In the past, there used to be a real gap between bans getting announced and cards actually getting banned. For example, when Skullclamp was announced as banned, it wasn't actually banned until 19 days later. That seems a reasonable timeframe, as it gives people time to put together new decks and make proper plans for any tournaments that would be affected by the announcement. But they've been gradually lowering the time period between announcement and actual banning (heck, Skullclamp was shorter than it used to be, in years before that you had a months' warning).
Nowadays, we don't even get a weeks' notice. The update comes out on Monday, and then on Friday it takes effect. That's only 5 days! That seems ridiculously short to me. If you were planning to play Miracles at a Legacy tournament that weekend then you'd be completely blindsided and have very little time to get something else together. Similarly, consider Standard. Wanted to play CopyCat or Mardu Vehicles at a tournament this weekend? Well, it wasn't until Monday you'd get your answer as to whether your deck would even be legal. Even if Felidar Guardian had been banned on Monday as normal without the emergency ban, you would've had very little time to react.
Things like this would be much less of an issue if people had just a bit more time to react to bannings. Why don't they have the bannings announced earlier? I can understand wanting it to be closer to the date so more data can be gained for decisions, but I think it's ridiculous there isn't even a weeks' warning.
Frankly, I blame MaRo, Stoddard and the FFL.
When was the last time we had a Standard enviroment without "mistakes"? ODY-ONS block?
At some point Hasbro has to start noticing it's not the cards, but the people making the cards, who need to go.
Frankly, I blame MaRo, Stoddard and the FFL.
When was the last time we had a Standard enviroment without "mistakes"? ODY-ONS block?
At some point Hasbro has to start noticing it's not the cards, but the people making the cards, who need to go.
You realize MaRo is only the first step right? It goes through an entire different department (Development) before it gets finalized. It was Development that pushed JtMS to absurdity as an example.
W may only be paid with white mana. U may only be paid with blue mana. B may only be paid with black mana. R may only be paid with red mana. G may only be paid with green mana. C may only be paid with colorless mana. 1 may be paid with white, blue, black, red, green, or clolorless mana.
Frankly, I blame MaRo, Stoddard and the FFL.
When was the last time we had a Standard enviroment without "mistakes"? ODY-ONS block?
At some point Hasbro has to start noticing it's not the cards, but the people making the cards, who need to go.
You realize MaRo is only the first step right? It goes through an entire different department (Development) before it gets finalized. It was Development that pushed JtMS to absurdity as an example.
Doesn't excuse him and I mentioned one of the lead developers and their main testing tool as part of the problem.
MaRo AND everyone else keeping the game in this sorry state (Desert is too "harsh and unforgiving"?, ffs go away already), need to be replaced.
Frankly, I blame MaRo, Stoddard and the FFL.
When was the last time we had a Standard enviroment without "mistakes"? ODY-ONS block?
At some point Hasbro has to start noticing it's not the cards, but the people making the cards, who need to go.
You realize MaRo is only the first step right? It goes through an entire different department (Development) before it gets finalized. It was Development that pushed JtMS to absurdity as an example.
Doesn't excuse him and I mentioned one of the lead developers and their main testing tool as part of the problem.
MaRo AND everyone else keeping the game in this sorry state (Desert is too "harsh and unforgiving"?, ffs go away already), need to be replaced.
You clearly have no idea how design or development works. Design has zero input on powerlever, and less than that on balancing a standard format.
Frankly, I blame MaRo, Stoddard and the FFL.
When was the last time we had a Standard enviroment without "mistakes"? ODY-ONS block?
At some point Hasbro has to start noticing it's not the cards, but the people making the cards, who need to go.
You realize MaRo is only the first step right? It goes through an entire different department (Development) before it gets finalized. It was Development that pushed JtMS to absurdity as an example.
Doesn't excuse him and I mentioned one of the lead developers and their main testing tool as part of the problem.
MaRo AND everyone else keeping the game in this sorry state (Desert is too "harsh and unforgiving"?, ffs go away already), need to be replaced.
