Chris doesn't care about paper collectors beyond them being a way to fund the digital front. Also, why worry about card design if they can just patch and fix cards like Hearthstone sometimes does? You're right that they need to take more care when testing cards right now because once they hit the press there isn't a way to retroactively fix every single cards rules text if it needs to be errata'ed, but that isn't the case with digital.
Also, I know it's easy to think paper is big and blowing up the LGS scene would be devastating to the game, but that's not really true at all. Magic the Gathering in Paper form is a niche game and even more niche thanks to being a trading card game. By pushing it to digital WoTC can potentially expand to a bigger group of players: One likely big enough to make the paper game redundant.
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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!
Some people here like bashing on MaRo, but that guy is a fervent supporter of paper and is one of the people who likely is keeping paper magic alive right now. If he quits along with some of the other seniors that were around in the early 2000s that is likely the death knell for the paper market as we know it.
MaRo's already facing sexual assault allegations and If any of it turns out to be true then Paper Magic goes along with him.
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America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Some people here like bashing on MaRo, but that guy is a fervent supporter of paper and is one of the people who likely is keeping paper magic alive right now. If he quits along with some of the other seniors that were around in the early 2000s that is likely the death knell for the paper market as we know it.
MaRo's already facing sexual assault allegations and If any of it turns out to be true then Paper Magic goes along with him.
No, he's not. If you are talking about the troll, he was being a troll making a worthless point and you know it. If you are making some half baked tongue in cheek reference to what's going on elsewhere, that has nothing to do with the topic and is utterly transparent. Either way, this has nothing to do with attendance, at all.
Chris doesn't care about paper collectors beyond them being a way to fund the digital front. Also, why worry about card design if they can just patch and fix cards like Hearthstone sometimes does? You're right that they need to take more care when testing cards right now because once they hit the press there isn't a way to retroactively fix every single cards rules text if it needs to be errata'ed, but that isn't the case with digital.
Also, I know it's easy to think paper is big and blowing up the LGS scene would be devastating to the game, but that's not really true at all. Magic the Gathering in Paper form is a niche game and even more niche thanks to being a trading card game. By pushing it to digital WoTC can potentially expand to a bigger group of players: One likely big enough to make the paper game redundant.
The thing is though: while a lot of people play hearthstone, most i know play for free. They are needed to have a big player base so the paying players find opponents at any time, but they do not generate income for blizzard themself. a bigger crowed is only relevant if it generates more money for the company. Simple as that.
and that is what a digital magic has to competete with. Duels could be played for free, but there is a reason it was shut down.
If arena isn´t free, the question of how cards are aquired comes up. If its boosters, then is there a trading or even buying system? What happens if i buy or trade a card at high cost, and a week later the next patch destroys it usability? do i get a refund? A real magic card might be banned, but i can still play it in a casual format. Are there such formats in arena?
You are asking "are there such formats" when the question is more so "will there be such formats?". The answer to the latter is definitely yes. Also, it's not worth speculating over how the market is going to work in that game. They could use all sorts of trade up systems using digital trade currency from dusting cards to putting more money in for booster packs, to direct trades between players. Card prices will never be like they are in paper in Arena and while an Aether Vial or Engineered Explosives may be insanely pricey in real life, they could be a two dollar to four dollar card online based on how they manage the system and the number of players. The bigger issue if a card gets nerfed in a patch is finding a new deck to play if it was a long time favorite.
Never underestimate the power of a freemium game and lootbox / dusting economies. If they add trade into it things really start getting insane as far as profits are concerned. Remember that wizards right now only deals with sealed products, but by making Arena they have a way to also tap the players that want to deal with individual cards. One hundred players paying 10-15 dollars every two weeks over the course of a year is going to add up to far more than a handful of players buying cases of the latest set from a retailer on standard release cycles. Especially with overhead included.
Also, they aren't going to stop paper magic, just it's going to shrink into a smaller game and cards would likely go up in price due to fewer copies. I've got no idea how modern is going to deal with that upcoming environment because it's already too expensive thanks to the tier system putting a spotlight on specific mythics / Rares, the pro-tour in general, and WoTC focused heavily on making profits with the masters sets.
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!
Smaller game = no one plays
We're already seeing their flagship game (standard, which sells product) not firing on a regular basis.
Why do people think paper magic dies with Maro? Where's the evidence of that? Any links to statements Chris has made to indicate he's going to destroy the paper game?
Diversification leads to greater profits not narrowing and specializing. I hope Chris isn't so stupid as to believe digital is the only future for mtg because he'll kill it completely inside 3 years.
There were articles back in 2015 and 2016 published by the daily dot and some other sites that talked about the change in leadership along with what it entails. A lot of the information is probably drawn from inductive logic based on decisions the people made, so in a sense gauging what a CEO is in support of is like reading up on a political candidate. Also this is starting to turn into one heck of a research project.
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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!
Smaller game = no one plays
We're already seeing their flagship game (standard, which sells product) not firing on a regular basis.
Why do people think paper magic dies with Maro? Where's the evidence of that? Any links to statements Chris has made to indicate he's going to destroy the paper game?
Diversification leads to greater profits not narrowing and specializing. I hope Chris isn't so stupid as to believe digital is the only future for mtg because he'll kill it completely inside 3 years.
