I know quite a few people who would play standard if it wasn't so horrid. Quite a few of them moved to modern because of the CoCo farce plus shortening card life period.
A few like me lasted through that and then didn't bother going in to play because of cat combo and that whole chain of oppressive over pushed design choices that made stanadard hard to even want to play.
And now... because so many have left or are getting mixed messages about when to play, we can't play if we want to bother because events don't fire.
Make a good game and people will play.
Why are people playing commander? Because it's still magic and it's fun.
Modern? MTG and fun.
Standard is being made badly and it's awful that the people responsible for it's current failure are still in charge and still making mistakes.
We can't really depend on modern to hold Magic up, though. The costs of the decks for competitive play are extremely high and the format is far more suited towards players who have been with the game a long time. For new players their only real options are standard, draft/sealed, and maybe budget EDH decks, but even EDH is more of a casual pass time for the established crowd. Also the drama the company is creating due to the poor handling of various situations is also causing them to lose players.
Private Mod Note
():
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!
Personally I just sold my collection, just kept a couple decks I play at my kitchen table with some friends every now and then and that have some meaning to them.
Cardboard quality is piss poor, I literally checked some of the pre onslaught commons and uncommons I had kept inside a shoebox in a closet for over 10 years, still felt, and looked just like I left them, the BFZ and newer boxes? Mostly all of them were curved, a LOT of them clearly had coloring issues (mostly from the kaladesh block) and all of them felt awful to the touch, which made me wonder if, in the long run, it would be worth keepin. However that's not what pushed me to quit attending sanctioned events again, it was the fact that the sole reason I attended FNMs was to meet up with my buddies and grab a couple of beers after the FNM, Standard was no longer fun to me and a small group of friends (mostly in our late 20's early 30's).
As far as attendance being down, it probably is, however I've noticed more "new" players while the old are moving on, in fact, the last FNM I attended was just 10 players, early in Dec, down from the usual 16-20, I thought it'd be due to the holydays, but talking to the LGS owner he said that it's been slowly but steadily declining since early Sept, but newer players seem to show up more often, and when I texted my friends to see if they were comin, they said they were already at our usual hang-out place, figured I'd play for a bit then catch up with them, after 3 turns of the first game I dropped. Playing Vs monored or energy for the bajillionth time just wasn't worth my time. Perhaps it is WotC's intention to slowly alienate the old guard, the people that have a really hard time getting hyped for cards like mastermind's acquisition when we literally lived the golden age of wishes and just can't sit through the grindfest of Midrange: The Gathering, or have better books to read than the cartoony adventures of the Jacetice League.
On a positive note, I'm grateful for all the great times I've had and the great friendships I made thanks to the game, but, for some of us, it is time to move on, maybe the direction that WotC has taken is to appeal to a younger crowd.
Personally I just sold my collection, just kept a couple decks I play at my kitchen table with some friends every now and then and that have some meaning to them.
Cardboard quality is piss poor, I literally checked some of the pre onslaught commons and uncommons I had kept inside a shoebox in a closet for over 10 years, still felt, and looked just like I left them, the BFZ and newer boxes? Mostly all of them were curved, a LOT of them clearly had coloring issues (mostly from the kaladesh block) and all of them felt awful to the touch, which made me wonder if, in the long run, it would be worth keepin. However that's not what pushed me to quit attending sanctioned events again, it was the fact that the sole reason I attended FNMs was to meet up with my buddies and grab a couple of beers after the FNM, Standard was no longer fun to me and a small group of friends (mostly in our late 20's early 30's).
As far as attendance being down, it probably is, however I've noticed more "new" players while the old are moving on, in fact, the last FNM I attended was just 10 players, early in Dec, down from the usual 16-20, I thought it'd be due to the holydays, but talking to the LGS owner he said that it's been slowly but steadily declining since early Sept, but newer players seem to show up more often, and when I texted my friends to see if they were comin, they said they were already at our usual hang-out place, figured I'd play for a bit then catch up with them, after 3 turns of the first game I dropped. Playing Vs monored or energy for the bajillionth time just wasn't worth my time. Perhaps it is WotC's intention to slowly alienate the old guard, the people that have a really hard time getting hyped for cards like mastermind's acquisition when we literally lived the golden age of wishes and just can't sit through the grindfest of Midrange: The Gathering, or have better books to read than the cartoony adventures of the Jacetice League.