Maro? While, I don't agree with development with some power level decisions. He's part of design, and honestly he's designed a lot a very strong cards. However, once he passes it off to development things can and will be tweaked or nixed. So I am pretty sure he's not the causes of the problems we are seeing.
~EDIT~
He usually says things like this regarding power level. Counter spell question So if development said yes. I am sure we would see more counter-spells and bolts from design.
Further, I do have criticisms of some design decisions and the direction of magic, but he's not really the one to go after for power level.
Frankly, I blame MaRo, Stoddard and the FFL.
When was the last time we had a Standard enviroment without "mistakes"? ODY-ONS block?
At some point Hasbro has to start noticing it's not the cards, but the people making the cards, who need to go.
So the Era where they failed to put together a deck combining Astral Slide and Lightning rift. Which like Valakut got put together out in the wild within weeks if not days of the set being spoiled?
There has never been a golden of MTG where Design and Development has spotted every concievable deck or interaction and been able to plan for it. They are always trying to get the most balanced format but during the time a set is in the Future Future league they are attempting to fix problems we never see. Most of the time they get it right but occasionally they do drop the ball and are usually very good at admitting it.
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Oh, poor little MaRo is not to blame for useless mechanics like Bolster, Processors, Meld and Fabricate. And of course he doesn't know unplayable mechanics won't make it so that the no-nonsense goodstuff cards like Gideon, Ally of Zendikar will go unopposed and dominant. He's only been doing this for over half the game's lifetime after all.
It's all those evil bastards at development who ruin his pure and perfect designs...
I Cocks wants the product to improve he'll send him back to writting bad sitcoms where he belongs.
There were not big events every weekend back when Skullclamp was banned. For most people in most areas the biggest event weekly was FNM. Occasionally there were 2 large events in the same month! Back in the day the largest events most players saw was States (glorified FNM) or a pre release.
Now with multiple large events every weekend, there isnt the time to give for those said bans.
My personal feelings are if removing 4 cards out of a T1 deck is going to make the deck unplayable. 1)They hit the right card, 2) What took so long to make the move?
Frankly, I blame MaRo, Stoddard and the FFL.
When was the last time we had a Standard enviroment without "mistakes"? ODY-ONS block?
At some point Hasbro has to start noticing it's not the cards, but the people making the cards, who need to go.
So the Era where they failed to put together a deck combining Astral Slide and Lightning rift. Which like Valakut got put together out in the wild within weeks if not days of the set being spoiled?
There has never been a golden of MTG where Design and Development has spotted every concievable deck or interaction and been able to plan for it. They are always trying to get the most balanced format but during the time a set is in the Future Future league they are attempting to fix problems we never see. Most of the time they get it right but occasionally they do drop the ball and are usually very good at admitting it.
Thank you for mentioning all this, also don't forget UG Madness, UB Psychatog, Squirrel Opposition, etc from that era of standard. Only reason the clearly broken stuff of that period isn't remembered is cause it was right before Affinity broke everything.
Additionally the reason the B&R updates were that far out at the time was because that's how that was done then, they changed it in part iirc because it feels bad to have a new standard start, build a deck, and have some key card banned within a month. By having the announcements tied to release you know going into the new season that a card is/isn't legal.
Please keep in mind that while MaRo *technically* isn't responsible for power level, he nonetheless *does* have a great deal of influence on power level because of things like office politics and psychology.
For instance, people tend to imitate, and even take on the opinions of, people they admire or look up to. So when the very sociable, high-ranking, walking Magic encyclopedia called MaRo is very vocal about the power level of a certain card being too high (seriously, Desert?!?), there's a very much non-negligible chance that lower-rank and/or younger and/or insecure employees will convince themselves that the power level of said card is too high indeed.
Except it isn't that Maro walks in and says something is too powerful, most of time he is told(be someone or multiple people in development) that something is too powerful. They actually test cards(not for very long), desert was in the file, and through testing they found it too powerful. So to say Maro has even a moderate influence on what is 'too powerful for standard' is looking for a scapegoat.