0% chance. Synergistic effects are strong. Omni channel customers provide more revenue. MTGO has higher margins, but cross selling is the way to go. Look for codes or something in upcoming packs for Arena. That gives you incentive to play both.
Smaller game = no one plays
We're already seeing their flagship game (standard, which sells product) not firing on a regular basis.
Why do people think paper magic dies with Maro? Where's the evidence of that? Any links to statements Chris has made to indicate he's going to destroy the paper game?
Diversification leads to greater profits not narrowing and specializing. I hope Chris isn't so stupid as to believe digital is the only future for mtg because he'll kill it completely inside 3 years.
Fun fact: Magic used to be a fraction of its current size and still soldiered on. It has gone through far worse crunches in the past, to the point where product was barely being sold and attendance was decimated.
While Magic has seen a downturn in sales this year, I would hardly call it Apocalyptic. They are still putting a lot of money into physical cards, and are hiring both what appears to be a QA position for physical cards as was as a design position that pays close to 100k/year. If they actually felt that the game was dying, or were planning a straight move to Digital Only, or were even contemplating doing that, this wouldn't be the case. A downturn in sales is a far cry from failing, as the game is still easily one of their most profitable brands.
Smaller game = no one plays
We're already seeing their flagship game (standard, which sells product) not firing on a regular basis.
Why do people think paper magic dies with Maro? Where's the evidence of that? Any links to statements Chris has made to indicate he's going to destroy the paper game?
Diversification leads to greater profits not narrowing and specializing. I hope Chris isn't so stupid as to believe digital is the only future for mtg because he'll kill it completely inside 3 years.
0% chance. Synergistic effects are strong. Omni channel customers provide more revenue. MTGO has higher margins, but cross selling is the way to go. Look for codes or something in upcoming packs for Arena. That gives you incentive to play both.
Pretty much this is what I'm expecting to some degree. While it's far too early to anticipate the card economy of the game itself, I think it's safe to assume that they are going to ditch the current MTGO scheme. While it's certainly very profitable, it also is inflexible and requires the cost of the digital product to be the same as physical product due to allowing trading digital for physical product. This severely limits, for logistical and financial reasons, the ability to do cross-platform promotions and the like. I think that'll be gone completely with Arena, opening it up to stuff like this as well as significantly decreasing the "cost" of playing Arena to a point similar to Hearthstone.
The real question will not be what happens to Paper Magic, but rather what happens to MTGO; I don't think they can have two online platforms trying to perform similar things. They may just let MTGO die naturally or they may force it to die. Either way, given what we know about what they plan for Arena I just don't think it will survive.
The real question will not be what happens to Paper Magic, but rather what happens to MTGO; I don't think they can have two online platforms trying to perform similar things. They may just let MTGO die naturally or they may force it to die. Either way, given what we know about what they plan for Arena I just don't think it will survive.
This sounds right to me. Having 2 products that simultaneously do the same thing harms both products.
I can see a transfer period where people can 'move' their collection to the new database. There's no reason to not keep the 'engaged' invested. A new interface and process will garner them more players, MTGO is so dated and clunky I'd rather use cockatrice... and I do.
They need to add rooms to arena where friends can gather and play whatever format they want without fees. That will hook a lot of kitchen tables which can bleed into tourney fees for when their friends aren't around. I hope the new system is awesome, but paper needs to be supported and designed better for all of MTG to succeed.
I think a retirement of mtgo sounds pretty likely if Arena is intended to capture the same group of people on top of the magic duels demographic. That's going to hit the digital card trader companies pretty hard since they'd have to trade their own stock over to Arena, assuming arena even supports the kind of bot trading Mtgo has, potentially lose out on a ton of money since the trade would definitely not be one to one, etc.
Again, I feel wizards is going to expand into a more controlled infrastructure run through them rather than third parties.
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!
My LGS struggles to fire events despite that most of its competitors haven't survived over the years. I can't speak for their other customers, but I've felt less compelled to play and buy Magic products because:
(1) Way too many product releases with too little value spread throughout (2) Very few exciting cards (and too few risk-taking mechanics) in Standard-level products
(3) With the exception of the very first Masters set, value in reprint sets is too top-heavy (4) Too little whimsy and fun in most products' themes
(5) Predictable narrative in most worlds (introduce world, mess it up for the sake of Story); uninteresting cast of recurring characters steal focus from otherwise interesting settings
(6) Too expensive compared to competing digital products (like Hearthstone)
(7) Casual formats have become too competitive (not really Wizards' fault)
In my opinion, though, Unstable tackles a lot of those problems. The experience of playing it can't be replicated by any digital product, it's highly social, it's exciting, it's fun, it's different, and I don't care about whether or not its cards are valuable because even its limited chaff is so fresh that it doesn't feel like fodder, etc.
I know that black-border Magic won't and shouldn't ever be totally like silver-border Magic, but I really miss the company that trusted Standard players to handle the weirdness of stuff like the entire Time Spiral block.
This post resonates with me so much. I've heard these comments before but never laid out as clearly and eloquently. Frankly, I've been trying to figure out for myself, how to describe my feelings of the current magic philosophy. The stuff in bold hits the nail on the head for me.
For me, it has very little to do with value. It has everything to do with "heart." The game just feels like it's being made by a company that identified a formula and is sticking to it - there doesn't seem to be as much fun or passion with the standard products.