On a positive note, I'm grateful for all the great times I've had and the great friendships I made thanks to the game, but, for some of us, it is time to move on, maybe the direction that WotC has taken is to appeal to a younger crowd.
I think MtG will be fine in the long run, the company is just having it rough right now because of some issues they are dealing with. That and Rivals does look very good at the moment, so there is that going for it as well. However, I think the days of people rushing to get their pre-orders in are probably over for a while. There's way too much apprehension from the dominance of energy even though with double lords now I think vampires and merfolk look very, very strong. This is especially true with the new merfolk tribal land that is being released (well, it's a +1/+1 counter land, but that might as well be merfolk at this point given they have the most counters synergy and can make use of Metallic Mimic). That and we are still in a format where Walking Ballista exists.
Private Mod Note
():
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!
Personally I just sold my collection, just kept a couple decks I play at my kitchen table with some friends every now and then and that have some meaning to them.
Cardboard quality is piss poor, I literally checked some of the pre onslaught commons and uncommons I had kept inside a shoebox in a closet for over 10 years, still felt, and looked just like I left them, the BFZ and newer boxes? Mostly all of them were curved, a LOT of them clearly had coloring issues (mostly from the kaladesh block) and all of them felt awful to the touch, which made me wonder if, in the long run, it would be worth keepin. However that's not what pushed me to quit attending sanctioned events again, it was the fact that the sole reason I attended FNMs was to meet up with my buddies and grab a couple of beers after the FNM, Standard was no longer fun to me and a small group of friends (mostly in our late 20's early 30's).
As far as attendance being down, it probably is, however I've noticed more "new" players while the old are moving on, in fact, the last FNM I attended was just 10 players, early in Dec, down from the usual 16-20, I thought it'd be due to the holydays, but talking to the LGS owner he said that it's been slowly but steadily declining since early Sept, but newer players seem to show up more often, and when I texted my friends to see if they were comin, they said they were already at our usual hang-out place, figured I'd play for a bit then catch up with them, after 3 turns of the first game I dropped. Playing Vs monored or energy for the bajillionth time just wasn't worth my time. Perhaps it is WotC's intention to slowly alienate the old guard, the people that have a really hard time getting hyped for cards like mastermind's acquisition when we literally lived the golden age of wishes and just can't sit through the grindfest of Midrange: The Gathering, or have better books to read than the cartoony adventures of the Jacetice League.
On a positive note, I'm grateful for all the great times I've had and the great friendships I made thanks to the game, but, for some of us, it is time to move on, maybe the direction that WotC has taken is to appeal to a younger crowd.
I think MtG will be fine in the long run, the company is just having it rough right now because of some issues they are dealing with. That and Rivals does look very good at the moment, so there is that going for it as well. However, I think the days of people rushing to get their pre-orders in are probably over for a while. There's way too much apprehension from the dominance of energy even though with double lords now I think vampires and merfolk look very, very strong. This is especially true with the new merfolk tribal land that is being released (well, it's a +1/+1 counter land, but that might as well be merfolk at this point given they have the most counters synergy and can make use of Metallic Mimic). That and we are still in a format where Walking Ballista exists.
After seeing the first leak of Angrath, the Flame-Chained online I started having my doubts that Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro would fix the card quality with it being curved and all. My guess is that they started printing Rivals of Ixalan before everyone was complaining about the card quality and they're probably just now getting it fixed for Masters 25 and Dominaria later this year If they ever do.
Given how bad Iconic Masters did compared to Chronicles back in the day, it did end up ruining the hype for Masters 25 and Dominaria by releasing three anniversary sets instead of one which could've made it more special. The reason why I thought players were boycotting EDH/Commander was due to all the recent drama taking place right now and they've probably come to a realization that it's nothing more than a money grab to keep MTG afloat.
"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
they've probably come to a realization that it's nothing more than a money grab to keep MTG afloat.
This I was talking to one of my friends, he was very surprised I sold my cards, one of the topics that came up was the fact that Mtg felt like a moneygrab, I'm not against a company making money, but when they basically shift the old power from commons/uncommons to Rare and mythic it just feels terrible to open packs and ignore the first 13 or so cards, only to find an sealed-bomb bulk rare at the end of it all.
