When the Wotc rep comes around and 5 out or 8 of the guys at the table are all complaining about different interactions and different decks, yes it was that bad. Enough must have been complaining that Wotc took it to heart because they have gone away from all hose decks people were complaining about.
That all said, there is a clear division in the player base. There are those that wish for a more spell based game like it was in the late 90s...
...There really is no way to please both sides.
So...
If enough of the players start complaining about a lack of different interactions and different decks, it would make sense for them to ramp up on spells and non-midrange deck support?
You seem to be in full support of WotC having changed the game to suit the complainers 15-20 years ago; but in zero support of any changes which cater to today's players complaining the opposite?
You say "There really is no way to please both sides", but seem to imply that their only reasonable choice is to continue to please your side.
I am a long time player, since the inception of the game, and I think todays Magic is heads and shoulders better then the game of yesteryear. I couldnt stand constructed formats back in the late 90s early 00s. I was strictly a limited player, mainly drafting. Then Wotc started caring about limited and refining the game to appease the majority. We saw an increase of players and attendance spike. Sales went though the roof for 6 or 7 years starting on 08-09.
All that being said, I understand Wotc cant please both parties. Its an either or. Wotc will cater to that side that makes them the most money. Period. Show Wotc 'your' type of Magic will bring more into the game, sell more packs, keep attendance as high or higher then it is now. Maybe Wotc will change their thinking. But Wotc has already tried it your way and they know the numbers.
On a side note, I think Wotc should only care about Standard and Limited. (I think a lot of the problems started when Wotc started worrying about more then Standard and limited.) They should allow a company like SCG or TCG take over the older formats and regulate them. This eliminates Wotc's need to run sanctioned events and 'support' formats like Legacy, Modern, or EDH. Of course local LGS would be allowed to run sanctioned events for any format that will fire. Now I dont think Wotc would allow those other companies to capitalize on their game, but its a thought.
They are catering to people too impatient of too casual to bother learning the rules - and to "poor sports" who are vexed when they get bitten by an interaction they didn't expect or don't understand.
There have always been poor sports in this game. Dont make it out to be something new. With more coverage we are seeing more of it weekly, but if you traveled to larger events the last 20 years you saw it regularly.
The game is being changed for the younger crowd coming up. They need the pre teens and younger crowd to step in and pick up Magic. Why learn multiple interactions of Magic when you can go play Yugiho or Pokemon which are much simpler games?
The game is going to die a slow death if Wotc doesnt adapt to the up coming generations.
There have always been poor sports in this game. Dont make it out to be something new.
Of course, but WotC didn't alter the game to cater to the poor sports until the dawn of NWO (which is why people use the term NWO to refer to this broad change in design philosophy).
Wotc will cater to that side that makes them the most money. Period.
Their newbies-first design has been serving them well for several years plus.
I believe this is catching up to them. Obviously neither you nor I can show WotC that one philosophy will earn more dough than the other. If WotC decides their current model is not succeeding, they will do their own market research and decide what changes are in order.
You and I can only speculate based on our experiences.
I've also been playing the game since 1994, and I have noticed recently more complaints about the midrange/creature push than ever before (since NWO). Maybe they will "take that to heart"?
You seem awfully certain they will not (for some reason).
When the Wotc rep comes around and 5 out or 8 of the guys at the table are all complaining about different interactions and different decks, yes it was that bad. Enough must have been complaining that Wotc took it to heart because they have gone away from all hose decks people were complaining about.
That all said, there is a clear division in the player base. There are those that wish for a more spell based game like it was in the late 90s...
...There really is no way to please both sides.
So...
If enough of the players start complaining about a lack of different interactions and different decks, it would make sense for them to ramp up on spells and non-midrange deck support?
You seem to be in full support of WotC having changed the game to suit the complainers 15-20 years ago; but in zero support of any changes which cater to today's players complaining the opposite?
You say "There really is no way to please both sides", but seem to imply that their only reasonable choice is to continue to please your side.
I am a long time player, since the inception of the game, and I think todays Magic is heads and shoulders better then the game of yesteryear. I couldnt stand constructed formats back in the late 90s early 00s. I was strictly a limited player, mainly drafting. Then Wotc started caring about limited and refining the game to appease the majority. We saw an increase of players and attendance spike. Sales went though the roof for 6 or 7 years starting on 08-09.
All that being said, I understand Wotc cant please both parties. Its an either or. Wotc will cater to that side that makes them the most money. Period. Show Wotc 'your' type of Magic will bring more into the game, sell more packs, keep attendance as high or higher then it is now. Maybe Wotc will change their thinking. But Wotc has already tried it your way and they know the numbers.
On a side note, I think Wotc should only care about Standard and Limited. (I think a lot of the problems started when Wotc started worrying about more then Standard and limited.) They should allow a company like SCG or TCG take over the older formats and regulate them. This eliminates Wotc's need to run sanctioned events and 'support' formats like Legacy, Modern, or EDH. Of course local LGS would be allowed to run sanctioned events for any format that will fire. Now I dont think Wotc would allow those other companies to capitalize on their game, but its a thought.
They are catering to people too impatient of too casual to bother learning the rules - and to "poor sports" who are vexed when they get bitten by an interaction they didn't expect or don't understand.
There have always been poor sports in this game. Dont make it out to be something new. With more coverage we are seeing more of it weekly, but if you traveled to larger events the last 20 years you saw it regularly.
The game is being changed for the younger crowd coming up. They need the pre teens and younger crowd to step in and pick up Magic. Why learn multiple interactions of Magic when you can go play Yugiho or Pokemon which are much simpler games?
The game is going to die a slow death if Wotc doesnt adapt to the up coming generations.
Ah okay. So yeah that's why we end up butting heads a lot on this. I'm pro legacy / modern support directly and you're pro go all in on standard / limited. The issue I have with the all standard / limited strategy is that the company has no power over what the consumer wants to play in the grand scheme of things. They introduce the game and get people into it, but if someone wants to play commander, standard, casual, modern, etc, that is outside their control and hurting those players produces problems for the game in the form of bad press.
What looks to have happened is that because wizards was originally only giving sideline support to eternal formats and modern and the shift in how players prefer to buy cards long term, the singles market has become the primary market for magic. Sealed product is no longer the primary way people pick up cards to build decks and instead has turned into one of those sort of blockbuster movie releases type of deals where people come play the booster box game at release and then migrate away to do singles purchases. This would be fine if the singles market was not a rummager / scavenging type of marketplace, where the supply is determined from booster box randomized distribution. The trouble with booster boxes is that wizards doesn't know what is going to be the most popular mythic or rare on the release of a new set and everything comes out approximately equally on a large scale purchase of booster boxes. This leads to popular cards spiking and less popular cards dropping once purchases start picking up, which then pushes more people to buy the higher priced mythics and rares thus creating a self fulfilling cycle.