I think that is why I have loved Unstable. Even though there is so little value in the set, it is evident that Unstable was a passion project. It is oozing creativity. It's small details and fun twists - things like the Extremely Slow Zombie and Target Minotaur series of art. The flavor text within the cards, etc. I don't see the reason that those kinds of character items cannot be added to black border cards.
The "story" element takes up too much space and the cards seem to be a pretty poor medium to use to tell the story. I really hope they pull back on that focus and free up the card space for creativity and fun.
The "story" element takes up too much space and the cards seem to be a pretty poor medium to use to tell the story. I really hope they pull back on that focus and free up the card space for creativity and fun.
I completely agree that story should NOT affect design. Story should be something separate entirely and this is part of why they fail.
A lot of their biggest fails of late have come from story and story has been used as an excuse for not printing needed cards (thematically not kosher).
Emrakul is the simplest example of the prior. Not printing Hero's downfall the latter.
As far as risk taking mechanics? Energy is new and risky and it's proven bad, overwhelming, and stagnating.
Mixing color pie mechanics isn't working out great either... see CoCo.
Cards don't have to be too risky to be good and fun to play. Mechanics and interactions are in fact way over-designed right now.
Don't make combos and cards specifically to jam down our throats. Make a solid game and let us play with it.
I do agree though trust us to play with a well balanced spread of cards instead of putting all the pieces together for us
Oh, I definitely feel like the game has been "sanitized" in different ways just to make sure the cards are nice and comfy for a general audience. Not to mention the standards by which they are designing standard sets has left a lot of the sets feeling lifeless despite being somewhat creative. Am I the only one that remembers beebles? Or the crazy stew pot art on Recycle? There's absolutely nothing wrong with having silly things in MTG. Also I agree that wizards trust in players being able to climb a learning curve is underwhelming. However, this is coming from someone who already learned how to play the game cutting his teeth on portal and moving into mirage / tempest.
Part of the reason I play Force of Will is because it still has edginess in the art and doesn't shy away from interesting mechanics at common. It's the closest thing I can find to old school MtG that isn't legacy level pricey to play.
Edit: Also, an update on the paper issue with cards from Aether Revolt -> Amonkhet. I think I know what is going on with the cards, but it doesn't really help anyone as far as curling goes as it's the print facilities fault for this. They likely used the same card stock that is used in mid-tier greeting cards. I forgot the exact weight, but it's a paper that can compress easily at the edge when exposed to a dull edge cutting press. I've ran into this issue before on one of my old projects I did in ad-design back in the day. What's happened is the print facility either has old cutting machines that haven't had the blades properly maintained, or they used a paper that requires a sharper blade than the press being used. The end result is sort of like what you see with those pop top lids on cans that are used for safety. The bubble pops up when the pressure changes to indicate the can was opened.
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!
In Portugal, where I live, it's definitively dropping.
Basically if you don't play in Lisbon or Porto, you can't play MTG at all.
I live in a city outside to Lisbon center area (17km from Lisbon center) and three years ago there were two LGS. They both closed due to poor attendances and bad management at least in one of them.
Right now, whenever I play, I play in Lisbon, but honestly, there are too many "Teams". People go in groups and are agreeing results right after round 1.
It kinda takes the fun away. The shop is also a bit hostile for non regular players.
As I've witnessed one of the more experienced players there, picking on a new player (a friend of mine) for not double sleeving all his cards and only the most expensive ones.
As well as pressuring him the whole match.
I've seen other cases of situations similar to this one.
Now as for the reason for shops closing, probably due to price of cards and keeping up with expansions. Low set value after rotations occur.
In Portugal, where I live, it's definitively dropping.
Basically if you don't play in Lisbon or Porto, you can't play MTG at all.
I live in a city outside to Lisbon center area (17km from Lisbon center) and three years ago there were two LGS. They both closed due to poor attendances and bad management at least in one of them.
Right now, whenever I play, I play in Lisbon, but honestly, there are too many "Teams". People go in groups and are agreeing results right after round 1.
It kinda takes the fun away. The shop is also a bit hostile for non regular players.
As I've witnessed one of the more experienced players there, picking on a new player (a friend of mine) for not double sleeving all his cards and only the most expensive ones.
As well as pressuring him the whole match.
I've seen other cases of situations similar to this one.
Now as for the reason for shops closing, probably due to price of cards and keeping up with expansions. Low set value after rotations occur.
The issue I'm seeing with MtG vs some of the other card games is the level of competitiveness in the game is very, very high. This is like playing World of Warcraft in real life with cards when it comes to constructed and I can say this right now that there's no designer / developer alive who can make a finely tuned enough set of cardboard to keep the majority of cards playable in constructed. Pokemon doesn't seem to have anywhere near the same kind of competitive crowd as MtG, and Force of Will has some competitive people, but due to the print run issue on some of the sets and limited supply on singles not a lot of people are doing major competitions.
Also, I don't think a lot of people are aware of this, but the majority of the pros now don't even test in paper anymore. The primary driving force for singles prices are collectors and people who get overly infatuated with the deck lists the pros are posting.
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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!
In Portugal, where I live, it's definitively dropping.
Basically if you don't play in Lisbon or Porto, you can't play MTG at all.
