Given all the shake-ups recently, I have been wondering one thing with regards to OP's points. I've played Magic for a long time; it won't be too long before I hit two decades of slinging cardboard. Given the steady shift towards more shake-ups more often as time goes on, I wonder if this is the "solving" of Magic that MaRo sometimes mentions in passing. For a long time, MaRo would talk about R&D's relationship with the game only as one of learning new tricks and adding new tools to their toolbox. While he certainly still talks about this, more and more he discusses topics where his opinion seems to be, from the way I interpret his words, that R&D has "solved" a past problem with a given mechanic, design concern, or understanding of player psychology.
The way I see it, it's possible that the overall "solving" of the Magic puzzle, from WotC's perspective, is to move from one change to another; print a set with some crazy Ultra Super Mythic Rares, upturn a Pro Tour format, then announce a crazy new kind of set, then... ? If that is the case, then this is the new paradigm and we can expect to see frequent, large-scale changes in various aspects of Magic for the foreseeable future. I'm not saying it is the case, however; it could be that this is just a transitional period where WotC is trying to settle into a period of slow and steady growth and thought it was best to rip the band-aid off, so to speak, and get all this out of the way in the same fiscal year. Either way, just thought it was an interesting perspective to share.
On top of that lots of products have been cancelled - Clash Packs, Event Decks, PW Duel Decks. So yeah, lots of things are changing and time will tell wether its for better or worse.
4) We are now on a 2-block/year system w/ no Core Set any more.
That is good. Origins were a great goodbye to core sets, but the concept was outdated. Faster changing worlds - more worlds to visit. Unless you have two returns in a row, of course
While that is good the faster rotation is not, IMHO. You invest your money for things you will use for shorter time, so some people, like me, will be discouraged to play standard as it is harder on your budget. 2-block system with longer rotation times would be much better i think.
I am a Vorthos and an avid Limited player. I do not play Constructed except EDH. For me, it is good.
Though with family and kids, thanks to the faster rotation I have less chances to play with a particular Limited format before it changes...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
100% Vorthos Spike and Storyline Expert
Former Fact Prospector of the Greek Alliance.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Modern is in a position to suffer from the worst parts of Legacy and Standard both. The power level of the most utilized cards in Modern edge out so much of the card pool that most decks are the same cards in a given color with different arrangements of colors on a deck by deck basis. That's one of the problems Standard is plagued by is how small of a card pool there is that is of any interest. However, like Legacy, Wizards haven't been willing to step up their game on card availability and give us much needed reprints in limited FTV products that are marked up by asinine amounts past MSRP, or $10 MSRP Masters sets that are mostly chaff. Modern was destined to fall pray to Wizard's lazy, outdated reprint policies. It's been slowly heading this way since it's inception, so the situation with Modern is nothing new.
The colorless mana symbol update is such a benign change that I'm still baffled why anyone thought it was or still is a big deal. MaRo already confirmed that <> as part of mana costs is an OGW thing. All you have to do is look at a BFZ Eldrazi Scion and OGW Eldrazi Scion side-by-side and it explains very plainly the change. It's honestly not even worth mentioning.
Eternal Masters leaks are like any other leak, but the problem is on the "investors" and Wizards' hands both. We need sets like Eternal Masters, but we needed them a long time ago before Wizards let the mtgfinance/investor crowd get such a large foothold in the secondary market. If they had started doing Masters sets years ago, we wouldn't find ourselves watching people buying out entire corners of the market to relist. Wizards' idle hands created a situation where not investing in Magic if you had the means to start is foolish. You could absolutely depend on their stubbornness to not reprint much needed card, and know the value of the cards you invest in would keep rising with minimal losses. Now we have people buying out Reserved List cards and marking them up 50-150% or more in response to Eternal Masters, because if they're going to lose value on reprints like Wasteland and Force of Will, then they're going to make us pay even more for cards that can't be reprinted because of the Reserve List. It's shady, scummy and no one can do a damn thing about it except for Wizards, but they're too afraid of pissing off a small handful of investors and collectors so they won't abolish the Reserved List, and the rest of us that want to play Legacy or Vintage, or want certain cards for Cubes or EDH suffer for it.