People should be buying cards they think are good for their decks, not buying cards simply because they are popular and they are afraid the price is going to climb on them. That is why I'm pretty convinced on the creation of more value oriented products for older sets not currently in the booster draft period, such as making a masters set that is 12 boosters, 1-2 of each of a land cycle (enemy or allied), and a bunch of extras with a promo mythic selected from among the most popular of the season. Drive the floor up and drive the ceiling down is something that WoTC has to orchestrate.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Wizards introduction of Planeswalkers was effectively Fox Kids taking One Piece to the butcher block and making Franken Piece out of it, where Sanji is now sucking a lollipop and major plot points got entirely axed because they aren't kid friendly enough. Complexity? Go throw that out the window. The only format that is even tangentially supported by wizards that has not fallen into a mid-range nightmare is modern. People who kept their legacy collections are living in a paradise compared to what people are having to deal with right now.
Probably the best summation of the standard/modern problems on MTGS (A+ One Piece ref), EDH is fine lol. Compounded with power creep of 'money cards' in sets, instead of printing decent answers, makes your more competitive formats at the mercy of a top heavy ban list.
When the Wotc rep comes around and 5 out or 8 of the guys at the table are all complaining about different interactions and different decks, yes it was that bad. Enough must have been complaining that Wotc took it to heart because they have gone away from all hose decks people were complaining about.
That all said, there is a clear division in the player base. There are those that wish for a more spell based game like it was in the late 90s...
...There really is no way to please both sides.
So...
If enough of the players start complaining about a lack of different interactions and different decks, it would make sense for them to ramp up on spells and non-midrange deck support?
You seem to be in full support of WotC having changed the game to suit the complainers 15-20 years ago; but in zero support of any changes which cater to today's players complaining the opposite?
You say "There really is no way to please both sides", but seem to imply that their only reasonable choice is to continue to please your side.
I am a long time player, since the inception of the game, and I think todays Magic is heads and shoulders better then the game of yesteryear. I couldnt stand constructed formats back in the late 90s early 00s. I was strictly a limited player, mainly drafting. Then Wotc started caring about limited and refining the game to appease the majority. We saw an increase of players and attendance spike. Sales went though the roof for 6 or 7 years starting on 08-09.
All that being said, I understand Wotc cant please both parties. Its an either or. Wotc will cater to that side that makes them the most money. Period. Show Wotc 'your' type of Magic will bring more into the game, sell more packs, keep attendance as high or higher then it is now. Maybe Wotc will change their thinking. But Wotc has already tried it your way and they know the numbers.
On a side note, I think Wotc should only care about Standard and Limited. (I think a lot of the problems started when Wotc started worrying about more then Standard and limited.) They should allow a company like SCG or TCG take over the older formats and regulate them. This eliminates Wotc's need to run sanctioned events and 'support' formats like Legacy, Modern, or EDH. Of course local LGS would be allowed to run sanctioned events for any format that will fire. Now I dont think Wotc would allow those other companies to capitalize on their game, but its a thought.
They are catering to people too impatient of too casual to bother learning the rules - and to "poor sports" who are vexed when they get bitten by an interaction they didn't expect or don't understand.
There have always been poor sports in this game. Dont make it out to be something new. With more coverage we are seeing more of it weekly, but if you traveled to larger events the last 20 years you saw it regularly.
The game is being changed for the younger crowd coming up. They need the pre teens and younger crowd to step in and pick up Magic. Why learn multiple interactions of Magic when you can go play Yugiho or Pokemon which are much simpler games?
The game is going to die a slow death if Wotc doesnt adapt to the up coming generations.
Ah okay. So yeah that's why we end up butting heads a lot on this. I'm pro legacy / modern support directly and you're pro go all in on standard / limited. The issue I have with the all standard / limited strategy is that the company has no power over what the consumer wants to play in the grand scheme of things. They introduce the game and get people into it, but if someone wants to play commander, standard, casual, modern, etc, that is outside their control and hurting those players produces problems for the game in the form of bad press.
What looks to have happened is that because wizards was originally only giving sideline support to eternal formats and modern and the shift in how players prefer to buy cards long term, the singles market has become the primary market for magic. Sealed product is no longer the primary way people pick up cards to build decks and instead has turned into one of those sort of blockbuster movie releases type of deals where people come play the booster box game at release and then migrate away to do singles purchases. This would be fine if the singles market was not a rummager / scavenging type of marketplace, where the supply is determined from booster box randomized distribution. The trouble with booster boxes is that wizards doesn't know what is going to be the most popular mythic or rare on the release of a new set and everything comes out approximately equally on a large scale purchase of booster boxes. This leads to popular cards spiking and less popular cards dropping once purchases start picking up, which then pushes more people to buy the higher priced mythics and rares thus creating a self fulfilling cycle.
People should be buying cards they think are good for their decks, not buying cards simply because they are popular and they are afraid the price is going to climb on them. That is why I'm pretty convinced on the creation of more value oriented products for older sets not currently in the booster draft period, such as making a masters set that is 12 boosters, 1-2 of each of a land cycle (enemy or allied), and a bunch of extras with a promo mythic selected from among the most popular of the season. Drive the floor up and drive the ceiling down is something that WoTC has to orchestrate.
We have had this discussion before. You are looking at it as a game you want to play. Wotc HAS to look at it as a business and how to make the most money out of it. The older formats make Wotc very little money compared to Limited and Standard.
I am an avid Modern player but a limited player at heart. I will dabble in Standard now and again but Standard is a solved format so quickly it doesnt appeal to me, never really has. Such a small card pool, limited number of decks and strategies. As a liited player I dont want my experience to be if I dont get one of the 5 bomb cards in the set, I have no chance of prizing at the table. Which is how drafting use to be pre NWO. In that sense, Wotc has done well by drafting and limited in general. Sealed is still dependent on what you open, but I dont see how Wotc can solve that without seeding packs just for sealed play.
I have said it all along. What Wotc needs from the game, is not the same as what parts of the player base wants from the game.
There have always been poor sports in this game. Dont make it out to be something new.
Of course, but WotC didn't alter the game to cater to the poor sports until the dawn of NWO (which is why people use the term NWO to refer to this broad change in design philosophy).
Wotc will cater to that side that makes them the most money. Period.
Their newbies-first design has been serving them well for several years plus.