I live in a city outside to Lisbon center area (17km from Lisbon center) and three years ago there were two LGS. They both closed due to poor attendances and bad management at least in one of them.
Right now, whenever I play, I play in Lisbon, but honestly, there are too many "Teams". People go in groups and are agreeing results right after round 1.
It kinda takes the fun away. The shop is also a bit hostile for non regular players.
As I've witnessed one of the more experienced players there, picking on a new player (a friend of mine) for not double sleeving all his cards and only the most expensive ones.
As well as pressuring him the whole match.
I've seen other cases of situations similar to this one.
Now as for the reason for shops closing, probably due to price of cards and keeping up with expansions. Low set value after rotations occur.
That's a bummer you don't have a quality place to play. The shop owner/judge should tamp that horrible crap down. Best thing to do is not play there and just find a group of people to play and not give them business. Not everyone who wants to open a card/game/comic shop knows how to keep themselves in business. Obviously not taking care of customers is a fault that will cost you as well.
Hopefully they'll improve the releases and help us all out.
Exactly. For example, one of those teams refer to this guy as the boss. Almost every tournament, tuesday, thursday, friday and sunday, there is at least one of them in top 4. I mean yeah they are good players, but one or two free rounds here and there against one of your teammates always helps,
Only with better releases will Wizzards be able to help us out and hopefully attract more costumers and incentivate shops to open.
Jeez I'm even considering my next house to be in the center (close to work and mtg shops lol)
Exactly. For example, one of those teams refer to this guy as the boss. Almost every tournament, tuesday, thursday, friday and sunday, there is at least one of them in top 4. I mean yeah they are good players, but one or two free rounds here and there against one of your teammates always helps,
Only with better releases will Wizzards be able to help us out and hopefully attract more costumers and incentivate shops to open.
Jeez I'm even considering my next house to be in the center (close to work and mtg shops lol)
Don't lose hope. Often there are groups of players that play casually in the surrounding area that don't go to the typical stores to play. Try to forge your own group if you can. I have to do it all the time with pen and paper games.
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!
Exactly. For example, one of those teams refer to this guy as the boss. Almost every tournament, tuesday, thursday, friday and sunday, there is at least one of them in top 4. I mean yeah they are good players, but one or two free rounds here and there against one of your teammates always helps,
Only with better releases will Wizzards be able to help us out and hopefully attract more costumers and incentivate shops to open.
Jeez I'm even considering my next house to be in the center (close to work and mtg shops lol)
That's just not fair play.
I wouldn't give them my business. Let them just play against each other and buy your product and singles elsewhere or online.
The boss can see how long he stays open treating people that way. I recommend cockatrice download and you can link up with your friends and play that way or just kitchen table it.
As for the sleeve thing... if it were a tournament your buddy would get a warning for only sleeving some cards and he'd have to make them all the same. The thickness can be identified (I know it's slight) by feel and eye and is considered cheating. It doesn't mean that can't be explained politely and help people learn. Supporting your community builds it up. Jackasses break it down.
Good luck!
Exactly. For example, one of those teams refer to this guy as the boss. Almost every tournament, tuesday, thursday, friday and sunday, there is at least one of them in top 4. I mean yeah they are good players, but one or two free rounds here and there against one of your teammates always helps,
Only with better releases will Wizzards be able to help us out and hopefully attract more costumers and incentivate shops to open.
Jeez I'm even considering my next house to be in the center (close to work and mtg shops lol)
There was a bonanza of stores opening up following the surge of players post-Innistrad. Unfortunately, even under the best of circumstances game stores will close simply due to the markets being volatile, the margins being low, and the profits being almost non-existent; couple this with the need for a lot of space, which isn't cheap, and the general failure of most private ventures, and it's just not a functional business in most cases. While we have seen a downtick in players, a big part of this has a lot more to do with unrealistic expectation by a lot of people (Wizards and Hasbro included), as well as just general attrition. Every game regardless of platform eventually drops players, and Magic has honestly not been dropping at any rate faster than others from what I've seen. The real problem Magic is having isn't that players are *leaving*, which is natural to a degree and to be expected, it's that players aren't *joining* to replace the lost players at a high enough rate. To be honest, Wizards is pretty good at retaining its current customer base. It's just generally awful right now at player acquisition. How a company can get away with effectively refusing to advertise one of their flagship brands to the wider public is beyond me. Almost their entire advertising budget exists to advertise to already somewhat engaged players through the inserts in packs, to the advertisements during Grand Prix's, to the various things they do at events.
Granted, Arena is going to help with this, but it baffles me to no end that they have apparently made it against the TOS to stream the Beta of it, and it is at least a year or two down the road before it officially launches.
While I think we have a large enough engaged population so as to be able to ride out the slow times ahead to maintain generally good profitability for Magic (Thus securing it's foreseeable safety for the future), I also don't see the game getting significantly better in the short term as far as player populations are concerned. I do thoroughly anticipate the boom that comes from Arena, however, particularly if it's an engaging platform for Magic. People just need to be cautiously optimistic instead of crazy optimistic this go around.
Arena will get people playing magic, but not necessarily get more people into playing paper magic. We're going to have to wait a few years to see where wizards is wanting to steer this game, but I do know that they are moving towards wanting the Planeswalkers to be the face of the game and not the pro-tour and PT. Otherwise we'd still be seeing player cards in the starter boxes and probably more advertising with winning players showing up. Instead, the promotions have moved towards guest appearances from lead designer Mark Rosewater on youtube channels and promotional artwork from the sets.