As for Core Sets? Core Sets have historically been the worst quality sets each year up until they were discontinued with Origins, and they struggled even after rebranding them as the Core Sets. Even in attempting gimmicks like bringing back one or two simpler mechanics, having devs from the game industry design cards, etc. they never found a happy place that could make Core Sets sell. I've gone to every pre-release since Torment, and every Edition or Core Set has the worst turn out of any set that came out the rest of the year. They usually had dull, slow limited formats and added very little to Standard, with a few exceptions (7th Edition, then Thragtusk, then Mutavault mainly). Really as a community of Magic players, we're not losing much by having one of the four sets in rotation every year not being a Core Set anymore. Standard has has a large issue of becoming extremely stale, so we're making a compromise: Standard rotates more often, so ones like this one that are nearly as expensive as Cawblade Standard don't last near as long; but we have more cards to keep up with and have to hussle to get rid of cards before their value drops like bricks because most Standard cards are still $0.10 rares after they rotate out.
Most of this is Wizards still living in the 90's and a lot of people in positions of authority at Wizards that need to step down and let some new life breath into the company. We're stuck with people like Trick Jarrett getting hired in, making sad PR articles about leaks that the rest of the community are collectively groaning and rolling their eyes at; meanwhile he conveniently neglects to acknowledge how their policies necessitate leaks and create the problems they're bemoaning and we get poorly handled suspensions and cute guilt trips about media previews being ruined. Thanks Wizards - your previews are really what matter to me; not the fact that I have to know if your sets are *****ty or not so I know if I should buy them, because you continuously let the supply stagnate in the face of more and more demand over the years and I can't enjoy all your products if I want to afford to play a constructed format.
I'll still miss the core sets. They would go out in summer, where activity was lower except for die-hard fans, so they were a welcome break to the "expert" sets that required more commitment. With time, they developed their own specificity and had their share of powerful cards.
Core sets also provided a venue where they could reprint cards from anywhere to bring them into standard/modern. Now the have to be worked into blocks to make it in, so plane-specific cards have no way of coming back without Wizards making a functional reprint.
As for Modern prices, you can only hope it will be counterbalanced by a more aggressive reprint policy due to the new block structure, but time will tell.
I don't think that's likely. If anything they seem to be getting more conservative wit the reprints. Though they have made progress in killing off, or are in the process of killing off all their best reprint outlets, even for standard stuff. It's getting to the point where the only way to get cards is booster packs.
Premium Decks - Long since dead
Core sets - Dead
Modern Event Decks - DOA
Planeswalker Duel Decks - Dead
Clash packs - MIA
Event Decks - MIA
Fat packs - Underprinted
Even intro packs have been in decline lately. Was there even one BFZ or OGW intro pack that had anything of interest in them? Even the alt-art cards weren't particularly fun or exciting choices. When the most exciting thing in the intro pack are the basic lands things are looking pretty bleak
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My decks
Standard - RIP Cat
Modern - Death & Taxes
Commander - Mazirek, Trostani, Angry Omnath
On top of that lots of products have been cancelled - Clash Packs, Event Decks, PW Duel Decks. So yeah, lots of things are changing and time will tell wether its for better or worse.
4) We are now on a 2-block/year system w/ no Core Set any more.
That is good. Origins were a great goodbye to core sets, but the concept was outdated. Faster changing worlds - more worlds to visit. Unless you have two returns in a row, of course
While that is good the faster rotation is not, IMHO. You invest your money for things you will use for shorter time, so some people, like me, will be discouraged to play standard as it is harder on your budget. 2-block system with longer rotation times would be much better i think.
From a shop perspective, faster change - the loss of core sets - is great for limited, but terrible for constructed. My standard constructed died all together with the rotation change. My limited, on the other hand, makes me more money. This is because my limited business income looks like a saw wave: |\|\|\... Each of the peaks is a new set release, and each of the troughs is the end of a set. Business notably tanks when people acquire what they need from the set, and again when the set is perceived to be stale. Faster rotation means more time in the peaks vs the troughs. Core sets were a permanent trough.