I think it's mostly because the spread of information can be expected to happen much more quickly today than when skullclamp was banned. People get notifications on their phones, other people can look it up in seconds, and the entire playerbase is updated within a few hours of the announcement. So it's pretty unlikely you'll show up at an event with a banned decklist.
These people trying to trash MaRo obviously have no idea how design of development works. If your concern is powerlever, format balancing, or what cards they pushed/didn't push, your concern is with Development. If your concern is about the gatewatch, why certain world was/wasn't a certain way or who got legendaries, you concern is with Creative. If your concern is mechanical and functional, or about a specific mechanic, or how a mechanic was implemented, you concern is a split between Design AND Development. Development always has the second pass and always has the final say. Sometimes development with rip an entire mechanic out of a block(Energy from Mirrodin), sometimes development will add a mechanic to a block(Scry to Theros), sometimes they will depower an entire mechanic because they don't want to push it (Cipher from Gatecrash/Dragon's Maze), Sometimes they will limit the number of cards with a mechanic for power and flow reasons(Meld from Eldritch Moon), Sometimes an entire high profile cycle isn't finished and gets made during Devign(the small space where Design and Development of the same set overlap) so development has a much larger role in crafting it(The Gods of Theros), Also most of the time Walkers get made solely by development since they are such high profile cards and have such a large impact on shaping a standard environment, So if your concern is OP cards like JTMS or JVP, that is development.
Also Maro has less than nothing to do bannings, and when they happen he isnt included on the discussion since his admitted lack of ability to measure power level accurately. That is all Development.
I wish the Development tumblr was more active. This is really a time where they could open up to the public like MaRo does and help us understand how and why these mistakes were made, what their intent was, and how steps are being taken to make sure this doesn't happen again.
Reading through this topic and seeing the comments about Desert show to me exactly how much people read in to the subjects. Maro did make an addendum; mostly that due to the abundance of 1/1 tokens, Desert would have a rather strange effect on the game and they felt it pushed a lot of cards out, promoting stally plays too much. At the same time, the abundance of Eldrazis and Vehicles means that a colorless-only land isn't all that big a drawback.
But yes. Keep ragging about Maro claiming Desert is too strong for standard - at that point you're simply only reading headlines, not the actual articles themselves.
Now this doesn't mean Maro is infallible - he's made errors, big ones, but we're all human. WOTC makes errors. We all do. But frankly, when I look through spoiler season and see the kind of cards that get proposed, and the comments that get made on cards...I think we're lucky it's WOTC that designs and develops these sets and not a selection of forum members, because hoo lawdy...
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Except it isn't that Maro walks in and says something is too powerful, most of time he is told(be someone or multiple people in development) that something is too powerful. They actually test cards(not for very long), desert was in the file, and through testing they found it too powerful. So to say Maro has even a moderate influence on what is 'too powerful for standard' is looking for a scapegoat.
I have a coworker who used to wear a certain pink shirt a lot. (Or should I say blouse? I'm not familiar with the English/American term for the thing you wear with a suit.) It was one of his go-to outfits and it looked quite good on him.
One day, our boss went on a long rant about how he absolutely hated it when men wore pink *neckties*. (Pink neckties were a bit of a fashion fad for a while at our company due to an article claiming that pink ties made managers seem more approachable.) From that day on, my coworker didn't come to work in his pink shirt anymore. Our boss hadn't said anything about pink shirts, only about pink neckties, but my coworker extrapolated from his rant that our boss probably hated his pink shirt as well because it was the same color. In a similar vein, developers can (and most likely have--never underestimate the power of influence!) extrapolate on MaRo's statements and reason that 'cards of power level such and such are too strong for Standard because the resident Magic History Guru keeps telling everyone that previous cards of similar power level were also too strong for Standard'.
