Ban Splinter Twin
Print Zendikar Expeditions
Shorten Standard Cycle
Cancel Modern PT
Print Kaladesh Inventions
Cancel Legacy GP in Japan
They print money in short run and neglect the damage they have done to the whole community since MTG is just a business to them.
Lets analyze some of your choices here.
1. Banning splinter twin is certainly controversial and there is a healthy contingent of Modern players that are upset with this decision. However, the metagame has adapted and unless you are a blue wizard, you're probably adapting. Impact? Minimal, to slightly negative
2. The Zendikar Expeditions are causing a problem exactly how? They are reprinting non-standard cards in extremely hard to find sets and increasing the amount of cards for standard. One side effect of this is the greatly increased number of cards opened and thus making standard a cheaper format. It also gives the high dollar players something to chase. I see this as a big win for everyone. Impact? Positive for everyone.
3. Shortening the standard cycle was a mistake. Although I would have preferred to keep a 6 month rotation instead of yearly as it keeps the meta changing constantly, Wizards went back to the annual rotation of cards. Wizards also backtracked on their position here. Impact, negative.
4. Canceling the modern PT was IMO a strong move. Having all of the pros come in and try to break the format is what led to the Eldrazi Winter. With the card pool of modern, its entirely possible or probable that a single oppressive deck still exists. Look at the Amulet Titan deck for example. Cards were available for years before that deck came together. Impact? Positive.
5. Print Kaladesh Inventions - see Zendikar Expeditions.
6. Wizards has no desire to support Legacy, and has made that clear through their actions. As an avid Legacy enthusiast that frustrates the hell out of me. However, I'm in the distinct minority. What percentage of magic players are actually interested in Legacy? I'd venture to say that from the overall population, I'd guess at somewhere less than 3%. Wizards only has so many resources they can devote to this game and they all have to show a profit for it to continue. Unfortunately Legacy isn't a money maker for the company and they supporting it accordingly. Impact? Slightly negative.
From what I can tell, there are some negatives here and some positives but nothing that will cause the end of the game.
1. A Twin ban was not a great idea, but the intentions were good. Twin was dominant.
2 and 5. Masterpiece Series is a sort of trap, incentivising people to buy sets so that there are more cards in Standard, and Standard is slightly cheaper. Plus, if I could afford one, I can now choose to buy myself a filigreed-border Defense Grid!
3. They backtracked.
4 and 6. Pro in PT stands for Promotional. Modern cannot promote future sets, so Wizards needs to find another way to promote Modern and Legacy. Like new Modern Event Decks and getting the reserved list out of Legacy so Eternal Event Decks can be printed.
I agree though that they care most about money.
So do the creators of almost everything you like.
BRGMy Deck(Modern): Bolts'n'Burns WMy other, WIP casual deck: Zero to Hero
Protection from Will-O'-the-Wisps, Ali-from-Cairos, and Uncle-Istvans
Legendary snow landwalk
---------------------------------------
On the reserved list: Wizards won't remove it. Only we can. In other words: Play Modern, Pauper, or No-RL Eternal.
Of course they care about money, since they are part of a company and are obligated to please Hasbro and its shareholders. it's an unfortunate truth that if Magic ceases to be profitable, it will cease to exist. While I don't deny that Wizards has taken actions that vastly prioritize customers who buy new product over players who don't, which may be considered greedy to the latter category, I have no idea what your idea of a good, health MTG even is. Even if the game has changed and evolved over time, the company's actions and goals have always about making money. They've taken various avenues to achieve this that have been popular or unpopular among certain people, but this game's playerbase is huge and diverse. I say this to you and everyone else on this site who use personal gripes to justify a claim that the game as a whole is going downhill: what you don't like pertains to you and like-minded people. The game isn't ruined or dying. It just left you behind.
I quit modern when they banned Twin. Call me a brat, but it was the only deck I enjoyed playing and I already barely liked modern as it was.
As for your other points, Magic isnt the same gay we started with. Its to no ones shock games like Hearthstone and now Eternal are so popular/getting so popular.