I remember when I first started, I was super excited I got most of the cards I wanted for a U/G madness deck out of like 20 boosters from oddyssey block. Good luck getting most of the cards you need out of boxes, unless you're buying them like candy.
they've probably come to a realization that it's nothing more than a money grab to keep MTG afloat.
This I was talking to one of my friends, he was very surprised I sold my cards, one of the topics that came up was the fact that Mtg felt like a moneygrab, I'm not against a company making money, but when they basically shift the old power from commons/uncommons to Rare and mythic it just feels terrible to open packs and ignore the first 13 or so cards, only to find an sealed bulk rare at the end of it all.
I remember when I first started, I was super excited I got most of the cards I wanted for a U/G madness deck out of like 20 boosters from oddyssey block. Good luck getting most of the cards you need out of boxes, unless you're buying them like candy.
That's pretty much the Achilles' heel of the Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game business model in a nutshell and while it's not perfect the companies behind these games are struggling to compete against the Online Singles Market to help offset the loss of money from unopened sealed product at local game stores. Why gamble on a booster box when you have the convenience of that guarantee without having to go through a long waiting period?
Furthermore, wishlists have done nothing for local game stores to help consumers obtain product that's either out of stock or out of print to help these stores turn a profit over purchasing online singles. If they can't turn a profit to keep their venue open then they're forced to close down. There has to be a solution to enable local game stores to compete with internet sales without caving in to big box retailers like Walmart and Target.
We're also seeing a rise of more counterfeit cards that are becoming much harder to spot due to the low print quality of MTG product as of late. It's become easy bait for casual players because the counterfeiters believe that they're too gullible to notice the difference. More local game stores are getting in counterfeit cards without even realizing it because putting in the time and effort to authenticate the cards would become too much of a hassle for owners and staff to deal with.
"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
Well the new set is looking pretty weak, there is that pseudo red and worse snapcaster. But apart from that, probably nothing will see modern playability.
Those commons that give +1/+1 but give other bonus if it's a pirate does seem really lazy and poor design imo.
The overall low power of every set is what makes players not even bother with buying packs and go for the singles they need instead, making the whales and big sellers profit from this.
they've probably come to a realization that it's nothing more than a money grab to keep MTG afloat.
This I was talking to one of my friends, he was very surprised I sold my cards, one of the topics that came up was the fact that Mtg felt like a moneygrab, I'm not against a company making money, but when they basically shift the old power from commons/uncommons to Rare and mythic it just feels terrible to open packs and ignore the first 13 or so cards, only to find an sealed bulk rare at the end of it all.
I remember when I first started, I was super excited I got most of the cards I wanted for a U/G madness deck out of like 20 boosters from oddyssey block. Good luck getting most of the cards you need out of boxes, unless you're buying them like candy.
That's pretty much the Achilles' heel of the Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game business model in a nutshell and while it's not perfect the companies behind these games are struggling to compete against the Online Singles Market to help offset the loss of money from unopened sealed product at local game stores. Why gamble on a booster box when you have the convenience of that guarantee without having to go through a long waiting period?
Furthermore, wishlists have done nothing for local game stores to help consumers obtain product that's either out of stock or out of print to help these stores turn a profit over purchasing online singles. If they can't turn a profit to keep their venue open then they're forced to close down. There has to be a solution to enable local game stores to compete with internet sales without caving in to big box retailers like Walmart and Target.
We're also seeing a rise of more counterfeit cards that are becoming much harder to spot due to the low print quality of MTG product as of late. It's become easy bait for casual players because the counterfeiters believe that they're too gullible to notice the difference. More local game stores are getting in counterfeit cards without even realizing it because putting in the time and effort to authenticate the cards would become too much of a hassle for owners and staff to deal with.
Actually, there's a rather huge crowd of silent casual players that just buy the fake cards because they don't have the money or the willpower to climb the MTG financial wall. Their argument usually is that they don't get caught at FNM and never resell the cards so it isn't a problem. My issue is how does a person really keep track of a well crafted fake vs a real card? It may not be a problem for a casual player in the short term, but in the long term those cards will get packed away somewhere and later sold off. That's going to introduce fake cards into the market one way or another, so in general it is a bad idea to get any kind of fake. Now, if someone is taking a sharpie and writing on the back "I'm FAKE!" than it's a different story, but I just don't see people doing that.