I believe this is catching up to them. Obviously neither you nor I can show WotC that one philosophy will earn more dough than the other. If WotC decides their current model is not succeeding, they will do their own market research and decide what changes are in order.
You and I can only speculate based on our experiences.
I've also been playing the game since 1994, and I have noticed recently more complaints about the midrange/creature push than ever before (since NWO). Maybe they will "take that to heart"?
You seem awfully certain they will not (for some reason).
People who kept their legacy collections are living in a paradise compared to what people are having to deal with right now.
Amen. I feel badly for new (and returning) players who want to play Legacy but don't have cards.
But why did Wotc feel it was needed to change the game? And once they changed the mentality of the game, more people started to play. Attendance numbers went up, prize for events went up, prices for singles went up. From the business side, the change did exactly want it was intended to do for the game.
As for changes in the future, the only way we see any drastic changes is if they start seeing large drops in sales and attendance. As long as those 2 things stay relatively stable, we wont see too much of a change. Like I said, they tried it like you want it and they know the numbers, they know it sells to a certain group, but not as wide as it does now, or I should say has up till Khans/Return Zen. The issue is how many are complaining about this mid range creature centric format? is it 1%, 5%, 25%? At what percent does Wotc take it to heart?
The way I see it, the people complaining about how Magic is today, are the same players who were telling players to be quiet when they complained about Caw blade in Standard or that Legacy was a blue dominated format. The tides have turned and the shoe is on the other foot and those who who were telling those disgruntled players in the pass to suck it up, are now being told that exact same thing and they dont like it.
EDH was much better before it became commander.
Also, lol at "Partner"
And DOUBLE LOL at the Brothers Yamazaki not gaining "Partners with other Brothers Yamazki." Errata!
Fuse Gisela/Bruna also kind of are screaming for that treatment
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
That was pretty interesting. But dropping a warship on me is cheating. Take it back!
"Utilized mana burn to punish opponents who had too much excess mana that was just floating."
Mana burn came up so infrequently that they removed it from the rules. It basically only happened when it was forced upon you, with something like magus of the vineyard
If something is infrequent, increase the number continually until it does become frequent and ingrained. Horsemanship is a bad mechanic because it was so infrequent with future cards as nothing else cared for it and it was dropped alltogether, same with Shadow. Flying could have easily been the horsemanship we know today if it didn't see as much printing on cards and their weren't as many cards to counter flying. The Arcane subtype could have been expanded on in Time Spiral Block and Ravnica Block, but they didn't which turned it into a parasitic mechanic. Arcane itself could easily have been continued as its not exactly a Japanese/Shinto/Kamigawa word.
WotC is partly to blame when we have a parasitic mechanic that is not continued in future sets as they love to wholesale drop them and never want to touch them again. Which is in itself bad design philosophy.
"No more ability to punish players with untapped lands."
There are maybe, what, two cards in all of magic that did this? Citadel of pain and a creature, right? Maybe a third?
An alternative method to flat out land destruction where it would burn the player for having unused resources instead of destroying said resources.
"A good chunk of its worth comes from planeswalkers now."
They didn't introduce a card type for it to not get used. These cards drive up people's interest, so they make them good.
Yet they feel like they must have a planeswalker every set now. In their ORIGINAL introduction in Lorwyn, you got all five and no spreading them out over the sets. The rest of the three sets in that block had zero planeswalkers. Do you know why the Lorwyn group worked? They were merely visitors, onlookers. The inhabitants of that plane fixed the problem for themselves. Now its always got to be the Jacetice League swooping in to save some plane and we also have the villains who keep wanting to mess with the planes who are also planeswalkers by the way.
I'm honestly sick of seeing planeswalkers. We already have 93 of them now and a HUGE amount of them are just different versions of the same characters. Also if we want to consider this even more, Timespiral Block was meant to be an entire buildup to planeswalkers as a type until we hit future sight in which we would have planeswalkers, yet because they couldn't hammer out the rules in time for planeswalkers they got delayed.
It was also in Lorwyn when planeswalkers were Rare and not Mythic Rare because that rarity was not invented yet. Mythic Rare is to yesterday as Invocations are to present day. Frankly pointless additions to the rarity system that has just made itself become like Yugioh in that respect. Ultra Rares = Mythic Rares, Secret Rares = Invocations. Should I point out how the most expensive card in all of Amonkhet are also invocations? That the most expensive non-invocation card is Liliana, Death's Majesty and she only sits at $13-20 depending on what website you shop? Seriously.
"Goblins nowhere to be seen."
There are other creature types in magic that people like to see. Not every plane should have goblins on it. Not every set with goblins in it needs to have a tribal thing, either.
Then lessen the number, not outright ignore them. Goblins are a staple of MTG just as much as Elves or Merfolk or Humans. A single Goblin card wasn't going to break the bank in Kaladesh, as heck, it could have slipped through the planar bridge when it was being worked on and tested.
Goblins don't always need to be tribal, sure, I can dig that.
"No hate spells or counterspells."
Honestly, good. I don't like caring about the color of my opponent's cards. It's "thematic" but makes for swingy gameplay.
Indestructibility and hexproof also lead to pretty swingy games and the only reason those two have gotten so much overuse is that they don't want to utilize Protection from [Color]. Also you don't care what color your opponents cards are that they are playing? I certainly do.
"Its burn spells got weaker."
It's kinda hard to outdo lightning bolt, man. Also, Drafting is significantly more dynamic now that removal is mostly worse than it used to be.
Dude there isn't even a Searing Spear in standard. An instant speed burn spell that is just 2 mana and deals 3 damage to creatures or players. That is just awful. The best we can apparently have is Shock. Harnessed Lightning only hits creatures and thus can't deal with planeswalkers or provide reach when hitting players.
EDH was much better before it became commander.
Also, lol at "Partner"
And DOUBLE LOL at the Brothers Yamazaki not gaining "Partners with other Brothers Yamazki." Errata!
Fuse Gisela/Bruna also kind of are screaming for that treatment
Its the same reason they won't make the Nephilim legendary in that they don't do functional errata anymore. Even though it makes like 100% sense and would have made people happy, they won't added some text as an errata to make it more appealing to people (aka sell more).
I... can't really say adding sleeves would add value.
What sleeves do you go with? Dragon? KMC? It appears that UltraPro has the contract so I guess they would be Ultra Pro. I buy UP because they're ubiquitous at tournaments. I don't have to worry about resleeving decks if I split too many. Not everyone agrees with me. So I can't see sleeves adding much value for many.
The rest of the idea seems to have merit.