This happens even if said previous card was deemed too strong for standard due to other factors, because people tend to remembers messages but not reasons. Take Thoughtseize. I just paged through an old thread from around Theros time and back then the general consensus seemed to be "yeah it's high power but it's okay power; it's a skill-tester; powerful but fine; if it wasn't followed by Pack Rat 90% of the time people would care a hell of a lot less about it; yes Thoughtseize is powerful but Pack Rat is the card I hate". So at the time Thoughtseize was thought of as strong but okay, but the combo with Pack Rat (and lack of good answers to it) has given it the legacy of being remembered as 'too strong for standard'. The message "Thoughtseize is too strong for Standard" has been repeated by MaRo (and many other people as well) over and over again. (And over and over and over again. MaRo talks/writes *a lot*.)
Now if you're a young and upcoming developer, and you keep hearing the mantra of "we tried Thoughtseize back during Theros but it proved to be too strong for Standard" over and over again, from people you know to be very knowledgeable about the game and who you know to be highly respected, would you then ever consider adding Thoughtseize back into standard? Nope. If a designer added a card of comparable power level and function to the card file--let's call that card Humming to Toucans--would you give HtT a fair chance in testing? Nope, most likely you'd go into testing biased by your pre-established "thoughtseize is too strong for standard" reference frame, extrapolate from there that HtT is also too strong, and give the designer feedback that HtT has to go because it's too strong. Only cards noticeably weaker than Thoughtseize will get your stamp of approval. Your framework as a developer of what is and isn't an acceptable power level has been made for you by those who went before you, which includes developers as well as people like MaRo.
(In case you're wondering how I know my coworker didn't stop wearing the pink shirt because it was torn or something: when our boss left and was replaced by our current boss, my coworker suddenly started showing up to work in his pink shirt again. )
You mis-understand the hierarchy of Design & Development. MaRo is not in charge of anyone, the team is managed by another person, the Development team is another team entirely, that he is also not in charge of. Due to his admitted lack of ability to properly estimate power level, Development tells Mark what is too good for standard, not the other way around. On his blog his adds that his opinion isn't that relevant because he isn't a developer, and multiple times when people poked at his response added that he asked the pit and Development gave him the answer.
This happens even if said previous card was deemed too strong for standard due to other factors, because people tend to remembers messages but not reasons. Take Thoughtseize. I just paged through an old thread from around Theros time and back then the general consensus seemed to be "yeah it's high power but it's okay power; it's a skill-tester; powerful but fine; if it wasn't followed by Pack Rat 90% of the time people would care a hell of a lot less about it; yes Thoughtseize is powerful but Pack Rat is the card I hate". So at the time Thoughtseize was thought of as strong but okay, but the combo with Pack Rat (and lack of good answers to it) has given it the legacy of being remembered as 'too strong for standard'. The message "Thoughtseize is too strong for Standard" has been repeated by MaRo (and many other people as well) over and over again. (And over and over and over again. MaRo talks/writes *a lot*.)
There is a very big problem here. Thoughtseize was too powerful. The player base believed the problem was pack rat or a combination of cards but even when those cards weren't there, Thoughtseize was still a problem. It isn't a problem that past mistakes are recognized and not repeated, people are complaining about a general depowering of Magic and the pushing of specific strategies they don't like. Wizards has realized from the standards they created that reprinting powerful cards isn't the best idea because it clashes with their goals for standard. Yes Maro repeats over and over that certain cards are too strong but its not because he believes they are too strong. Its because R&D realized that they were too strong, and so Maro says they are too strong. So significant things would have to change for standard to be set up for the appearance of these cards, and it isn't a problem that everyone is on the same page(development's page not Maro's) about power level.
If you wanted to link this to your example, HR would have had to told your Boss that pink neckties were bad. Then you would incorrectly blame your boss when it was HR that wanted this said, just like people incorrectly blame Maro when he is parroting development.
You mis-understand the hierarchy of Design & Development. MaRo is not in charge of anyone, the team is managed by another person, the Development team is another team entirely, that he is also not in charge of.
Which is why I started my first post in this thread with "Please keep in mind that while MaRo *technically* isn't responsible for power level,"
It's not a technicality, it's just fact. Development is where power level gets hammered out and that is after the set is out of MaRos hands. You might as well blame the artist for drawing the card too cool so that development pushed it(That actually happened).
