prize hasn't been decided yet).
- There were talks about adding a 13th element called "Surprise" (name subject to change). Idea of that element would be to make your opponents life misarable using interrupts and such. I am very exited about this.
- There will be a level 7 AI called "Gods" (name subject to change). These opponents all have 500 HP and are named after real Gods from all major religions. Gods use Holy cards that are also rare and powerful, but not as rare and powerful as Legendary cards I mentioned earlier.
- There will be a regular CCG paper card version of Magic the Elements (not an online game) with an unique system for counting quanta usage.
I know some of these changes might sound bad at first, but others like the booster packs have been requested ever since Elements first came out, so I think in the end these changes do more good than harm.
At this point I ask everyone in the community to be patient and support Elements. I will post more info about this later and I will be available in chat if you have any questions. Thanks.
SG if you could please make an announcement about this because I cannot start a thread in that section of the forums. Just copy-paste everything.
-Zanz"
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Wow.. I'm speechless. 13th element sounds pretty cool and that's definitely something that Elements needs but I'm a bit worried about the possibility of making Elements commercial. Well, whatever happens, this is very exciting news.