Regardless, I keep a bag of select sleeves along with my card boxes anyways for that purpose.
Probably would be Ultra-pro given how ubiquitous they are these days. Honestly, it's more about the gesture of providing people who open rares some way to protect the cards in the short term. Most people tend to have a preferred brand of sleeve they use, but they may not have them during a draft or limited event and want to protect what they are using. Not to mention they may also be short on some when they are opening at home and pick up a modern card like Liliana of the Veil and don't want the thing floating around without at least some temporary protection.
It is nobody's responsibility except the person who opens the cards to protect the cards they open.
If people don't show up w/ sleeves it is only the fault of the people not showing up with sleeves.
Same thing applies when they open cards at home, where it should actually be easier to "protect" the card even w/o sleeves.
As to some other things you've said recently, WotC definitely should not be catering to people playing this game who cannot understand what a Planeswalker does. One reason this game has gone down the drain is b/c WotC keeps dumbing it down so more and more people of lesser intelligence don't "feel" bad about getting stomped by people smarter than they are. Too. Bad. That's. Life.
You seem to want everybody to have a coach sitting beside them when they play MtG. You are glad-handling people instead of requiring them to take personal responsibility.
Adding value to masters sets by providing card sleeves, protective cases, and dice that the player is going to have to buy anyway and can cost often as much as the cards themselves total when bought separate, removing planeswalkers so they can move away from mid-range swiss army knife design standards, and cutting up booster box costs on Masters sets to 99 msrp chunks does what? Where the heck did you get your conclusions from? Did you just hazily read the posts and not consider the actual motivations? I'm completely opposite of care bear on the subject of magic. I want things like prison, good counterspells, and higher variance gameplay.
And by the way, there was a time when players had a hard time figuring out how instants and interrupts worked and wizards had to create the portal sets to help ease people into playing magic. Calling planeswalker decks "the perfect way to start playing magic" is the most BS statement I've ever seen. They are asking to introduce someone to magic, to the most needlessly complex value engine card type in the game combined in a poorly slapped together deck.
Simple cards in combination with one another yield complex gameplay. Overcomplicating individual cards with a ton of abilities that all require individual analysis does not increase this complexity, it makes deck building for everyone, beginner or otherwise, a complete pain in the neck and kills the space that walker occupies because why put anything else in the damn slot? Gideon, Ally of Zendikar can be a creature, a 2/2 token spewing value engine, or a freaking anthem. Congratulations, they made a card that replaces three different options that could have existed in that slot or a lower cmc slot. Deck variety much?
Wizards introduction of Planeswalkers was effectively Fox Kids taking One Piece to the butcher block and making Franken Piece out of it, where Sanji is now sucking a lollipop and major plot points got entirely axed because they aren't kid friendly enough. Complexity? Go throw that out the window. The only format that is even tangentially supported by wizards that has not fallen into a mid-range nightmare is modern. People who kept their legacy collections are living in a paradise compared to what people are having to deal with right now.
Seriously, they can't even make a standard set that gets people to keep buying it past the first two months. People actively search out Elwynn / Lorwynn and original Innistrad, as well as older sets like Urza's Saga (because that one was one heck of a crazy OP block). No one is going to remember or care about many of these contemporary sets thanks to how the cards were developed and the themes designed. Broken Eldrazi are just about the only thing from BFZ block that anyone will ever remember, for example.
Planeswalkers are not complicated cards. Complexity in MtG comes in understanding the timing rules, stack interaction, priority, and state-based effects. I did not need Portal to learn how to play MtG, nor do most people who are intelligent enough to learn how to play the game. You get your feet wet, you take your lumps, and you LEARN. The old adage of "give a person a fish, you feed them once; teach a person to fish and you feed them for a lifetime" applies to MtG as well.
More value can easily be added to Masters sets by increasing the amount of valuable cards in the sets. What you are suggesting in adding dice and sleeves is nothing more than marketing BS b/c I don't want to purchase a Masters set or any MtG product b/c they will throw in dice or sleeves. I want good cards when I purchase the WotC products, and I don't want to have to play a lottery to do that...hence why I have largely stopped purchasing any direct WotC products. I purchase singles only w/ exception of a box of the recent Masters set b/c it did look like a good roll of the dice for me as I don't possess a lot of the better cards from sets between Kamigawa and Innistrad. I also did it to see for myself how much value there actually was for me in 24 booster Masters box instead of taking everybody else's word for it. In the end I will probably break even on that purchase of a MM17 box of boosters. I bet that if WotC added more value in CARDS to their sets they would actually move more product, b/c they would still get the players that love to play lotteries AND they would get people like me who want value for every penny I spend on their product and do not want to throw money away playing a lottery.
I also used to hate Planeswalkers b/c they were not part of the game when I started playing in the 90s, but I've learned to respect and appreciate the cards b/c of the one-time mana investment into potentially reusable effects, and multiple effects at that. You saying that you want prison, counters, and higher variance gameplay (all complex parts of the game) and then calling Planeswalkers complex or complicated and therefore bad for newer players seems a bit at odds.
I did mention including 1-2 of each land in an enemy or allied land cycle, which would mean you'd be getting 12 booster packs and then guaranteed 2 of each land. That's more value than just 24 booster packs because the player is now guaranteed one of the critical pieces needed for deck building when they buy. It would largely help solve the modern mana base issues with expensive filters, fetchlands, and shocks. Also, because they put the lands as bonus cards, those do not need to be in the randomized card pool so it opens more rare slots for reprints.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Thats the crux of it though, Lands have historicly always been the money in most sets. Every competive deck NEEDS them, they are garenteed sales. Why do you think we never see a good land cycle at common (or rarly at uncommon) but almost every single block we get a great cycle of rare ones? They drive their pack sales. They drive sales, City of brass used to be a $10 card, enemy painlands used to be $15, allied admitly closer to 5-7 but they were printed several times, People will use whatever the best nonbasicly the format has to offer. I admit prices for lands have given way a bit since the introduction of mythic rarity. However the "lands will hold value" still holds true if we look at Modern (and don't even touch Legacy/EDH). Depand for land is always high, While for PLAYERS putting the mana fixing in at garenteed fixed value is great it would cripple set sales. They would need to make crazer bomb mythics and more of them to drive sales back to the prevous levels. Its a recepy for powercreep.