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By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
Mhjames: mtgsalvation: I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CARD IS GOOD. I KNOW PATRICK CHAPIN USED IT AND WENT 8-0, BUT THAT WAS A SMALL TOURNAMENT. THE CARD IS TOO SLOW. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THE OPPONENT HAS A SPELL IN THE GRAVEYARD
Ban Splinter Twin: I think it was a bad ban (specially with timing and reprint on MM2), but I understand why they did it. It was to shake up the metagame for the PT and help insert variety in control decks. It worked but not quite as planned. I like the idea of banlist rotation thou.
Print Zendikar Expeditions: I think special cards like these are fine. Other TCGs have that. You don't need to chase down them.
Shorten Standard Cycle: That was a greedy move. This together with releasing too many products was pretty bad. Glady they reversed the shorter cycle decision. Still they'll probably release too many stuff for the market to absorb. This causes a fatigue in the playerbase and also put some pressure on the vendors. They can't possibly keep up with it.
Cancel Modern PT: I think PTs are just for promoting the new set now, so it's fine not having a Modern PT. The last one was kinda disastrous together with the Splinter Twin ban. I wish PT would be a multiformat tournament, but I guess this is for player's championship style tourneys.
Print Kaladesh Inventions: Same as Expenditions. I don't mind if this becomes a thing.
Cancel Legacy GP in Japan: Yeah, that's pretty bad, but WotC isn't the only one dropping the ball on Legacy too. I think it's expected. Hosting an event isn't cheap and Legacy is a hard to support format for WotC. In the long run it's destined to become Vintage Jr if they don't make drastic changes.
I think releasing too many products in a short period of time and offering pretty lame promos for FNM are ruining the MTG experience for new and old players alike. The Standard Showdowns were a fiasco and it's not really what brings/keeps people to the stores. They don't need to do much to improve the experience. They just need to hold down their greed a little. With the exception of BfZ block (SOI block is good, but a little disappointing compared to the legendary Innistrad block), their product line up has been pretty solid IMO.
Removing the Pro Tour for Modern wasnt because Pro's broke the format, WIZARDS broke the format by not testing for Modern and pushing idiotic creature cards. I hate that deck...and its still tier 1 in Modern.
These special expeditions will eventually not be special anymore and retailers wont open extra sealed finding them. This will cause standard to go up in price a little bit. They should have just done this when the future league indicated a high number of standard staples in a particular set. It's not ruined but I do think there has been extra money grabbing lately. We need time to enjoy sets instead of being thrown new product, after new product every month. Also it's kinda becoming a joke that the enemy fetches haven't been reprinted yet.
The game may be bad in comparison to what it was to a lot of us, but WotC doesn't give a ***** as long as they make their usual profit margin, which they are doing. You can post a million negative posts on a forum like this and it won't budge their profit margin an inch. Companies only listen when you complain with your wallet or rather you don't fork over money for whatever they're selling, but millions of people do that in regards to MTG annually.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
I quit modern when they banned Twin. Call me a brat, but it was the only deck I enjoyed playing and I already barely liked modern as it was.
As for your other points, Magic isnt the same gay we started with. Its to no ones shock games like Hearthstone and now Eternal are so popular/getting so popular.
I quit modern after the Pod ban.
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That was pretty interesting. But dropping a warship on me is cheating. Take it back!
I quit modern when they banned Twin. Call me a brat, but it was the only deck I enjoyed playing and I already barely liked modern as it was.
As for your other points, Magic isnt the same gay we started with. Its to no ones shock games like Hearthstone and now Eternal are so popular/getting so popular.
If Aether Revolt is any indication you now have a form of splinter twin in modern again along with frontier. Not sure how well it will play compared to the old version and I got a feeling Saheeli Rai is going to be banned soon since it's very much splinter twin, but we'll have to wait and see.
The only reason I haven't quit modern is because unlike some people, I play merfolk. Splinter twin may fall and the birthing pod will burn, but out there in the ocean there be hundreds of happy fish swimming around with Aether Vials.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I mean, I traded out of modern after they banned 2 tier one decks of mine in rapid succession. The twin ban sealed my decision to never come back. I'm sorry wizards, I played hatebears for a year, and I am never doing that ever again, especially as you banned pod and bloom right when I finished them. Legacy and pauper all the way, baby, control decks are actually good in those formats.