The biggest change over the past few years has been the increased emphasis on story, and a concomitant desire to make the mechanics of the game closer to what new players want.
The game has become less of a pure game like chess or bridge, in that there are swathes of people who will say "we can't have this planeswalker in the next set because they have never visited this plane/are dead/are out walking the dog etc." and that cards are designed to give the "flavour" of a particular planeswalker's "presence" at particular commonalities. Personally I hate all that, I find it embarrassing and the actual "plot" feels tired and derrivative. I actually would rather the entire story/flavour team was reduced to an after thought, one person at the end of the design process thinking up names. I can remember reading years ago in one of the gaming magazines about a gaming event where the winner got to have a say in the next events in the storyline. I have no idea what the game was, its probably dead, but at the time I scoffed at that, saying that Mtgs "story/flavour" was as important as the "story" behind a game of chess. Today I actually feel they could run such an event.
The game has swelled so much in numbers that the price rises and swings are inevitable, and that in part is due to neutering the aspects of the game that upset new players- mana denial, counterspells, spells in general, whilst bigging up the creature aspect that they like. That has been going on for a long time but it is the single thing that makes me feel that the game is in a very, very different place to ten years ago. I do feel that a huge number of players buy in and out the game though, and whereas we used to think a lot of opening, say, ten boosters, now people open many boxes worth. The demographic MTG is aimed at is undoubtedly wider than it was fifteen years ago.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I can remember reading years ago in one of the gaming magazines about a gaming event where the winner got to have a say in the next events in the storyline. I have no idea what the game was, its probably dead, but at the time I scoffed at that, saying that Mtgs "story/flavour" was as important as the "story" behind a game of chess. Today I actually feel they could run such an event.
The game was likely Legend of the Five Rings. In that game, you choose a clan, which dictated how your deck was constructed. The publisher held an annual special story tournament where the winner's clan would have greater involvement in the following season's storyline. Legend of the Five Rings had a smaller audience than MTG, but I heard that that audience was pretty devoted to the product and the story. Legend of the Five Rings is still around but the property was sold by AEG to Fantasy Flight Games, and the game is going to become a LCG instead of a CCG.
Mark Rosewater has gone on public record saying they've tried to make the story relevant, either through actual novels or online vignettes, but according to their market research, the majority of the MTG audience doesn't really care that deeply about the story, no matter who was writing it.
They bald guy from development has already said they resent having printed modern cards in standard and don't plan to do it any more.
Magic is becoming a game of salivating apendages for cardboard. Kinda like actual crack, and I don't know about you but I wasn't suprised at all about the allegations of drug money laundering happening behind close doors of the big singles sellers.
The game has become less of a pure game like chess or bridge
At no point in its history has Magic been even remotely comparable to Chess or Bridge.
I was not comparing the games, I was comparing the absence of "story" influence. I could have said tiddly winks, snakes or ladders, draughts or checkers. Just so we are clear, because your snipping of my comment makes it appear like I am comparing the games mechanically.
Just so we are clear, because your snipping of my comment makes it appear like I am comparing the games.
My apologies.
No problem, I could have phrased it better. I actually do go back to the days of unlimited and revised (I am very old), although I was just learning the game and did not buy in until the end of revised-beginning of 4th. A lot of the expansions, like Legends and Antiquities sort of missed everyone as they barely existed in the shops here. I liked the core editions lack of story flavour back then because all the quotes were just from literature, and until maybe The Dark or FE (the first expansion I bought into majorly) the expansion cards were not a huge part of the cardpool, a few people had them. Ice Age then changed everything again.....
Story seems increasingly important, a big difference between the first 5 years and the next 15+
Yes it is in quite a strange place indeed. Artwork is getting worse and worse. Flavor texts are either lame exposition trying to sound epic, or cringey one-line quips trying to be witty. And Wotc is strangely spending large amounts of time and attention on story and characters, despite them being so bad it would be better they wouldn't exist.
This is what happens when a company like Wizards gets into bed with a company like Hasbro. We saw it happen with the Star Wars franchise too - A generation embraces a film for being a cultural pastiche of everything they love about sci-fi and adventure, the brainchild behind the films doesn't understand this, think's he's just making a product for children, tries to release three more films for kids and they flop because they don't have any of the elements that actually made the original films instant nostalgia and enjoyable.