All I got to say is that after the madness of the last few weeks with all the banning drama I've just about had enough of Magic the Gathering and Wizards of the Coast entirely. The people at Wizards have expressed they want to be part of the solution to what is going wrong in the community, but the wrongness in the community is basically their own doing. They pushed tournaments and official play too much, refuse to solve financial issues being driven by secondary market singles sellers in paper, are obsessed with pushing masters sets instead of printing popular cards in standard sets, and seem to have taken a liking to listening to Reddit and Tumblr. This is on top of feeling like we're looking at yet another version of the tragedy of the commons.
I've literally been unable to get myself to buy even cheap cards for edh because every time I look at a MTG card I keep getting reminded of all this stuff.
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!
FNM at my large local store failed to fire yet again. I know a little bit is the holidays but they have shot themselves in the feet way too many times here.
People are sick of energy and ramred and if they're not playing modern they're just not playing. So the few they have left that are engaged and want to play, don't get to. Stupid Showdown on the weekend isn't firing either. Too many products, too many gimmicks, not enough quality or quality control. They should be giving away major swag at FNM and everywhere for every event to beg people to stay engaged.
The decision to not print quality older cards in standard sets is a money grab to sell extraneous sets. Another very bad choice.
Standard players who start accumulating modern cards via regular play would be more likely to venture into modern instead of pushing overpriced masters etc sets.
WotC needs to realize how badly they are screwing themselves but Maro's questionnaires don't get close to covering all their problems right now.
FNM at my large local store failed to fire yet again. I know a little bit is the holidays but they have shot themselves in the feet way too many times here.
People are sick of energy and ramred and if they're not playing modern they're just not playing. So the few they have left that are engaged and want to play, don't get to. Stupid Showdown on the weekend isn't firing either. Too many products, too many gimmicks, not enough quality or quality control. They should be giving away major swag at FNM and everywhere for every event to beg people to stay engaged.
The decision to not print quality older cards in standard sets is a money grab to sell extraneous sets. Another very bad choice.
Standard players who start accumulating modern cards via regular play would be more likely to venture into modern instead of pushing overpriced masters etc sets.
WotC needs to realize how badly they are screwing themselves but Maro's questionnaires don't get close to covering all their problems right now.
You're right. I mean, they even stopped giving out FNM promos. That shops usually gave out randomly among participants. This definitely doesn't help out with attendances.
As for printings, the reason Tarmogoyf is considered to powerful for a standard with Fatal push is beyond me.
The real reason is: Ma$ter$ sets. Thing is player base is dropping, players don't care about standard as much.
The secondary market in general is a problem... There are cards that are way too expensive as masters sets can't keep up with the prices.
FNM at my large local store failed to fire yet again. I know a little bit is the holidays but they have shot themselves in the feet way too many times here.
People are sick of energy and ramred and if they're not playing modern they're just not playing. So the few they have left that are engaged and want to play, don't get to. Stupid Showdown on the weekend isn't firing either. Too many products, too many gimmicks, not enough quality or quality control. They should be giving away major swag at FNM and everywhere for every event to beg people to stay engaged.
The decision to not print quality older cards in standard sets is a money grab to sell extraneous sets. Another very bad choice.
Standard players who start accumulating modern cards via regular play would be more likely to venture into modern instead of pushing overpriced masters etc sets.
WotC needs to realize how badly they are screwing themselves but Maro's questionnaires don't get close to covering all their problems right now.
Well, I probably went a little harsh in my own posting because of it being at night coming back from work, but I don't agree that the lack of proper questions on the surveys is to blame for what is going on. I mentioned the tragedy of the commons in the prior posting, but given the message board I'm posting on I'm pretty sure some people might have missed what I was talking about. In England there were pastures set that were owned by everyone back in the days of hamlets and such that the farmers could use to graze their cattle. Hypothetically, if everyone shared the commons and kept themselves in check there was plenty of land to graze the cattle and it would be sustainable. The problem was that there was no restrictions on how many cows or how long any one farmer could set their cattle out to pasture. So, as is typical of human greed, land owners started to escalate and ramp up the number of cows on the pasture. This resulted in the other farmers suddenly going into a panic and pushing back on their own end until both sides have basically squandered all the resources, leaving nothing left to even bother fighting over.
The problem with Magic the Gathering and Wizards is the same thing in a sense. They have a market that is completely sustainable and shared by a bunch of other games and companies, but they know they can make just a bit more money if they push more products out there onto the field, so they print more booster boxes, more supplementary products, more everything. The only problem is that they also logistically have to pay for the materials as well so this means they have to get paper from somewhere, and if the old stock is too expensive, well, those pastures are just too tempting, so they cut the cost on the paper. They also found they could make more money if they just took any of the really hot cards from the past and put them into specialty sets and charge more money as well, so they took expensive / powerful tools from standard and started only printing them in supplementary products or secondary product lines.
So now lets hop back to the player population: What does everyone start complaining about? Well, the things wizards is doing to make more money. The reason for this is because we also tend to like to do other things besides magic, so those magic products are starting to flood the "pastures" that is our free time money. If they push more sets, more tournament play, more everything, eventually there's no resources left. On top of which they made their products weaker in the process by having the quality control issues and since every standard set is now dumbed down to the point of being new editions of Portal, they don't have a lot of staying power. Also, we have basic needs that take precedent over free time as well.