Thats the crux of it though, Lands have historicly always been the money in most sets. Every competive deck NEEDS them, they are garenteed sales. Why do you think we never see a good land cycle at common (or rarly at uncommon) but almost every single block we get a great cycle of rare ones? They drive their pack sales. They drive sales, City of brass used to be a $10 card, enemy painlands used to be $15, allied admitly closer to 5-7 but they were printed several times, People will use whatever the best nonbasicly the format has to offer. I admit prices for lands have given way a bit since the introduction of mythic rarity. However the "lands will hold value" still holds true if we look at Modern (and don't even touch Legacy/EDH). Depand for land is always high, While for PLAYERS putting the mana fixing in at garenteed fixed value is great it would cripple set sales. They would need to make crazer bomb mythics and more of them to drive sales back to the prevous levels. Its a recepy for powercreep.
That logic only applies to standard, though. In eternal formats that same strategy is pointless because the cards are mostly bought as singles and there's more than enough value in the mythics and rares across magics history to drive pack sales in the sets. It's more important in eternal to let players have the mana base they need, which is why a lot of other card games do this. Even force of will has vingolf, which releases basically two of every dual land they have in pairs in a box set meant for casual players to build decks, and not some cut down version of the good stuff. Also that's blatently false that they need to make bigger bomb mythics to sell sets without land cycles. What actually happens is the value in the sets gets pushed elsewhere to the existing bombs and mythics, and only for non-standard legal sets since that is where this would happen. Standard sets would still have their land cycles coming in booster packs only.
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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!
What's wrong with today's Magic is the people playing it have wildly different expectations than the people designing and selling it.
The disagreement on art direction, set construction and purpose of expansions, tournament viability, tournament promotion, and lastly story are always going to be a cause of disinterest.
//And about that idea of putting some fetchlands in a Modern Masters box, thats, pretty silly. A devaluation is not the problem's solution. Fixing the requirement of using the lands is.
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Wanted -Zombie Foils and older expensive Zombie stuff. High Priority- Beta Z Master/ Int. Collector's Edition.
What's wrong with today's Magic is the people playing it have wildly different expectations than the people designing and selling it.
The disagreement on art direction, set construction and purpose of expansions, tournament viability, tournament promotion, and lastly story are always going to be a cause of disinterest.
//And about that idea of putting some fetchlands in a Modern Masters box, thats, pretty silly. A devaluation is not the problem's solution. Fixing the requirement of using the lands is.
That's the other direction they can potentially go. I still feel they should make the lands more available and force the value of decks more into the cards that matter, as well as bring the floor up and the top down on costs of cards, but moving away from fetch+shocks is something that wizards is basically guaranteed to be planning for the future non-rotating format they have planned. There has been a serious push to making lands more tied to board state and the players hand than to player choice. Fetches, Shocks, and Filter lands are all lands tied to the player more than the board state, which is why they are the more powerful lands in the current modern metagame.
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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!
What's wrong with today's Magic is the people playing it have wildly different expectations than the people designing and selling it.
The disagreement on art direction, set construction and purpose of expansions, tournament viability, tournament promotion, and lastly story are always going to be a cause of disinterest.
//And about that idea of putting some fetchlands in a Modern Masters box, thats, pretty silly. A devaluation is not the problem's solution. Fixing the requirement of using the lands is.
That's the other direction they can potentially go. I still feel they should make the lands more available and force the value of decks more into the cards that matter, as well as bring the floor up and the top down on costs of cards, but moving away from fetch+shocks is something that wizards is basically guaranteed to be planning for the future non-rotating format they have planned. There has been a serious push to making lands more tied to board state and the players hand than to player choice. Fetches, Shocks, and Filter lands are all lands tied to the player more than the board state, which is why they are the more powerful lands in the current modern metagame.
What evidence is there that WotC has any future non-rotating format planned? Frontier is a myth.
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FREE MODERN. Break the Standard link.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
What's wrong with today's Magic is the people playing it have wildly different expectations than the people designing and selling it.
The disagreement on art direction, set construction and purpose of expansions, tournament viability, tournament promotion, and lastly story are always going to be a cause of disinterest.
//And about that idea of putting some fetchlands in a Modern Masters box, thats, pretty silly. A devaluation is not the problem's solution. Fixing the requirement of using the lands is.
That's the other direction they can potentially go. I still feel they should make the lands more available and force the value of decks more into the cards that matter, as well as bring the floor up and the top down on costs of cards, but moving away from fetch+shocks is something that wizards is basically guaranteed to be planning for the future non-rotating format they have planned. There has been a serious push to making lands more tied to board state and the players hand than to player choice. Fetches, Shocks, and Filter lands are all lands tied to the player more than the board state, which is why they are the more powerful lands in the current modern metagame.
What evidence is there that WotC has any future non-rotating format planned? Frontier is a myth.
There was something stated in a reaction to frontier that has caused speculation on this, but basically WoTC (or someone else there) said that it was too soon when frontier came around. My original thoughts before we knew what MtG digital next was is that it would be linked to a new digital format wizards would support so they could do something like what pokemon does with redemptions. However, even if it is on Wizards book of things they may have planned for the future, that doesn't mean they are going to act on it or possibly change their minds and continue to support modern instead.
On a note: I do find it darkly humorous that people are worried that reprinting old out of print lands for any non-rotating environment in a direct fashion is going to be bad when the gaming industry has proven that false. Well, that and basically arguing against it is like shooting yourself in the foot as a player anyway. Seriously, the only thing printing land sets in masters boxes would do at worst, is move the value of standard cards from the mana base more towards the non-land spells. That's it. No the sky is falling routine or anything. And that is largely because singles sellers and speculators will be predicting wizards could reprint these lands heavily once they leave standard later, thus lessening the need for pure casual or modern players to have to pick them up right away. That and they should do it on lands they are never going to reprint again in standard. We're never going to see the Lorwyn / Shadowmoor lands again so reprint them as a land set in a proper product. Same with lands like Nimbus Maze, Horizon Canopy, etc.
Booster boxes and packs will always be opened because there is always something to chase after even without the lands. Maros original statement around lands selling packs is misleading in this regard because he is correct in what he says, but he's not saying anything in regards to how well the packs would sell if they did the lands differently.
A lot of the talk on the price of MTG is kind of pointless, though. Odd thing to hear that from someone like myself that has been going on about it for a while, but there is a good reason for it. Just don't want this turning into a wall of text.
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!
So, its a "i read a post from someone who heard it from his sisters boyfriend who plays soccer with that guy those roommate works for wizard" things?
Thats why such claims need a source.
Basically, MaRo does a lot of content and depending on who sees what from where it ends up spawning completely different conversations. Now unless I'm missing something that prior post I think is the source of the entire speculation. If you want to go run around in a tangent thinking just because someone didn't post something it didn't have an origin point you go do that...
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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!