The same has happened to magic: a card game is successful due to it's fanboy harkings back to D&D and other fantasy tropes. It feels like a game that can be played in attics and garages with Sabbath and Genesis blasting. It feels like something nostalgic and familiar. Suddenly a big toy company gets its hands on the product and thinks it's a kids game, white washes the art schemes and aesthetics. Suddenly makes it something that it's not, for a generation that won't really understand it.
We need a J.J. Abrams to makeover this game. Bring back the 70's sword and sandals flair, reintroduce the Magic mythos for a new generation.
It's getting to the point where the only way to get cards is booster packs.
Premium Decks - Long since dead
Core sets - Dead
Modern Event Decks - DOA
Planeswalker Duel Decks - Dead
Clash packs - MIA
Event Decks - MIA
Fat packs - Underprinted
Clashes and events decks are dead. From the Vault is MIA and presumed dead. And regular Duel Decks are on life support. Commander decks are next.
Draft, crack packs, or buy singles. That is all WotC cares about now.
This is what happens when a company like Wizards gets into bed with a company like Hasbro. We saw it happen with the Star Wars franchise too - A generation embraces a film for being a cultural pastiche of everything they love about sci-fi and adventure, the brainchild behind the films doesn't understand this, think's he's just making a product for children, tries to release three more films for kids and they flop because they don't have any of the elements that actually made the original films instant nostalgia and enjoyable.
The same has happened to magic: a card game is successful due to it's fanboy harkings back to D&D and other fantasy tropes. It feels like a game that can be played in attics and garages with Sabbath and Genesis blasting. It feels like something nostalgic and familiar. Suddenly a big toy company gets its hands on the product and thinks it's a kids game, white washes the art schemes and aesthetics. Suddenly makes it something that it's not, for a generation that won't really understand it.
We need a J.J. Abrams to makeover this game. Bring back the 70's sword and sandals flair, reintroduce the Magic mythos for a new generation.
Magic's Lore has been reintroduced. We have the Phyrexians and Nicol Bolas, and now the Eldrazi.
What exactly has been "whitewashed"? Magic was successful for more than being a fantasy card game. Part of it was the resonance of the cards to how we think things should work. The White Knight had protection from Black, and vice-versa for the Black Knight. What makes Magic great is the Lore and how it is represented in the cards.
Magic is doing better than it ever has been; sales are up, there are more players, and we are getting more and more content each year. Now we get 2 blocks a year, and this year we have 3 supplemental sets plus FTV. Magic is in a good place for now.
We are simply in a state of change of the game moving from one phase to another. Things will settle down soon.
From the Vault is very much alive, per Blogatog yesterday. Given that FTV is, essentially, a pack of 15 cards that Wizards sells for $40, it'll take a lot for them to disappear forever.
I too feel like Magic is in a phase of change, but I completely disagree with the "problems" OP identified.
1) Magic is an expensive game. Modern prices are skyrocketing because the modern playerbase is skyrocketing. That in itself is a good thing for the format, and card availability is very much supported by products like MMA. With some staples costing $200 per card the format is rife for innovation and spicy new brews.
2) It was high time colorless got its own symbol. I regularly play with new players and the distinction between colorless mana and generic mana is a source of constant confucion and errors for nex players.
3) Eternal Masters is just Modern Masters with different cards.
4) The 2-block paradigm is a change for the better imo, although I can also see some negative points. Still, I feel it is a good change, the core sets were boring to say the least, Origins being the exception but it was nothing like the other core sets so I say good riddance.
I feel like other changes noted in this thread are much more ground breaking. The silent shutdown of PW duel decks, clash packs and event decks is a much bigger deal. Somehow Wizards have had some very bad PR decisions lately (leak/judge fiasco) and it seems like they changed the sheduling and general policy of when to announce thing and how they do it.
We will have to see how things turn out. You don't have to worry though, Magic is doing fine, its more popular than ever.