Stoddard and Rosewater may have an impact on the timeframe between the announcement of bannings and them taking effect (though other people probably decided that), but what in the world does the FFL have to do with it?
When was the last time we had a Standard enviroment without "mistakes"?
Never.
ODY-ONS block?
Psychatog says hi.
At some point Hasbro has to start noticing it's not the cards, but the people making the cards, who need to go.
What does this, or anything else in your message, have to do with the question I asked?
There were not big events every weekend back when Skullclamp was banned. For most people in most areas the biggest event weekly was FNM. Occasionally there were 2 large events in the same month! Back in the day the largest events most players saw was States (glorified FNM) or a pre release.
Now with multiple large events every weekend, there isnt the time to give for those said bans.
First: Thank you for answering the question that I asked, unlike almost every other post in this topic.
Second: If it's just FNMs, it's not too big a deal if my deck suddenly becomes a lot worse. I can skip an FNM, or I can play in it anyway and not really lose much if my deck isn't as good (due to not having time to adapt properly). But if it's a large tournament, there's much more impetus to do well and play a good deck. Not knowing until a week ahead of time if my deck is even allowed in a big tournament seems to be a real issue. The increase in large tournaments seems like a reason for there to be more advance warning on bans, not less.
My only problem with MaRo is to me he seems to talks out of both sides of his mouth at times and speaks in riddles. I think if they are going to ban cards there should be at least a 2 week period before it goes into effect. Its unfair to ban cards one week before a big tournament with no grace period for players to playtest and have time to obtain cards for the deck. Most of us don't have a playsets of every card in standard, most of us focus are resource's on certain colors. At the moment most of my good cards are in GWB.
Personally, I quite like that the change is coming sooner rather than later.
I always found it quite annoying knowing the new format already, but still being stuck with the old and having to go through the motions of it for another two weeks or more.
E.g. Twin was banned, but that wasn't effective until 11 days later on Modo (Paper was 4 days).
So while you already knew you soon won't need your anti-twin cards anymore or that you can start brewing with deck X again, you really can't for another 1.5 weeks.
It's not the end of the world, but a nuisance.
I can see the short notice being more of an issue for people who play Paper Magic, as that is a lot more annoying and clunky to get new cards and switch decks, can't just hop through a few bot chains and pick up the stuff you want and start playing 10 minutes later.
So for those, the short time is probably an issue since they likely have to skip a week of FNM or w/e else they were planning on playing, unless they have a second deck or so.
Still though, overall I'm a fan of rolling the changes out more quickly and skipping the weird middle phase where you know stuff is gonna change, but you can't really play like it or test for it yet. ^^
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My only problem with MaRo is to me he seems to talks out of both sides of his mouth at times and speaks in riddles. I think if they are going to ban cards there should be at least a 2 week period before it goes into effect. Its unfair to ban cards one week before a big tournament with no grace period for players to playtest and have time to obtain cards for the deck. Most of us don't have a playsets of every card in standard, most of us focus are resource's on certain colors. At the moment most of my good cards are in GWB.
Care to elaborate about the first point? I read his blog daily and don;t see any of what you are talking about.
Bans times have gotten shorter because of the larger number of tournaments. You don't want to ban a card and then wait a month with a stagnant/broken metagame.
My only problem with MaRo is to me he seems to talks out of both sides of his mouth at times and speaks in riddles. I think if they are going to ban cards there should be at least a 2 week period before it goes into effect. Its unfair to ban cards one week before a big tournament with no grace period for players to playtest and have time to obtain cards for the deck. Most of us don't have a playsets of every card in standard, most of us focus are resource's on certain colors. At the moment most of my good cards are in GWB.
Care to elaborate about the first point? I read his blog daily and don;t see any of what you are talking about.
Bans times have gotten shorter because of the larger number of tournaments. You don't want to ban a card and then wait a month with a stagnant/broken metagame.
I can understand not wanting to wait a month. But I don't think 1-2 weeks is an unreasonable amount of advance notice. It should definitely not be less than a week.