Private Mod Note
():
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!
The way to handle to single online sellers, is make ‘packs’ worth buying. It’s how YGO does it (for better or worse), I can buy 10-20 Packs of YGO and most cases make a functional deck. Teir 1? Unlikely, but functional yes. And I don’t open a pack and see “Oh a 2/2 Bear with non-relavent ability” I more often see “2/1 Deathtoucher with Flash for 2!”. And yes I know Ambush Viper is a common.
What it means is that I don’t open a pack and immidaitely feel bad. Just the other day I bought some packs, and pulled several useful (not monetarily expensive) commons, a Squadron Hawk-type Card, a dragon that summons a dragon from deck if my opponent activates an effect, some solid imported Japanese Exclusive Cards. And a generic monster basically mandatory for modern YGO Water Decks; all at the common rarity.
There were a few other cards, something that summons itself if 5 monsters in grave with unique names and no repeats. So on and so forth. None of those cards are teir one competitive (Okay that water monster is) but all of them feel like they have a purpose. The Squadron Dragon, is intended to be used with a higher rarity or mythic. However it also perfectly and reasonable functional with that other common I pulled. In fact both are same level so I can meld them in mtg terms.
The newest set? Of MtG, the new cards are so incredibly xenophobic/tribal, while that isn’t to say YGO cards aren’t (those dragon cards I mentioned only work with dragons). But that Highlander and OCG exclusive cards I pulled, while clearly meant for certain decks. One of them triggers their effect off being sent to graveyard by any card effect not just in-themed ones. The Highlander can be used generically in a lot of decks because Graves modulation is common and a lot of YGO Decks by nature are often puesdo Singleton.
This all goes back to, I buy a pack, even if I lose money, the packs come with cards that aren’t trash. MTG, the focus on draft, and more has lost the idea you’re buying packs to ‘boost’ your deck. Instead your buying a glorfied board games.
Re. packs: hasn't this always been true? Even when I was originally playing in the late 90s and early 2000s, veteran players knew to buy singles and the casual/new players bought packs. "Getting over" packs is just a lifecycle Magic players go through, so Wizards just has to worry about its sealed products appealing to newer players and drafters. This has been a vulnerability for WotC's business plan since the very beginning, but considering it hasn't hurt them in the past 25 years, there isn't too much reason to think it's a problem now.
That said, the problem with this system is that access to singles isn't universal. I'm fortunate to play at an LGS that always has literally every single card you'd ever need, but lots of players' stores don't have good singles collections. This forces them to shop on TCG, eBay, etc, which hurts their local MtG economies.
Re. packs: hasn't this always been true? Even when I was originally playing in the late 90s and early 2000s, veteran players knew to buy singles and the casual/new players bought packs. "Getting over" packs is just a lifecycle Magic players go through, so Wizards just has to worry about its sealed products appealing to newer players and drafters. This has been a vulnerability for WotC's business plan since the very beginning, but considering it hasn't hurt them in the past 25 years, there isn't too much reason to think it's a problem now.
That said, the problem with this system is that access to singles isn't universal. I'm fortunate to play at an LGS that always has literally every single card you'd ever need, but lots of players' stores don't have good singles collections. This forces them to shop on TCG, eBay, etc, which hurts their local MtG economies.
Here’s the thing:
You can’t build a Modern collection buying packs. Even with the yearly master sets, not even close. Singles are the best way to build a Standard deck but drafting and buying packs isn’t intolerably far behind, especially if you are building a collection to support building multiple decks instead of just one. I enjoy opening packs and drafting, and combined with buying singles to fill in the blanks and trading the spares for more singles, I have playsets of just about every card in Standard that matters at a cost I’m satisfied with.
Standard is the only format where opening packs isn’t mostly a waste.
I agree 100%. My point was just that that's always been the case with the game, so I don't think this model is something we can attribute any falling sales/attendance numbers to.