This. FTV disappearing would just be messed up on so many levels. WotC makes so much money off FTVs for doing basically nothing as you could get a list of 15 cards together that fit thematically in a day. You commission some new art for less than a new car. You print it, slap it in a box, and sell it because every store will always get as many FTV's as they can basically. Profits are made, people congratulated, then you go off to a cocktail party in the sunset.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
The way I see it, it's possible that the overall "solving" of the Magic puzzle, from WotC's perspective, is to move from one change to another; print a set with some crazy Ultra Super Mythic Rares, upturn a Pro Tour format, then announce a crazy new kind of set, then... ? If that is the case, then this is the new paradigm and we can expect to see frequent, large-scale changes in various aspects of Magic for the foreseeable future. I'm not saying it is the case, however; it could be that this is just a transitional period where WotC is trying to settle into a period of slow and steady growth and thought it was best to rip the band-aid off, so to speak, and get all this out of the way in the same fiscal year. Either way, just thought it was an interesting perspective to share.
I am a Vorthos and an avid Limited player. I do not play Constructed except EDH. For me, it is good.
Though with family and kids, thanks to the faster rotation I have less chances to play with a particular Limited format before it changes...
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
The colorless mana symbol update is such a benign change that I'm still baffled why anyone thought it was or still is a big deal. MaRo already confirmed that <> as part of mana costs is an OGW thing. All you have to do is look at a BFZ Eldrazi Scion and OGW Eldrazi Scion side-by-side and it explains very plainly the change. It's honestly not even worth mentioning.
Eternal Masters leaks are like any other leak, but the problem is on the "investors" and Wizards' hands both. We need sets like Eternal Masters, but we needed them a long time ago before Wizards let the mtgfinance/investor crowd get such a large foothold in the secondary market. If they had started doing Masters sets years ago, we wouldn't find ourselves watching people buying out entire corners of the market to relist. Wizards' idle hands created a situation where not investing in Magic if you had the means to start is foolish. You could absolutely depend on their stubbornness to not reprint much needed card, and know the value of the cards you invest in would keep rising with minimal losses. Now we have people buying out Reserved List cards and marking them up 50-150% or more in response to Eternal Masters, because if they're going to lose value on reprints like Wasteland and Force of Will, then they're going to make us pay even more for cards that can't be reprinted because of the Reserve List. It's shady, scummy and no one can do a damn thing about it except for Wizards, but they're too afraid of pissing off a small handful of investors and collectors so they won't abolish the Reserved List, and the rest of us that want to play Legacy or Vintage, or want certain cards for Cubes or EDH suffer for it.
As for Core Sets? Core Sets have historically been the worst quality sets each year up until they were discontinued with Origins, and they struggled even after rebranding them as the Core Sets. Even in attempting gimmicks like bringing back one or two simpler mechanics, having devs from the game industry design cards, etc. they never found a happy place that could make Core Sets sell. I've gone to every pre-release since Torment, and every Edition or Core Set has the worst turn out of any set that came out the rest of the year. They usually had dull, slow limited formats and added very little to Standard, with a few exceptions (7th Edition, then Thragtusk, then Mutavault mainly). Really as a community of Magic players, we're not losing much by having one of the four sets in rotation every year not being a Core Set anymore. Standard has has a large issue of becoming extremely stale, so we're making a compromise: Standard rotates more often, so ones like this one that are nearly as expensive as Cawblade Standard don't last near as long; but we have more cards to keep up with and have to hussle to get rid of cards before their value drops like bricks because most Standard cards are still $0.10 rares after they rotate out.
Most of this is Wizards still living in the 90's and a lot of people in positions of authority at Wizards that need to step down and let some new life breath into the company. We're stuck with people like Trick Jarrett getting hired in, making sad PR articles about leaks that the rest of the community are collectively groaning and rolling their eyes at; meanwhile he conveniently neglects to acknowledge how their policies necessitate leaks and create the problems they're bemoaning and we get poorly handled suspensions and cute guilt trips about media previews being ruined. Thanks Wizards - your previews are really what matter to me; not the fact that I have to know if your sets are *****ty or not so I know if I should buy them, because you continuously let the supply stagnate in the face of more and more demand over the years and I can't enjoy all your products if I want to afford to play a constructed format.