Seriously, the only thing printing land sets in masters boxes would do at worst, is move the value of standard cards from the mana base more towards the non-land spells.
Outside of mono colored decks, mana base has always been the most expensive part of multicolored decks.
Why must you continue to try and change something that has been working for 20+ years?
You are only thinking of the players in this thinking. You are not thinking of the loss the lGS takes on the singles he sells. You are not thinking about the monetary loss the players collection takes. Do you think people taking these losses are going to be happy about it? If your answer is you dont care, then why should those people care you cant afford to play the deck you wish to?
Seriously, the only thing printing land sets in masters boxes would do at worst, is move the value of standard cards from the mana base more towards the non-land spells.
Outside of mono colored decks, mana base has always been the most expensive part of multicolored decks.
Why must you continue to try and change something that has been working for 20+ years?
You are only thinking of the players in this thinking. You are not thinking of the loss the lGS takes on the singles he sells. You are not thinking about the monetary loss the players collection takes. Do you think people taking these losses are going to be happy about it? If your answer is you dont care, then why should those people care you cant afford to play the deck you wish to?
I am thinking of the singles sales Bo. The costs shift from the lands to the other cards in the set, that is literally all that happens. Also, the entire LGS system is broken at the moment because of Wizards of the Coast not giving support to LGS owners directly. They want and need a place for players to meet up and play magic, yet they have one of the worst player tracking systems ever created, prize support is scarce and more often than not get repurposed into sales, which then require players to report the LGS to wizards who will then hopefully investigate the issue. They are starting to give LGS good promos, but those promos are now hitting in the summer months when attendance is usually lower.
The system worked until a little past January 2012. It doesn't matter how many years it worked: When something breaks it doesn't magically fix itself. To fix something requires taking action and there is no action without cost.
They basically have two choices: Either get prices down across the board in modern and make the mana-base more affordable, or completely discard modern like they did legacy and start a new format. Take your pick. There is no third option.
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!
Hear me out on this, I hear alot of people saying "the good old days" (I my self am sometimes guilty of this), So we have a set that used to be the core set that is currently empty, What if they printed an already printed set/block that they felt would help make the game more interesting, Alterantivly what if they tried for a few years reprinting old sets to help influence or chance the shape of standards? Example
for the current block they make OTJ legal becuase of the graveyard interactions and the +1+1 counter interactions in Judgment and maddness with cycling. They print a few (but not huge amount due to reprint sets not selling as much) to keep up new demand but give old cards new life and a chance to shine again. Effectively printing a "block" set that has the best of any given block that they feel would fit well with the current new cards.
Hear me out on this, I hear alot of people saying "the good old days" (I my self am sometimes guilty of this), So we have a set that used to be the core set that is currently empty, What if they printed an already printed set/block that they felt would help make the game more interesting, Alterantivly what if they tried for a few years reprinting old sets to help influence or chance the shape of standards? Example
for the current block they make OTJ legal becuase of the graveyard interactions and the +1+1 counter interactions in Judgment. They print a few (but not huge amount due to reprint sets not selling as much) to keep up new demand but give old cards new life and a chance to shine again. Effectively printing a "block" set that has the best of any given block that they feel would fit well with the current new cards.
I dont wanna see old sets reprinted front to back (though I get where youre coming from), but I would like to see a number of reprints. They have trouble selling core sets because a lot of ppl already have the cards. What if core sets were smaller in size, but each card got new art and every card in the packs were foils? People are obsessed (for some reason) with foils, full cart art, etc. Seems like it would sell, no?
Hear me out on this, I hear alot of people saying "the good old days" (I my self am sometimes guilty of this), So we have a set that used to be the core set that is currently empty, What if they printed an already printed set/block that they felt would help make the game more interesting, Alterantivly what if they tried for a few years reprinting old sets to help influence or chance the shape of standards? Example
for the current block they make OTJ legal becuase of the graveyard interactions and the +1+1 counter interactions in Judgment. They print a few (but not huge amount due to reprint sets not selling as much) to keep up new demand but give old cards new life and a chance to shine again. Effectively printing a "block" set that has the best of any given block that they feel would fit well with the current new cards.
I dont wanna see old sets reprinted front to back (though I get where youre coming from), but I would like to see a number of reprints. They have trouble selling core sets because a lot of ppl already have the cards. What if core sets were smaller in size, but each card got new art and every card in the packs were foils? People are obsessed (for some reason) with foils, full cart art, etc. Seems like it would sell, no?
Wouldn't be the set front to back, it would be 1 set with the highlights from the given BLOCK. so 1 set with best stuff of 3. Also foils/full arts are only highly valued because they are rare and a point of pride/pimpage. Make an entire set foil it won't sell well we learned that when they tried the all foil packs before.
Hear me out on this, I hear alot of people saying "the good old days" (I my self am sometimes guilty of this), So we have a set that used to be the core set that is currently empty,
It s not empty, it was fill by Eldritch Moon last year and Hour of Deviation this year.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Sure there is a third option. Handle modern like they do. They don´t have to change it. Modern will grow, or it won´t. That doesn´t matter too much. Its the overall health of the game that matters, not if modern is affordable for everyone or not.
Then you picked option 1: discard modern and eventually move on to a new format. It really does boil down to eventually one of those two and the only way they can ever go with the later is if they change how they are handling the card printings. It's not possible to support that format the way they are handling things now.
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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!
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I am a long time player, since the inception of the game, and I think todays Magic is heads and shoulders better then the game of yesteryear. I couldnt stand constructed formats back in the late 90s early 00s. I was strictly a limited player, mainly drafting. Then Wotc started caring about limited and refining the game to appease the majority. We saw an increase of players and attendance spike. Sales went though the roof for 6 or 7 years starting on 08-09.
All that being said, I understand Wotc cant please both parties. Its an either or. Wotc will cater to that side that makes them the most money. Period. Show Wotc 'your' type of Magic will bring more into the game, sell more packs, keep attendance as high or higher then it is now. Maybe Wotc will change their thinking. But Wotc has already tried it your way and they know the numbers.
On a side note, I think Wotc should only care about Standard and Limited. (I think a lot of the problems started when Wotc started worrying about more then Standard and limited.) They should allow a company like SCG or TCG take over the older formats and regulate them. This eliminates Wotc's need to run sanctioned events and 'support' formats like Legacy, Modern, or EDH. Of course local LGS would be allowed to run sanctioned events for any format that will fire. Now I dont think Wotc would allow those other companies to capitalize on their game, but its a thought.
There have always been poor sports in this game. Dont make it out to be something new. With more coverage we are seeing more of it weekly, but if you traveled to larger events the last 20 years you saw it regularly.