I can understand not wanting to wait a month. But I don't think 1-2 weeks is an unreasonable amount of advance notice. It should definitely not be less than a week.
I understand the frustration of having to change out your deck or certain cards because of a banning, but isn't that part of the entire experience with this game?
I have always seen deck creation as a fun challenge and even if I have a deck that I have been playing with, it is never really complete. There are always things that I am shuffling around to see if certain combos work better or if something is a better fit for whatever meta I am in.
The point that VegaTDM made about ban times becoming shorter because of the larger number of tournaments seems to resonate the most with me. For tournament play, you can't continue to allow a stagnant/broken metagame so you have to move that ban into place as soon as possible.
- Matt
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Nowadays, we don't even get a weeks' notice. The update comes out on Monday, and then on Friday it takes effect. That's only 5 days! That seems ridiculously short to me. If you were planning to play Miracles at a Legacy tournament that weekend then you'd be completely blindsided and have very little time to get something else together. Similarly, consider Standard. Wanted to play CopyCat or Mardu Vehicles at a tournament this weekend? Well, it wasn't until Monday you'd get your answer as to whether your deck would even be legal. Even if Felidar Guardian had been banned on Monday as normal without the emergency ban, you would've had very little time to react.
Things like this would be much less of an issue if people had just a bit more time to react to bannings. Why don't they have the bannings announced earlier? I can understand wanting it to be closer to the date so more data can be gained for decisions, but I think it's ridiculous there isn't even a weeks' warning.
When was the last time we had a Standard enviroment without "mistakes"? ODY-ONS block?
At some point Hasbro has to start noticing it's not the cards, but the people making the cards, who need to go.
You realize MaRo is only the first step right? It goes through an entire different department (Development) before it gets finalized. It was Development that pushed JtMS to absurdity as an example.
Doesn't excuse him and I mentioned one of the lead developers and their main testing tool as part of the problem.
MaRo AND everyone else keeping the game in this sorry state (Desert is too "harsh and unforgiving"?, ffs go away already), need to be replaced.
You clearly have no idea how design or development works. Design has zero input on powerlever, and less than that on balancing a standard format.
Maro? While, I don't agree with development with some power level decisions. He's part of design, and honestly he's designed a lot a very strong cards. However, once he passes it off to development things can and will be tweaked or nixed. So I am pretty sure he's not the causes of the problems we are seeing.
~EDIT~
He usually says things like this regarding power level. Counter spell question So if development said yes. I am sure we would see more counter-spells and bolts from design.
Further, I do have criticisms of some design decisions and the direction of magic, but he's not really the one to go after for power level.
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So the Era where they failed to put together a deck combining Astral Slide and Lightning rift. Which like Valakut got put together out in the wild within weeks if not days of the set being spoiled?
There has never been a golden of MTG where Design and Development has spotted every concievable deck or interaction and been able to plan for it. They are always trying to get the most balanced format but during the time a set is in the Future Future league they are attempting to fix problems we never see. Most of the time they get it right but occasionally they do drop the ball and are usually very good at admitting it.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
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It's all those evil bastards at development who ruin his pure and perfect designs...
I Cocks wants the product to improve he'll send him back to writting bad sitcoms where he belongs.
Now with multiple large events every weekend, there isnt the time to give for those said bans.
My personal feelings are if removing 4 cards out of a T1 deck is going to make the deck unplayable. 1)They hit the right card, 2) What took so long to make the move?
Be careful what you wish for.
The game could get worse.
Change does not always mean better.
Thank you for mentioning all this, also don't forget UG Madness, UB Psychatog, Squirrel Opposition, etc from that era of standard. Only reason the clearly broken stuff of that period isn't remembered is cause it was right before Affinity broke everything.
Additionally the reason the B&R updates were that far out at the time was because that's how that was done then, they changed it in part iirc because it feels bad to have a new standard start, build a deck, and have some key card banned within a month. By having the announcements tied to release you know going into the new season that a card is/isn't legal.