(Also known as Xenphire)
As the poster above me explained I'm not ok with how Wizards is just now printing out these Masters sets when they should have been doing it earlier.
Podcast
Core sets also provided a venue where they could reprint cards from anywhere to bring them into standard/modern. Now the have to be worked into blocks to make it in, so plane-specific cards have no way of coming back without Wizards making a functional reprint.
I don't think that's likely. If anything they seem to be getting more conservative wit the reprints. Though they have made progress in killing off, or are in the process of killing off all their best reprint outlets, even for standard stuff. It's getting to the point where the only way to get cards is booster packs.
Premium Decks - Long since dead
Core sets - Dead
Modern Event Decks - DOA
Planeswalker Duel Decks - Dead
Clash packs - MIA
Event Decks - MIA
Fat packs - Underprinted
Even intro packs have been in decline lately. Was there even one BFZ or OGW intro pack that had anything of interest in them? Even the alt-art cards weren't particularly fun or exciting choices. When the most exciting thing in the intro pack are the basic lands things are looking pretty bleak
Standard - RIP Cat
Modern - Death & Taxes
Commander - Mazirek, Trostani, Angry Omnath
From a shop perspective, faster change - the loss of core sets - is great for limited, but terrible for constructed. My standard constructed died all together with the rotation change. My limited, on the other hand, makes me more money. This is because my limited business income looks like a saw wave: |\|\|\... Each of the peaks is a new set release, and each of the troughs is the end of a set. Business notably tanks when people acquire what they need from the set, and again when the set is perceived to be stale. Faster rotation means more time in the peaks vs the troughs. Core sets were a permanent trough.
The game has become less of a pure game like chess or bridge, in that there are swathes of people who will say "we can't have this planeswalker in the next set because they have never visited this plane/are dead/are out walking the dog etc." and that cards are designed to give the "flavour" of a particular planeswalker's "presence" at particular commonalities. Personally I hate all that, I find it embarrassing and the actual "plot" feels tired and derrivative. I actually would rather the entire story/flavour team was reduced to an after thought, one person at the end of the design process thinking up names. I can remember reading years ago in one of the gaming magazines about a gaming event where the winner got to have a say in the next events in the storyline. I have no idea what the game was, its probably dead, but at the time I scoffed at that, saying that Mtgs "story/flavour" was as important as the "story" behind a game of chess. Today I actually feel they could run such an event.
The game has swelled so much in numbers that the price rises and swings are inevitable, and that in part is due to neutering the aspects of the game that upset new players- mana denial, counterspells, spells in general, whilst bigging up the creature aspect that they like. That has been going on for a long time but it is the single thing that makes me feel that the game is in a very, very different place to ten years ago. I do feel that a huge number of players buy in and out the game though, and whereas we used to think a lot of opening, say, ten boosters, now people open many boxes worth. The demographic MTG is aimed at is undoubtedly wider than it was fifteen years ago.
At no point in its history has Magic been even remotely comparable to Chess or Bridge.
The game was likely Legend of the Five Rings. In that game, you choose a clan, which dictated how your deck was constructed. The publisher held an annual special story tournament where the winner's clan would have greater involvement in the following season's storyline. Legend of the Five Rings had a smaller audience than MTG, but I heard that that audience was pretty devoted to the product and the story. Legend of the Five Rings is still around but the property was sold by AEG to Fantasy Flight Games, and the game is going to become a LCG instead of a CCG.
Mark Rosewater has gone on public record saying they've tried to make the story relevant, either through actual novels or online vignettes, but according to their market research, the majority of the MTG audience doesn't really care that deeply about the story, no matter who was writing it.
Magic is becoming a game of salivating apendages for cardboard. Kinda like actual crack, and I don't know about you but I wasn't suprised at all about the allegations of drug money laundering happening behind close doors of the big singles sellers.
I was not comparing the games, I was comparing the absence of "story" influence. I could have said tiddly winks, snakes or ladders, draughts or checkers. Just so we are clear, because your snipping of my comment makes it appear like I am comparing the games mechanically.
Yes, I know. The most recent set where you could even attempt to make that argument would be Unlimited.