The game is being changed for the younger crowd coming up. They need the pre teens and younger crowd to step in and pick up Magic. Why learn multiple interactions of Magic when you can go play Yugiho or Pokemon which are much simpler games?
The game is going to die a slow death if Wotc doesnt adapt to the up coming generations.
Of course, but WotC didn't alter the game to cater to the poor sports until the dawn of NWO (which is why people use the term NWO to refer to this broad change in design philosophy).
Their newbies-first design has been serving them well for several years plus.
I believe this is catching up to them. Obviously neither you nor I can show WotC that one philosophy will earn more dough than the other. If WotC decides their current model is not succeeding, they will do their own market research and decide what changes are in order.
You and I can only speculate based on our experiences.
I've also been playing the game since 1994, and I have noticed recently more complaints about the midrange/creature push than ever before (since NWO). Maybe they will "take that to heart"?
You seem awfully certain they will not (for some reason).
Amen. I feel badly for new (and returning) players who want to play Legacy but don't have cards.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
Ah okay. So yeah that's why we end up butting heads a lot on this. I'm pro legacy / modern support directly and you're pro go all in on standard / limited. The issue I have with the all standard / limited strategy is that the company has no power over what the consumer wants to play in the grand scheme of things. They introduce the game and get people into it, but if someone wants to play commander, standard, casual, modern, etc, that is outside their control and hurting those players produces problems for the game in the form of bad press.
What looks to have happened is that because wizards was originally only giving sideline support to eternal formats and modern and the shift in how players prefer to buy cards long term, the singles market has become the primary market for magic. Sealed product is no longer the primary way people pick up cards to build decks and instead has turned into one of those sort of blockbuster movie releases type of deals where people come play the booster box game at release and then migrate away to do singles purchases. This would be fine if the singles market was not a rummager / scavenging type of marketplace, where the supply is determined from booster box randomized distribution. The trouble with booster boxes is that wizards doesn't know what is going to be the most popular mythic or rare on the release of a new set and everything comes out approximately equally on a large scale purchase of booster boxes. This leads to popular cards spiking and less popular cards dropping once purchases start picking up, which then pushes more people to buy the higher priced mythics and rares thus creating a self fulfilling cycle.
People should be buying cards they think are good for their decks, not buying cards simply because they are popular and they are afraid the price is going to climb on them. That is why I'm pretty convinced on the creation of more value oriented products for older sets not currently in the booster draft period, such as making a masters set that is 12 boosters, 1-2 of each of a land cycle (enemy or allied), and a bunch of extras with a promo mythic selected from among the most popular of the season. Drive the floor up and drive the ceiling down is something that WoTC has to orchestrate.
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!
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
We have had this discussion before. You are looking at it as a game you want to play. Wotc HAS to look at it as a business and how to make the most money out of it. The older formats make Wotc very little money compared to Limited and Standard.
I am an avid Modern player but a limited player at heart. I will dabble in Standard now and again but Standard is a solved format so quickly it doesnt appeal to me, never really has. Such a small card pool, limited number of decks and strategies. As a liited player I dont want my experience to be if I dont get one of the 5 bomb cards in the set, I have no chance of prizing at the table. Which is how drafting use to be pre NWO. In that sense, Wotc has done well by drafting and limited in general. Sealed is still dependent on what you open, but I dont see how Wotc can solve that without seeding packs just for sealed play.
I have said it all along. What Wotc needs from the game, is not the same as what parts of the player base wants from the game.
But why did Wotc feel it was needed to change the game? And once they changed the mentality of the game, more people started to play. Attendance numbers went up, prize for events went up, prices for singles went up. From the business side, the change did exactly want it was intended to do for the game.
As for changes in the future, the only way we see any drastic changes is if they start seeing large drops in sales and attendance. As long as those 2 things stay relatively stable, we wont see too much of a change. Like I said, they tried it like you want it and they know the numbers, they know it sells to a certain group, but not as wide as it does now, or I should say has up till Khans/Return Zen. The issue is how many are complaining about this mid range creature centric format? is it 1%, 5%, 25%? At what percent does Wotc take it to heart?
The way I see it, the people complaining about how Magic is today, are the same players who were telling players to be quiet when they complained about Caw blade in Standard or that Legacy was a blue dominated format. The tides have turned and the shoe is on the other foot and those who who were telling those disgruntled players in the pass to suck it up, are now being told that exact same thing and they dont like it.
Fuse Gisela/Bruna also kind of are screaming for that treatment
WotC is partly to blame when we have a parasitic mechanic that is not continued in future sets as they love to wholesale drop them and never want to touch them again. Which is in itself bad design philosophy.
An alternative method to flat out land destruction where it would burn the player for having unused resources instead of destroying said resources.
Yet they feel like they must have a planeswalker every set now. In their ORIGINAL introduction in Lorwyn, you got all five and no spreading them out over the sets. The rest of the three sets in that block had zero planeswalkers. Do you know why the Lorwyn group worked? They were merely visitors, onlookers. The inhabitants of that plane fixed the problem for themselves. Now its always got to be the Jacetice League swooping in to save some plane and we also have the villains who keep wanting to mess with the planes who are also planeswalkers by the way.
I'm honestly sick of seeing planeswalkers. We already have 93 of them now and a HUGE amount of them are just different versions of the same characters. Also if we want to consider this even more, Timespiral Block was meant to be an entire buildup to planeswalkers as a type until we hit future sight in which we would have planeswalkers, yet because they couldn't hammer out the rules in time for planeswalkers they got delayed.
It was also in Lorwyn when planeswalkers were Rare and not Mythic Rare because that rarity was not invented yet. Mythic Rare is to yesterday as Invocations are to present day. Frankly pointless additions to the rarity system that has just made itself become like Yugioh in that respect. Ultra Rares = Mythic Rares, Secret Rares = Invocations. Should I point out how the most expensive card in all of Amonkhet are also invocations? That the most expensive non-invocation card is Liliana, Death's Majesty and she only sits at $13-20 depending on what website you shop? Seriously.
Then lessen the number, not outright ignore them. Goblins are a staple of MTG just as much as Elves or Merfolk or Humans. A single Goblin card wasn't going to break the bank in Kaladesh, as heck, it could have slipped through the planar bridge when it was being worked on and tested.
Goblins don't always need to be tribal, sure, I can dig that.
Indestructibility and hexproof also lead to pretty swingy games and the only reason those two have gotten so much overuse is that they don't want to utilize Protection from [Color]. Also you don't care what color your opponents cards are that they are playing? I certainly do.