Also Maro has less than nothing to do bannings, and when they happen he isnt included on the discussion since his admitted lack of ability to measure power level accurately. That is all Development.
I wish the Development tumblr was more active. This is really a time where they could open up to the public like MaRo does and help us understand how and why these mistakes were made, what their intent was, and how steps are being taken to make sure this doesn't happen again.
But yes. Keep ragging about Maro claiming Desert is too strong for standard - at that point you're simply only reading headlines, not the actual articles themselves.
Now this doesn't mean Maro is infallible - he's made errors, big ones, but we're all human. WOTC makes errors. We all do. But frankly, when I look through spoiler season and see the kind of cards that get proposed, and the comments that get made on cards...I think we're lucky it's WOTC that designs and develops these sets and not a selection of forum members, because hoo lawdy...
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
You mis-understand the hierarchy of Design & Development. MaRo is not in charge of anyone, the team is managed by another person, the Development team is another team entirely, that he is also not in charge of. Due to his admitted lack of ability to properly estimate power level, Development tells Mark what is too good for standard, not the other way around. On his blog his adds that his opinion isn't that relevant because he isn't a developer, and multiple times when people poked at his response added that he asked the pit and Development gave him the answer.
Case in Point http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/63712275708/yesterday-you-answered-a-question-about-force-if and http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/58264469318/could-you-ask-development-if-entomb-is-too
If you wanted to link this to your example, HR would have had to told your Boss that pink neckties were bad. Then you would incorrectly blame your boss when it was HR that wanted this said, just like people incorrectly blame Maro when he is parroting development.
It's not a technicality, it's just fact. Development is where power level gets hammered out and that is after the set is out of MaRos hands. You might as well blame the artist for drawing the card too cool so that development pushed it(That actually happened).
Never. Psychatog says hi.
What does this, or anything else in your message, have to do with the question I asked?
Second: If it's just FNMs, it's not too big a deal if my deck suddenly becomes a lot worse. I can skip an FNM, or I can play in it anyway and not really lose much if my deck isn't as good (due to not having time to adapt properly). But if it's a large tournament, there's much more impetus to do well and play a good deck. Not knowing until a week ahead of time if my deck is even allowed in a big tournament seems to be a real issue. The increase in large tournaments seems like a reason for there to be more advance warning on bans, not less.
I always found it quite annoying knowing the new format already, but still being stuck with the old and having to go through the motions of it for another two weeks or more.
E.g. Twin was banned, but that wasn't effective until 11 days later on Modo (Paper was 4 days).
So while you already knew you soon won't need your anti-twin cards anymore or that you can start brewing with deck X again, you really can't for another 1.5 weeks.
It's not the end of the world, but a nuisance.
I can see the short notice being more of an issue for people who play Paper Magic, as that is a lot more annoying and clunky to get new cards and switch decks, can't just hop through a few bot chains and pick up the stuff you want and start playing 10 minutes later.
So for those, the short time is probably an issue since they likely have to skip a week of FNM or w/e else they were planning on playing, unless they have a second deck or so.
Still though, overall I'm a fan of rolling the changes out more quickly and skipping the weird middle phase where you know stuff is gonna change, but you can't really play like it or test for it yet. ^^
Standard infinite combos giving you a headache and the opponent always has Force of Will?
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Care to elaborate about the first point? I read his blog daily and don;t see any of what you are talking about.
Bans times have gotten shorter because of the larger number of tournaments. You don't want to ban a card and then wait a month with a stagnant/broken metagame.
I understand the frustration of having to change out your deck or certain cards because of a banning, but isn't that part of the entire experience with this game?
I have always seen deck creation as a fun challenge and even if I have a deck that I have been playing with, it is never really complete. There are always things that I am shuffling around to see if certain combos work better or if something is a better fit for whatever meta I am in.
The point that VegaTDM made about ban times becoming shorter because of the larger number of tournaments seems to resonate the most with me. For tournament play, you can't continue to allow a stagnant/broken metagame so you have to move that ban into place as soon as possible.
- Matt