I'm probably just rambling a lot, but it definitely feels like wizards of the coast lacked any sort of long term thinking on the grounds of how sustainable what they were doing actually was. Not unless their intent was to push the market until it burst, which is a very bad idea considering the players that will be the most impacted are the core players who stick through it all.
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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Also, I know it's easy to think paper is big and blowing up the LGS scene would be devastating to the game, but that's not really true at all. Magic the Gathering in Paper form is a niche game and even more niche thanks to being a trading card game. By pushing it to digital WoTC can potentially expand to a bigger group of players: One likely big enough to make the paper game redundant.
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!
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
No, he's not. If you are talking about the troll, he was being a troll making a worthless point and you know it. If you are making some half baked tongue in cheek reference to what's going on elsewhere, that has nothing to do with the topic and is utterly transparent. Either way, this has nothing to do with attendance, at all.
You are asking "are there such formats" when the question is more so "will there be such formats?". The answer to the latter is definitely yes. Also, it's not worth speculating over how the market is going to work in that game. They could use all sorts of trade up systems using digital trade currency from dusting cards to putting more money in for booster packs, to direct trades between players. Card prices will never be like they are in paper in Arena and while an Aether Vial or Engineered Explosives may be insanely pricey in real life, they could be a two dollar to four dollar card online based on how they manage the system and the number of players. The bigger issue if a card gets nerfed in a patch is finding a new deck to play if it was a long time favorite.
Never underestimate the power of a freemium game and lootbox / dusting economies. If they add trade into it things really start getting insane as far as profits are concerned. Remember that wizards right now only deals with sealed products, but by making Arena they have a way to also tap the players that want to deal with individual cards. One hundred players paying 10-15 dollars every two weeks over the course of a year is going to add up to far more than a handful of players buying cases of the latest set from a retailer on standard release cycles. Especially with overhead included.
Also, they aren't going to stop paper magic, just it's going to shrink into a smaller game and cards would likely go up in price due to fewer copies. I've got no idea how modern is going to deal with that upcoming environment because it's already too expensive thanks to the tier system putting a spotlight on specific mythics / Rares, the pro-tour in general, and WoTC focused heavily on making profits with the masters sets.
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!
More expensive = lost players
Smaller game = no one plays
We're already seeing their flagship game (standard, which sells product) not firing on a regular basis.
Why do people think paper magic dies with Maro? Where's the evidence of that? Any links to statements Chris has made to indicate he's going to destroy the paper game?
Diversification leads to greater profits not narrowing and specializing. I hope Chris isn't so stupid as to believe digital is the only future for mtg because he'll kill it completely inside 3 years.
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!
0% chance. Synergistic effects are strong. Omni channel customers provide more revenue. MTGO has higher margins, but cross selling is the way to go. Look for codes or something in upcoming packs for Arena. That gives you incentive to play both.
Fun fact: Magic used to be a fraction of its current size and still soldiered on. It has gone through far worse crunches in the past, to the point where product was barely being sold and attendance was decimated.
While Magic has seen a downturn in sales this year, I would hardly call it Apocalyptic. They are still putting a lot of money into physical cards, and are hiring both what appears to be a QA position for physical cards as was as a design position that pays close to 100k/year. If they actually felt that the game was dying, or were planning a straight move to Digital Only, or were even contemplating doing that, this wouldn't be the case. A downturn in sales is a far cry from failing, as the game is still easily one of their most profitable brands.
Pretty much this is what I'm expecting to some degree. While it's far too early to anticipate the card economy of the game itself, I think it's safe to assume that they are going to ditch the current MTGO scheme. While it's certainly very profitable, it also is inflexible and requires the cost of the digital product to be the same as physical product due to allowing trading digital for physical product. This severely limits, for logistical and financial reasons, the ability to do cross-platform promotions and the like. I think that'll be gone completely with Arena, opening it up to stuff like this as well as significantly decreasing the "cost" of playing Arena to a point similar to Hearthstone.
The real question will not be what happens to Paper Magic, but rather what happens to MTGO; I don't think they can have two online platforms trying to perform similar things. They may just let MTGO die naturally or they may force it to die. Either way, given what we know about what they plan for Arena I just don't think it will survive.
This sounds right to me. Having 2 products that simultaneously do the same thing harms both products.
I can see a transfer period where people can 'move' their collection to the new database. There's no reason to not keep the 'engaged' invested. A new interface and process will garner them more players, MTGO is so dated and clunky I'd rather use cockatrice... and I do.
They need to add rooms to arena where friends can gather and play whatever format they want without fees. That will hook a lot of kitchen tables which can bleed into tourney fees for when their friends aren't around. I hope the new system is awesome, but paper needs to be supported and designed better for all of MTG to succeed.
Again, I feel wizards is going to expand into a more controlled infrastructure run through them rather than third parties.
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!
This post resonates with me so much. I've heard these comments before but never laid out as clearly and eloquently. Frankly, I've been trying to figure out for myself, how to describe my feelings of the current magic philosophy. The stuff in bold hits the nail on the head for me.