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Legacy
Death and Taxes Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
4. Canceling the modern PT was IMO a strong move. Having all of the pros come in and try to break the format is what led to the Eldrazi Winter.
Not even true at all. The printing of TKS and Reality Smasher etc. into a format with tools to break them is what led to Eldrazi Winter. Blaming it on "the pros breaking it" is giving WOTC a pass where they deserve none. They knew it was stupid and broken, and they printed it anyway. "Pros" are not magical human beings who can create brokenness where none exists. It's up to WOTC to maintain the balance of their formats, and if your format cannot have really good players playing it without being broken then it's a garbage format that you need to fix.
I do agree that cancelling modern PTs was good, if for no other reason than because without a modern PT we won't need to experience Eldrazi Winter ever again because WOTC no longer has an incentive to print ridiculously broken cards and ban format staples just to shake up the format for the PT (which is what actually caused Eldrazi Winter).
Incorrect. The Printing of Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher did NOT break the format. It was Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin. Cards that were printed 5 years ago. As you can see now, after Eye was banned, Eldrazi is a solid Tier 1 deck, but not the tier 0 monster it was with the mana acceleration. I was paying attention closely to the Eldrazi decks for modern last winter. Many were WB versions, with the occasional splashes of other colors. Most of the non-pros were focused around wasteland strangler, heartless summoning, and other options. Nobody but the pros considered the colorless eldrazi deck the CFB team played or the RU version that won the whole thing by team East/West. Those versions were the broken ones.
I played a bunch with the deck, but never online. All I can attest to is the forums here and my local meta. I should say my point is that the deck got refined very quickly with the pros. Someone somewhere would have come up with a similar deck, but it wouldn't have happened as quickly without the pros.
I played a bunch with the deck, but never online. All I can attest to is the forums here and my local meta. I should say my point is that the deck got refined very quickly with the pros. Someone somewhere would have come up with a similar deck, but it wouldn't have happened as quickly without the pros.
When it's your job to win at a card game you tend to have a lot of time/incentive to figure these sorts of things out.
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By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
Mhjames: mtgsalvation: I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CARD IS GOOD. I KNOW PATRICK CHAPIN USED IT AND WENT 8-0, BUT THAT WAS A SMALL TOURNAMENT. THE CARD IS TOO SLOW. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THE OPPONENT HAS A SPELL IN THE GRAVEYARD
The problem with ZEn 2.0 is not the inventions it was the design. Those sets simply had too many poorly designed cards. The original eldrazis where big and expensive mana wise. So when you push creatures so high on the mana curve there is an inherent fairness to them because of how long it takes you to actually cast them
For the new zendikar they had the same idea of pushing creatures but now it happened at much lower CMCs. I really despised the fact that they brought allies and landfall back and then purposely made it too bad for standard play. That was a big insult to the people who remember what made original zen great. If they did not want those mechanics to define a format why bring them back at all?
The other problem that ZEN had is that it simply had too few cards that had appeal outside standard, These sets were mainly made for draft and that along with the massive overprinting made huge swaths of cards no one wanted.
What I do think is that Kaladesh was a much better execution of a block with super mythic. There are lots of good casual cards, the flavour is superb. I think we are going to look at this block very fondly in the years to come. Aether Revolt is probably going to be the landmark set where WOTC realised they need to create powerful cards at all rarities (Especially uncommon) and this along with the added value of super mythic will make sets great like they never where before.
The problem with ZEn 2.0 is not the inventions it was the design. Those sets simply had too many poorly designed cards. The original eldrazis where big and expensive mana wise. So when you push creatures so high on the mana curve there is an inherent fairness to them because of how long it takes you to actually cast them
For the new zendikar they had the same idea of pushing creatures but now it happened at much lower CMCs. I really despised the fact that they brought allies and landfall back and then purposely made it too bad for standard play. That was a big insult to the people who remember what made original zen great. If they did not want those mechanics to define a format why bring them back at all?