My apologies.
No problem, I could have phrased it better. I actually do go back to the days of unlimited and revised (I am very old), although I was just learning the game and did not buy in until the end of revised-beginning of 4th. A lot of the expansions, like Legends and Antiquities sort of missed everyone as they barely existed in the shops here. I liked the core editions lack of story flavour back then because all the quotes were just from literature, and until maybe The Dark or FE (the first expansion I bought into majorly) the expansion cards were not a huge part of the cardpool, a few people had them. Ice Age then changed everything again.....
Story seems increasingly important, a big difference between the first 5 years and the next 15+
The same has happened to magic: a card game is successful due to it's fanboy harkings back to D&D and other fantasy tropes. It feels like a game that can be played in attics and garages with Sabbath and Genesis blasting. It feels like something nostalgic and familiar. Suddenly a big toy company gets its hands on the product and thinks it's a kids game, white washes the art schemes and aesthetics. Suddenly makes it something that it's not, for a generation that won't really understand it.
We need a J.J. Abrams to makeover this game. Bring back the 70's sword and sandals flair, reintroduce the Magic mythos for a new generation.
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
Clashes and events decks are dead. From the Vault is MIA and presumed dead. And regular Duel Decks are on life support. Commander decks are next.
Draft, crack packs, or buy singles. That is all WotC cares about now.
Magic's Lore has been reintroduced. We have the Phyrexians and Nicol Bolas, and now the Eldrazi.
What exactly has been "whitewashed"? Magic was successful for more than being a fantasy card game. Part of it was the resonance of the cards to how we think things should work. The White Knight had protection from Black, and vice-versa for the Black Knight. What makes Magic great is the Lore and how it is represented in the cards.
Magic is doing better than it ever has been; sales are up, there are more players, and we are getting more and more content each year. Now we get 2 blocks a year, and this year we have 3 supplemental sets plus FTV. Magic is in a good place for now.
We are simply in a state of change of the game moving from one phase to another. Things will settle down soon.
A few dozen people with a few thousand dollars and suddenly I don't want to buy anymore cards. I think it's a terrible place for the game to be.
From the Vault is very much alive, per Blogatog yesterday. Given that FTV is, essentially, a pack of 15 cards that Wizards sells for $40, it'll take a lot for them to disappear forever.
1) Magic is an expensive game. Modern prices are skyrocketing because the modern playerbase is skyrocketing. That in itself is a good thing for the format, and card availability is very much supported by products like MMA. With some staples costing $200 per card the format is rife for innovation and spicy new brews.
2) It was high time colorless got its own symbol. I regularly play with new players and the distinction between colorless mana and generic mana is a source of constant confucion and errors for nex players.
3) Eternal Masters is just Modern Masters with different cards.
4) The 2-block paradigm is a change for the better imo, although I can also see some negative points. Still, I feel it is a good change, the core sets were boring to say the least, Origins being the exception but it was nothing like the other core sets so I say good riddance.
I feel like other changes noted in this thread are much more ground breaking. The silent shutdown of PW duel decks, clash packs and event decks is a much bigger deal. Somehow Wizards have had some very bad PR decisions lately (leak/judge fiasco) and it seems like they changed the sheduling and general policy of when to announce thing and how they do it.
We will have to see how things turn out. You don't have to worry though, Magic is doing fine, its more popular than ever.
UR Mizzix of the Izmagnus ~~~ Build your own win-condition: Finite Spellslinging
UR Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer ~~~ We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic ~~~ A Guide to dying slowly
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose ~~~ Marchesa's undying Marionettes
RGW Mayael the Anima ~~~ All Hail the Big Chungus
GWU Chulane, Teller of Tales ~~~ Permanents Only ETB Shenanigans
BGU Sidisi, Brood Tyrant ~~~ Sidisi's Restless Servants
WUBRG The Ur-Dragon ~~~ Dragons eat your face
Speculation is great and all, but what information do you have to back it up?
Currently Playing:
Retired
Standard just feels like 4 colour good stuff right now because 4 colour decks are just too easy right now because of fetches and tangos
Modern is just eldrazi variants right now
I was never that interested in BFZ block limited