Dude there isn't even a Searing Spear in standard. An instant speed burn spell that is just 2 mana and deals 3 damage to creatures or players. That is just awful. The best we can apparently have is Shock. Harnessed Lightning only hits creatures and thus can't deal with planeswalkers or provide reach when hitting players.
I did mention including 1-2 of each land in an enemy or allied land cycle, which would mean you'd be getting 12 booster packs and then guaranteed 2 of each land. That's more value than just 24 booster packs because the player is now guaranteed one of the critical pieces needed for deck building when they buy. It would largely help solve the modern mana base issues with expensive filters, fetchlands, and shocks. Also, because they put the lands as bonus cards, those do not need to be in the randomized card pool so it opens more rare slots for reprints.
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!
That logic only applies to standard, though. In eternal formats that same strategy is pointless because the cards are mostly bought as singles and there's more than enough value in the mythics and rares across magics history to drive pack sales in the sets. It's more important in eternal to let players have the mana base they need, which is why a lot of other card games do this. Even force of will has vingolf, which releases basically two of every dual land they have in pairs in a box set meant for casual players to build decks, and not some cut down version of the good stuff. Also that's blatently false that they need to make bigger bomb mythics to sell sets without land cycles. What actually happens is the value in the sets gets pushed elsewhere to the existing bombs and mythics, and only for non-standard legal sets since that is where this would happen. Standard sets would still have their land cycles coming in booster packs only.
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!
The disagreement on art direction, set construction and purpose of expansions, tournament viability, tournament promotion, and lastly story are always going to be a cause of disinterest.
//And about that idea of putting some fetchlands in a Modern Masters box, thats, pretty silly. A devaluation is not the problem's solution. Fixing the requirement of using the lands is.
Selling some cards I don't want.
Generally less than tcg mid.
That's the other direction they can potentially go. I still feel they should make the lands more available and force the value of decks more into the cards that matter, as well as bring the floor up and the top down on costs of cards, but moving away from fetch+shocks is something that wizards is basically guaranteed to be planning for the future non-rotating format they have planned. There has been a serious push to making lands more tied to board state and the players hand than to player choice. Fetches, Shocks, and Filter lands are all lands tied to the player more than the board state, which is why they are the more powerful lands in the current modern metagame.
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!
What evidence is there that WotC has any future non-rotating format planned? Frontier is a myth.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
There was something stated in a reaction to frontier that has caused speculation on this, but basically WoTC (or someone else there) said that it was too soon when frontier came around. My original thoughts before we knew what MtG digital next was is that it would be linked to a new digital format wizards would support so they could do something like what pokemon does with redemptions. However, even if it is on Wizards book of things they may have planned for the future, that doesn't mean they are going to act on it or possibly change their minds and continue to support modern instead.
On a note: I do find it darkly humorous that people are worried that reprinting old out of print lands for any non-rotating environment in a direct fashion is going to be bad when the gaming industry has proven that false. Well, that and basically arguing against it is like shooting yourself in the foot as a player anyway. Seriously, the only thing printing land sets in masters boxes would do at worst, is move the value of standard cards from the mana base more towards the non-land spells. That's it. No the sky is falling routine or anything. And that is largely because singles sellers and speculators will be predicting wizards could reprint these lands heavily once they leave standard later, thus lessening the need for pure casual or modern players to have to pick them up right away. That and they should do it on lands they are never going to reprint again in standard. We're never going to see the Lorwyn / Shadowmoor lands again so reprint them as a land set in a proper product. Same with lands like Nimbus Maze, Horizon Canopy, etc.
Booster boxes and packs will always be opened because there is always something to chase after even without the lands. Maros original statement around lands selling packs is misleading in this regard because he is correct in what he says, but he's not saying anything in regards to how well the packs would sell if they did the lands differently.
A lot of the talk on the price of MTG is kind of pointless, though. Odd thing to hear that from someone like myself that has been going on about it for a while, but there is a good reason for it. Just don't want this turning into a wall of text.
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!
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/148004395518/can-you-envision-creating-a-new-nonrotating
And I recommend looking at this to get some context as to how that led to what I talked about.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/no-two-see-same-maro-2016-01-25-0
Basically, MaRo does a lot of content and depending on who sees what from where it ends up spawning completely different conversations. Now unless I'm missing something that prior post I think is the source of the entire speculation. If you want to go run around in a tangent thinking just because someone didn't post something it didn't have an origin point you go do that...
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!
Outside of mono colored decks, mana base has always been the most expensive part of multicolored decks.
Why must you continue to try and change something that has been working for 20+ years?
You are only thinking of the players in this thinking. You are not thinking of the loss the lGS takes on the singles he sells. You are not thinking about the monetary loss the players collection takes. Do you think people taking these losses are going to be happy about it? If your answer is you dont care, then why should those people care you cant afford to play the deck you wish to?
I am thinking of the singles sales Bo. The costs shift from the lands to the other cards in the set, that is literally all that happens. Also, the entire LGS system is broken at the moment because of Wizards of the Coast not giving support to LGS owners directly. They want and need a place for players to meet up and play magic, yet they have one of the worst player tracking systems ever created, prize support is scarce and more often than not get repurposed into sales, which then require players to report the LGS to wizards who will then hopefully investigate the issue. They are starting to give LGS good promos, but those promos are now hitting in the summer months when attendance is usually lower.
The system worked until a little past January 2012. It doesn't matter how many years it worked: When something breaks it doesn't magically fix itself. To fix something requires taking action and there is no action without cost.
They basically have two choices: Either get prices down across the board in modern and make the mana-base more affordable, or completely discard modern like they did legacy and start a new format. Take your pick. There is no third option.
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!
for the current block they make OTJ legal becuase of the graveyard interactions and the +1+1 counter interactions in Judgment and maddness with cycling. They print a few (but not huge amount due to reprint sets not selling as much) to keep up new demand but give old cards new life and a chance to shine again. Effectively printing a "block" set that has the best of any given block that they feel would fit well with the current new cards.
Wouldn't be the set front to back, it would be 1 set with the highlights from the given BLOCK. so 1 set with best stuff of 3. Also foils/full arts are only highly valued because they are rare and a point of pride/pimpage. Make an entire set foil it won't sell well we learned that when they tried the all foil packs before.
It s not empty, it was fill by Eldritch Moon last year and Hour of Deviation this year.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Then you picked option 1: discard modern and eventually move on to a new format. It really does boil down to eventually one of those two and the only way they can ever go with the later is if they change how they are handling the card printings. It's not possible to support that format the way they are handling things now.
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!