Re. packs: hasn't this always been true? Even when I was originally playing in the late 90s and early 2000s, veteran players knew to buy singles and the casual/new players bought packs. "Getting over" packs is just a lifecycle Magic players go through, so Wizards just has to worry about its sealed products appealing to newer players and drafters. This has been a vulnerability for WotC's business plan since the very beginning, but considering it hasn't hurt them in the past 25 years, there isn't too much reason to think it's a problem now.
That said, the problem with this system is that access to singles isn't universal. I'm fortunate to play at an LGS that always has literally every single card you'd ever need, but lots of players' stores don't have good singles collections. This forces them to shop on TCG, eBay, etc, which hurts their local MtG economies.
Right now when Standard is barely played less packs are opened by players, fewer singles go into the stores, and smaller stores open fewer packs because the singles don't move. Even if you want to play you have to TCG or Channel Fireball to get the stuff you need, which is easy enough to do but players like to trade.
When sets are good and Standard is fun, standard players take the risk on packs and even boxes because they enjoy opening packs just for the rares.
Make a fun balanced game and everything follows.
I hope the tribes manage to compete with crapy energy and ramred but I don't think they'll push those out. A few cards make those strats better easily better or more resilient which can't be helped. I also don't much like the focus in Rivals on forcing you to go tribal to get the max out of cards. Forcing players to go tribe instead of leaving things open to brew and mix limits playability and leads to quickly solved meta.
I have taken many long breaks from this hobby, including most of the modern era, but I can’t recall it ever being this bad when it comes to Standard, not for this long a period of time. People seem to hate and avoid it, where it previously was the dominant format for most of my experience.
I have taken many long breaks from this hobby, including most of the modern era, but I can’t recall it ever being this bad when it comes to Standard, not for this long a period of time. People seem to hate and avoid it, where it previously was the dominant format for most of my experience.
What's happened this time is that wotc is being forced to deal with some very vocal and toxic elements on top of the set issues. Force of Will company had an issue like this and nearly pulled out of the united states market entirely, but wotc has no real way to escape the situation.
Private Mod Note
():
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!
I have taken many long breaks from this hobby, including most of the modern era, but I can’t recall it ever being this bad when it comes to Standard, not for this long a period of time. People seem to hate and avoid it, where it previously was the dominant format for most of my experience.
What's happened this time is that wotc is being forced to deal with some very vocal and toxic elements on top of the set issues. Force of Will company had an issue like this and nearly pulled out of the united states market entirely, but wotc has no real way to escape the situation.
What I believe you’re talking about is very recent. The problems with Standard go back longer than that.
I have taken many long breaks from this hobby, including most of the modern era, but I can’t recall it ever being this bad when it comes to Standard, not for this long a period of time. People seem to hate and avoid it, where it previously was the dominant format for most of my experience.
What's happened this time is that wotc is being forced to deal with some very vocal and toxic elements on top of the set issues. Force of Will company had an issue like this and nearly pulled out of the united states market entirely, but wotc has no real way to escape the situation.
What I believe you’re talking about is very recent. The problems with Standard go back longer than that.
Most the people I know don't care about the toxic online stuff.
We want a good game.
We want support for our stores and for Standard that makes sense.
WotC needs better management across the brand and especially in promotion/marketing, they are failing utterly right now.
I have taken many long breaks from this hobby, including most of the modern era, but I can’t recall it ever being this bad when it comes to Standard, not for this long a period of time. People seem to hate and avoid it, where it previously was the dominant format for most of my experience.
What's happened this time is that wotc is being forced to deal with some very vocal and toxic elements on top of the set issues. Force of Will company had an issue like this and nearly pulled out of the united states market entirely, but wotc has no real way to escape the situation.
What I believe you’re talking about is very recent. The problems with Standard go back longer than that.
Most the people I know don't care about the toxic online stuff.
We want a good game.
We want support for our stores and for Standard that makes sense.
WotC needs better management across the brand and especially in promotion/marketing, they are failing utterly right now.
I do care about the toxic online stuff. Right now, I’m not ready to walk away from the investment in both time and money I’ve made over the past year, and I don’t really have anywhere else to be. The online crap has me almost one foot out the door, and Standard continuing to be on life support is eventually going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
I will likely brew and think about what decks can work but I'm having a very hard time considering buying cards right now.