The other problem that ZEN had is that it simply had too few cards that had appeal outside standard, These sets were mainly made for draft and that along with the massive overprinting made huge swaths of cards no one wanted.
What I do think is that Kaladesh was a much better execution of a block with super mythic. There are lots of good casual cards, the flavour is superb. I think we are going to look at this block very fondly in the years to come. Aether Revolt is probably going to be the landmark set where WOTC realised they need to create powerful cards at all rarities (Especially uncommon) and this along with the added value of super mythic will make sets great like they never where before.
I still found it hilarious that the story was supposed to be the allies winning, yet in the end the Eldrazi were the real winners. Great job on keeping things consistent there wizards. The other crime is that the new allies were really bad compared to the old ones. The best support for the old allies is actually coming out of Aether Revolt of all places.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Pros copy decks. Usually the 'new' deck they show up with was cut and pasted from mtgo. Most players known for 'their' decks did not create them. Pros are no better, they just have more time to devote.
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Print Zendikar Expeditions
Shorten Standard Cycle
Cancel Modern PT
Print Kaladesh Inventions
Cancel Legacy GP in Japan
They print money in short run and neglect the damage they have done to the whole community since MTG is just a business to them.
Lets analyze some of your choices here.
1. Banning splinter twin is certainly controversial and there is a healthy contingent of Modern players that are upset with this decision. However, the metagame has adapted and unless you are a blue wizard, you're probably adapting. Impact? Minimal, to slightly negative
2. The Zendikar Expeditions are causing a problem exactly how? They are reprinting non-standard cards in extremely hard to find sets and increasing the amount of cards for standard. One side effect of this is the greatly increased number of cards opened and thus making standard a cheaper format. It also gives the high dollar players something to chase. I see this as a big win for everyone. Impact? Positive for everyone.
3. Shortening the standard cycle was a mistake. Although I would have preferred to keep a 6 month rotation instead of yearly as it keeps the meta changing constantly, Wizards went back to the annual rotation of cards. Wizards also backtracked on their position here. Impact, negative.
4. Canceling the modern PT was IMO a strong move. Having all of the pros come in and try to break the format is what led to the Eldrazi Winter. With the card pool of modern, its entirely possible or probable that a single oppressive deck still exists. Look at the Amulet Titan deck for example. Cards were available for years before that deck came together. Impact? Positive.
5. Print Kaladesh Inventions - see Zendikar Expeditions.
6. Wizards has no desire to support Legacy, and has made that clear through their actions. As an avid Legacy enthusiast that frustrates the hell out of me. However, I'm in the distinct minority. What percentage of magic players are actually interested in Legacy? I'd venture to say that from the overall population, I'd guess at somewhere less than 3%. Wizards only has so many resources they can devote to this game and they all have to show a profit for it to continue. Unfortunately Legacy isn't a money maker for the company and they supporting it accordingly. Impact? Slightly negative.
From what I can tell, there are some negatives here and some positives but nothing that will cause the end of the game.
2 and 5. Masterpiece Series is a sort of trap, incentivising people to buy sets so that there are more cards in Standard, and Standard is slightly cheaper. Plus, if I could afford one, I can now choose to buy myself a filigreed-border Defense Grid!
3. They backtracked.
4 and 6. Pro in PT stands for Promotional. Modern cannot promote future sets, so Wizards needs to find another way to promote Modern and Legacy. Like new Modern Event Decks and getting the reserved list out of Legacy so Eternal Event Decks can be printed.
I agree though that they care most about money.
So do the creators of almost everything you like.
WMy other, WIP casual deck: Zero to Hero
Protection from Will-O'-the-Wisps, Ali-from-Cairos, and Uncle-Istvans
Legendary snow landwalk
---------------------------------------
On the reserved list: Wizards won't remove it. Only we can. In other words: Play Modern, Pauper, or No-RL Eternal.
As for your other points, Magic isnt the same gay we started with. Its to no ones shock games like Hearthstone and now Eternal are so popular/getting so popular.
By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
Print Zendikar Expeditions: I think special cards like these are fine. Other TCGs have that. You don't need to chase down them.