For me, it has very little to do with value. It has everything to do with "heart." The game just feels like it's being made by a company that identified a formula and is sticking to it - there doesn't seem to be as much fun or passion with the standard products.
I think that is why I have loved Unstable. Even though there is so little value in the set, it is evident that Unstable was a passion project. It is oozing creativity. It's small details and fun twists - things like the Extremely Slow Zombie and Target Minotaur series of art. The flavor text within the cards, etc. I don't see the reason that those kinds of character items cannot be added to black border cards.
The "story" element takes up too much space and the cards seem to be a pretty poor medium to use to tell the story. I really hope they pull back on that focus and free up the card space for creativity and fun.
I completely agree that story should NOT affect design. Story should be something separate entirely and this is part of why they fail.
A lot of their biggest fails of late have come from story and story has been used as an excuse for not printing needed cards (thematically not kosher).
Emrakul is the simplest example of the prior. Not printing Hero's downfall the latter.
As far as risk taking mechanics? Energy is new and risky and it's proven bad, overwhelming, and stagnating.
Mixing color pie mechanics isn't working out great either... see CoCo.
Cards don't have to be too risky to be good and fun to play. Mechanics and interactions are in fact way over-designed right now.
Don't make combos and cards specifically to jam down our throats. Make a solid game and let us play with it.
I do agree though trust us to play with a well balanced spread of cards instead of putting all the pieces together for us
Part of the reason I play Force of Will is because it still has edginess in the art and doesn't shy away from interesting mechanics at common. It's the closest thing I can find to old school MtG that isn't legacy level pricey to play.
Edit: Also, an update on the paper issue with cards from Aether Revolt -> Amonkhet. I think I know what is going on with the cards, but it doesn't really help anyone as far as curling goes as it's the print facilities fault for this. They likely used the same card stock that is used in mid-tier greeting cards. I forgot the exact weight, but it's a paper that can compress easily at the edge when exposed to a dull edge cutting press. I've ran into this issue before on one of my old projects I did in ad-design back in the day. What's happened is the print facility either has old cutting machines that haven't had the blades properly maintained, or they used a paper that requires a sharper blade than the press being used. The end result is sort of like what you see with those pop top lids on cans that are used for safety. The bubble pops up when the pressure changes to indicate the can was opened.
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!
Basically if you don't play in Lisbon or Porto, you can't play MTG at all.
I live in a city outside to Lisbon center area (17km from Lisbon center) and three years ago there were two LGS. They both closed due to poor attendances and bad management at least in one of them.
Right now, whenever I play, I play in Lisbon, but honestly, there are too many "Teams". People go in groups and are agreeing results right after round 1.
It kinda takes the fun away. The shop is also a bit hostile for non regular players.
As I've witnessed one of the more experienced players there, picking on a new player (a friend of mine) for not double sleeving all his cards and only the most expensive ones.
As well as pressuring him the whole match.
I've seen other cases of situations similar to this one.
Now as for the reason for shops closing, probably due to price of cards and keeping up with expansions. Low set value after rotations occur.
The issue I'm seeing with MtG vs some of the other card games is the level of competitiveness in the game is very, very high. This is like playing World of Warcraft in real life with cards when it comes to constructed and I can say this right now that there's no designer / developer alive who can make a finely tuned enough set of cardboard to keep the majority of cards playable in constructed. Pokemon doesn't seem to have anywhere near the same kind of competitive crowd as MtG, and Force of Will has some competitive people, but due to the print run issue on some of the sets and limited supply on singles not a lot of people are doing major competitions.
Also, I don't think a lot of people are aware of this, but the majority of the pros now don't even test in paper anymore. The primary driving force for singles prices are collectors and people who get overly infatuated with the deck lists the pros are posting.
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's a bummer you don't have a quality place to play. The shop owner/judge should tamp that horrible crap down. Best thing to do is not play there and just find a group of people to play and not give them business. Not everyone who wants to open a card/game/comic shop knows how to keep themselves in business. Obviously not taking care of customers is a fault that will cost you as well.
Hopefully they'll improve the releases and help us all out.
Only with better releases will Wizzards be able to help us out and hopefully attract more costumers and incentivate shops to open.
Jeez I'm even considering my next house to be in the center (close to work and mtg shops lol)
Don't lose hope. Often there are groups of players that play casually in the surrounding area that don't go to the typical stores to play. Try to forge your own group if you can. I have to do it all the time with pen and paper games.
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's just not fair play.
I wouldn't give them my business. Let them just play against each other and buy your product and singles elsewhere or online.
The boss can see how long he stays open treating people that way. I recommend cockatrice download and you can link up with your friends and play that way or just kitchen table it.
As for the sleeve thing... if it were a tournament your buddy would get a warning for only sleeving some cards and he'd have to make them all the same. The thickness can be identified (I know it's slight) by feel and eye and is considered cheating. It doesn't mean that can't be explained politely and help people learn. Supporting your community builds it up. Jackasses break it down.
Good luck!
