Just to make sure we are on the same page, are you suggesting that Core Sets should last two years in Standard? For example:
Magic 2014 comes out in summer 2013, it is legal in Standard from Summer 2013 to Summer 2015
Magic 2015 comes out in summer 2014, it is legal in Standard from Summer 2014 to Summer 2016
Magic 2016 comes out in summer 2015, it is legal in Standard from Summer 2015 to Summer 2017
Therefore, in the above hypothetical scenario, there will be two Core Sets that are legal in Standard at any given year. Is this what you are suggesting? If so, I think that is an excellent idea.
It's useful for R&D to be able to vary how long a card sticks around in Standard. If core sets lived for two years, the best they could do for cards they wanted to be short-lived would be to stick them in the spring set (and spring sets are often small, so there might not be much room for that).
Also, I believe there's a hard cap on how many cards they're willing to make Standard-legal at any given time, so this would lead to more reprints and/or smaller sets.
Its good to have a smaller set of standard legal cards or people will come up with crazy combos that kills turn 3 and force tonnes of cards to be banned.
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712.5b The controller of another player can't make choices or decisions for that player that aren't called for by the rules or by any objects. The controller also can't make any choices or decisions for the player that would be called for by the tournament rules.
Example: The player who's being controlled still chooses whether he or she leaves to visit the restroom, trades a card to someone else, agrees to an intentional draw, or calls a judge about an error or infraction.
The core needs to go back to being updated once every two years. Every year is giving fatigue and over-saturation to the game. It's just ridiculous.
In the off-years, they could regularly release something like Modern Masters, a draftable set of reprints that is meant to entertain the draft crowd, not enter standard, and provide Modern and other eternal formats with much needed reprints and player-interest.
Quite frankly, I'd also like to see the core set have many, many more repints. I'm not saying it needs to go back to 100% reprints, but it should have a higher ratio. It should also have a lower proportion of jank.
They could, uh, you know, alternate between core sets that are mostly reprints and core sets that are mostly new cards.
They could also do something where they alternate between large set and small set core sets. They could make 400 core set cards, and do a 250/150 split between the two years.
For the large set, they could do 50 new cards out of 250 cards, and for the small set, they could do 100 new cards out of 150 cards.
I wish they would do them every other year and put some other expansion in as a sort of megablock/4 sets every other year. That gives them a lot of design space as well to work with within a megablock of 4 sets total and could be interesting in terms of draft potentially.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
i don't know about you, but I think that WOTC is doing what they are doing right now, just to make every year exactly the same in terms of main set releases, that's why they do core sets every year.
WotC has to be very careful with this idea because at this point, they are only in business to make money for Hasbro. I'm sure they have excellent metrics which show that a new set with the name "CORE" drives revenue in a way that's superior than a new expansion set.
As gamers, they can balance the needs of the game with the demands of revenue and continue to tweak what is in the Core Set. But if you think about it a little, I think the marketing dynamics become a bit obvious: they need to have a recently released set named CORE to support revenues.
I think yearly core set rotations are bad. The overall rate/frequency of card turnover and rotation is too damn high. Core set rotation should match expansions. Or only 1 Core set every two years.
It basically used to be that way.
I also agree that the Core set should feature FAR more REPRINTS, which the game desperately needs.
Core sets are just the 4th set of a block. M14 is the last part of the RTR block.
And yes, because it is a 4th set it does have a much shorter lifespan than any other set. Large fall sets have 2 years while core sets have about 1 year and 3 months.
But some set in the lineup is always going to rotate faster than the large fall set. Having it be the core set is a good idea, because it allows them to have more freedom with it (problem cards rotate quicker) and the cards in core sets are usually staple effects (like wraths / doomblades). Shifting these staples more often provides more varied constructed formats.
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EDIT: new thread with more comprehensive ideas for release schedule: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=575520 this can be closed, I think.
But I also propose even distribution of number of cards in each rarity: Large set: 60 c, 60 u, 60 r, 60 m.
Probabilities of particular cards: Common 7/60, Uncommon 1/12, Rare 1/20, Mythic 1/60.
Magic 2014 comes out in summer 2013, it is legal in Standard from Summer 2013 to Summer 2015
Magic 2015 comes out in summer 2014, it is legal in Standard from Summer 2014 to Summer 2016
Magic 2016 comes out in summer 2015, it is legal in Standard from Summer 2015 to Summer 2017
Therefore, in the above hypothetical scenario, there will be two Core Sets that are legal in Standard at any given year. Is this what you are suggesting? If so, I think that is an excellent idea.
but then again they are already naming them after the year they rotate out instead of the year they are released...
So I suppose it cant really get any more confusing than it already is.
Also, I believe there's a hard cap on how many cards they're willing to make Standard-legal at any given time, so this would lead to more reprints and/or smaller sets.
Example: The player who's being controlled still chooses whether he or she leaves to visit the restroom, trades a card to someone else, agrees to an intentional draw, or calls a judge about an error or infraction.
How about this?
In the off-years, they could regularly release something like Modern Masters, a draftable set of reprints that is meant to entertain the draft crowd, not enter standard, and provide Modern and other eternal formats with much needed reprints and player-interest.
Quite frankly, I'd also like to see the core set have many, many more repints. I'm not saying it needs to go back to 100% reprints, but it should have a higher ratio. It should also have a lower proportion of jank.
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The Best Deck Boxes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEwgLph_Pjk
The Best Binders: http://youtu.be/H5IauASYWjk
They could also do something where they alternate between large set and small set core sets. They could make 400 core set cards, and do a 250/150 split between the two years.
For the large set, they could do 50 new cards out of 250 cards, and for the small set, they could do 100 new cards out of 150 cards.
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As gamers, they can balance the needs of the game with the demands of revenue and continue to tweak what is in the Core Set. But if you think about it a little, I think the marketing dynamics become a bit obvious: they need to have a recently released set named CORE to support revenues.
It basically used to be that way.
I also agree that the Core set should feature FAR more REPRINTS, which the game desperately needs.
And yes, because it is a 4th set it does have a much shorter lifespan than any other set. Large fall sets have 2 years while core sets have about 1 year and 3 months.
But some set in the lineup is always going to rotate faster than the large fall set. Having it be the core set is a good idea, because it allows them to have more freedom with it (problem cards rotate quicker) and the cards in core sets are usually staple effects (like wraths / doomblades). Shifting these staples more often provides more varied constructed formats.