Shorten Standard Cycle: That was a greedy move. This together with releasing too many products was pretty bad. Glady they reversed the shorter cycle decision. Still they'll probably release too many stuff for the market to absorb. This causes a fatigue in the playerbase and also put some pressure on the vendors. They can't possibly keep up with it.
Cancel Modern PT: I think PTs are just for promoting the new set now, so it's fine not having a Modern PT. The last one was kinda disastrous together with the Splinter Twin ban. I wish PT would be a multiformat tournament, but I guess this is for player's championship style tourneys.
Print Kaladesh Inventions: Same as Expenditions. I don't mind if this becomes a thing.
Cancel Legacy GP in Japan: Yeah, that's pretty bad, but WotC isn't the only one dropping the ball on Legacy too. I think it's expected. Hosting an event isn't cheap and Legacy is a hard to support format for WotC. In the long run it's destined to become Vintage Jr if they don't make drastic changes.
I think releasing too many products in a short period of time and offering pretty lame promos for FNM are ruining the MTG experience for new and old players alike. The Standard Showdowns were a fiasco and it's not really what brings/keeps people to the stores. They don't need to do much to improve the experience. They just need to hold down their greed a little. With the exception of BfZ block (SOI block is good, but a little disappointing compared to the legendary Innistrad block), their product line up has been pretty solid IMO.
Decks
Modern
BGR Jund RGB
BW Eldrazi and Taxes WB
BWGAbzan Company GWB
Mtgo Modern
G Company Elves G
Removing the Pro Tour for Modern wasnt because Pro's broke the format, WIZARDS broke the format by not testing for Modern and pushing idiotic creature cards. I hate that deck...and its still tier 1 in Modern.
I also quit over Twin.
Spirits
Currently Playing:
Retired
I quit modern after the Pod ban.
If Aether Revolt is any indication you now have a form of splinter twin in modern again along with frontier. Not sure how well it will play compared to the old version and I got a feeling Saheeli Rai is going to be banned soon since it's very much splinter twin, but we'll have to wait and see.
The only reason I haven't quit modern is because unlike some people, I play merfolk. Splinter twin may fall and the birthing pod will burn, but out there in the ocean there be hundreds of happy fish swimming around with Aether Vials.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Spirits
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
Incorrect. The Printing of Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher did NOT break the format. It was Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin. Cards that were printed 5 years ago. As you can see now, after Eye was banned, Eldrazi is a solid Tier 1 deck, but not the tier 0 monster it was with the mana acceleration. I was paying attention closely to the Eldrazi decks for modern last winter. Many were WB versions, with the occasional splashes of other colors. Most of the non-pros were focused around wasteland strangler, heartless summoning, and other options. Nobody but the pros considered the colorless eldrazi deck the CFB team played or the RU version that won the whole thing by team East/West. Those versions were the broken ones.
Spirits
Yes, can someone please elaborate on this point? When was it cancelled?
When it's your job to win at a card game you tend to have a lot of time/incentive to figure these sorts of things out.
By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
For the new zendikar they had the same idea of pushing creatures but now it happened at much lower CMCs. I really despised the fact that they brought allies and landfall back and then purposely made it too bad for standard play. That was a big insult to the people who remember what made original zen great. If they did not want those mechanics to define a format why bring them back at all?
The other problem that ZEN had is that it simply had too few cards that had appeal outside standard, These sets were mainly made for draft and that along with the massive overprinting made huge swaths of cards no one wanted.
What I do think is that Kaladesh was a much better execution of a block with super mythic. There are lots of good casual cards, the flavour is superb. I think we are going to look at this block very fondly in the years to come. Aether Revolt is probably going to be the landmark set where WOTC realised they need to create powerful cards at all rarities (Especially uncommon) and this along with the added value of super mythic will make sets great like they never where before.
I still found it hilarious that the story was supposed to be the allies winning, yet in the end the Eldrazi were the real winners. Great job on keeping things consistent there wizards. The other crime is that the new allies were really bad compared to the old ones. The best support for the old allies is actually coming out of Aether Revolt of all places.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!