There was a bonanza of stores opening up following the surge of players post-Innistrad. Unfortunately, even under the best of circumstances game stores will close simply due to the markets being volatile, the margins being low, and the profits being almost non-existent; couple this with the need for a lot of space, which isn't cheap, and the general failure of most private ventures, and it's just not a functional business in most cases. While we have seen a downtick in players, a big part of this has a lot more to do with unrealistic expectation by a lot of people (Wizards and Hasbro included), as well as just general attrition. Every game regardless of platform eventually drops players, and Magic has honestly not been dropping at any rate faster than others from what I've seen. The real problem Magic is having isn't that players are *leaving*, which is natural to a degree and to be expected, it's that players aren't *joining* to replace the lost players at a high enough rate. To be honest, Wizards is pretty good at retaining its current customer base. It's just generally awful right now at player acquisition. How a company can get away with effectively refusing to advertise one of their flagship brands to the wider public is beyond me. Almost their entire advertising budget exists to advertise to already somewhat engaged players through the inserts in packs, to the advertisements during Grand Prix's, to the various things they do at events.
Granted, Arena is going to help with this, but it baffles me to no end that they have apparently made it against the TOS to stream the Beta of it, and it is at least a year or two down the road before it officially launches.
While I think we have a large enough engaged population so as to be able to ride out the slow times ahead to maintain generally good profitability for Magic (Thus securing it's foreseeable safety for the future), I also don't see the game getting significantly better in the short term as far as player populations are concerned. I do thoroughly anticipate the boom that comes from Arena, however, particularly if it's an engaging platform for Magic. People just need to be cautiously optimistic instead of crazy optimistic this go around.
All I got to say is that after the madness of the last few weeks with all the banning drama I've just about had enough of Magic the Gathering and Wizards of the Coast entirely. The people at Wizards have expressed they want to be part of the solution to what is going wrong in the community, but the wrongness in the community is basically their own doing. They pushed tournaments and official play too much, refuse to solve financial issues being driven by secondary market singles sellers in paper, are obsessed with pushing masters sets instead of printing popular cards in standard sets, and seem to have taken a liking to listening to Reddit and Tumblr. This is on top of feeling like we're looking at yet another version of the tragedy of the commons.
I've literally been unable to get myself to buy even cheap cards for edh because every time I look at a MTG card I keep getting reminded of all this stuff.
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!
People are sick of energy and ramred and if they're not playing modern they're just not playing. So the few they have left that are engaged and want to play, don't get to. Stupid Showdown on the weekend isn't firing either. Too many products, too many gimmicks, not enough quality or quality control. They should be giving away major swag at FNM and everywhere for every event to beg people to stay engaged.
The decision to not print quality older cards in standard sets is a money grab to sell extraneous sets. Another very bad choice.
Standard players who start accumulating modern cards via regular play would be more likely to venture into modern instead of pushing overpriced masters etc sets.
WotC needs to realize how badly they are screwing themselves but Maro's questionnaires don't get close to covering all their problems right now.
You're right. I mean, they even stopped giving out FNM promos. That shops usually gave out randomly among participants. This definitely doesn't help out with attendances.
As for printings, the reason Tarmogoyf is considered to powerful for a standard with Fatal push is beyond me.
The real reason is: Ma$ter$ sets. Thing is player base is dropping, players don't care about standard as much.
The secondary market in general is a problem... There are cards that are way too expensive as masters sets can't keep up with the prices.
Well, I probably went a little harsh in my own posting because of it being at night coming back from work, but I don't agree that the lack of proper questions on the surveys is to blame for what is going on. I mentioned the tragedy of the commons in the prior posting, but given the message board I'm posting on I'm pretty sure some people might have missed what I was talking about. In England there were pastures set that were owned by everyone back in the days of hamlets and such that the farmers could use to graze their cattle. Hypothetically, if everyone shared the commons and kept themselves in check there was plenty of land to graze the cattle and it would be sustainable. The problem was that there was no restrictions on how many cows or how long any one farmer could set their cattle out to pasture. So, as is typical of human greed, land owners started to escalate and ramp up the number of cows on the pasture. This resulted in the other farmers suddenly going into a panic and pushing back on their own end until both sides have basically squandered all the resources, leaving nothing left to even bother fighting over.
The problem with Magic the Gathering and Wizards is the same thing in a sense. They have a market that is completely sustainable and shared by a bunch of other games and companies, but they know they can make just a bit more money if they push more products out there onto the field, so they print more booster boxes, more supplementary products, more everything. The only problem is that they also logistically have to pay for the materials as well so this means they have to get paper from somewhere, and if the old stock is too expensive, well, those pastures are just too tempting, so they cut the cost on the paper. They also found they could make more money if they just took any of the really hot cards from the past and put them into specialty sets and charge more money as well, so they took expensive / powerful tools from standard and started only printing them in supplementary products or secondary product lines.
So now lets hop back to the player population: What does everyone start complaining about? Well, the things wizards is doing to make more money. The reason for this is because we also tend to like to do other things besides magic, so those magic products are starting to flood the "pastures" that is our free time money. If they push more sets, more tournament play, more everything, eventually there's no resources left. On top of which they made their products weaker in the process by having the quality control issues and since every standard set is now dumbed down to the point of being new editions of Portal, they don't have a lot of staying power. Also, we have basic needs that take precedent over free time as well.
I'm probably just rambling a lot, but it definitely feels like wizards of the coast lacked any sort of long term thinking on the grounds of how sustainable what they were doing actually was. Not unless their intent was to push the market until it burst, which is a very bad idea considering the players that will be the most impacted are the core players who stick through it all.
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!