Why bother when standard doesn't fire? The best chance is early on to get a little in but if after a few weeks not enough people to play FNM why waste the money?
WotC is not giving anyone reason to believe it is/will be fixed or reaching out to get people back in.
They need to act immediately to show us they're aware no one wants to play their game and incentivize big time.
I have taken many long breaks from this hobby, including most of the modern era, but I can’t recall it ever being this bad when it comes to Standard, not for this long a period of time. People seem to hate and avoid it, where it previously was the dominant format for most of my experience.
You aren't wrong on this. I'm having a hard time personally coming up with 2-3 year stretch where Standard was just unpleasant for the entire run. There have certainly been worse Standards than current, and many of them (CoCo, CawBlade, Affinity, etc.), but I have a hard time figuring out when the last time we have had a consistently poor Standard environment for 2-3 years in a row.
The problem is that the R&D paradigms they fostered leading into BFZ (Which was starting to be visible in Khans) permeated well into current set design before it came apparent that Standard was falling apart.
I said it before, and I'll say it again: Somebody(or a group of somebodies) should have been fired after CoCo nuked the format and Standard continued to decline. Fundamentally, they need to just abandon all of their paradigms they *think* they know, and start from scratch with zero assumptions (Except the obvious ones). Particularly involving removal, which is just an egregious problem right now, as well as printing so many damned spells that require creatures to work. While it's fine to have some, they have moved so significantly into that space that there just isn't much non-creature worthy spells of interest, at all. I'm not even talking Removal, I'm talking interesting Instants, Sorceries, and Enchantments.
They also have definitely not learned how to make a good Tribal limited format, and fundamentally do not understand why Tribal limited formats tend not to work very well. If most cards are only good in a given archetype, then the drafting tends to devolve into an on-rails experience; the problem with this is that due to the semi-random nature of draft, it is very easy to get screwed in pack 2 or 3 out of your Tribe for not other reason than it was opened poorly. When you construct your entire limited format around this, it turns into a damn unpleasant mess.
Lorwyn had the right idea, executed somewhat poorly. They simply had too many different Tribal synergies going on, and wasn't quite focused on what it was trying to do. Having creatures with two different creature types in a tribal set means that a lot of creatures can slot into at least two different draft archetypes with relative ease. The problem is that R&D has gotten, frankly, lazy. Really bloody lazy, and don't want to revisit their paradigms. Even as Standard was falling apart, they refused to admit their paradigms were fundamentally flawed and wrong. Even still, it is apparent that they are resistant to it. There needs to be some major cleaning house going on of some sort, even if it is reshuffling their teams. Things need to change, and they need to become more cognizant of what their job is and what the decisions they make lead to. They also need to realize that Draft formats that are cookie-cutter on-rails archetype experiences are not enjoyable formats, particularly when removal is so ***** that people can't branch out into a Good-Stuff deck if they want to.
Melissa DeTorra's recent article that admits Energy is a monster and she explains how they're hoping to avoid it happening again.
While recognizing the problem is good, what the article doesn't address is if they've done anything to put out the fire. Rivals isn't feeling particularly potent especially because of the 'rails' they've put on too many cards as theman points out above. Which by the way his post hits the nail on the head.
Disappointing DeTorra and crew either didn't see or didn't get listened to opening up the general spells and interaction cards so they could be used in any tribe. There's no reason to hook every card in a set to a particular tribe, it's counterproductive and makes for a crap draft environment people get sick of quickly.
Recently I'd talked with people about the next ban and I was thinking they won't/shouldn't ban anything again.
Now with the full set revealed I'm not so sure.
I do think the timing is bad. If they do ban things it should be before people have decided what they're going to build for a new block and bought cards.
I couldn't find the date of the next ban but if the new team and balance aren't confident that new Strats are going to out compete or at least be level with what's killing Standard right now maybe they should kill Aether Hub. It could serve to force more green into Temur land base and make the deck less perfect on curve. I know there's a loud minority that get colicy whenever you talk ban but really value has been wrung from these cards already and if no one is playing Standard you don't exactly get any use out of any of your cards.
WotC needs emergency medics on standard right now. They should be begging people to play at this point.
Talk about a hugely creature centric set... I don't see any premium, efficient removal in this new set that would indicate they've thrown out the idiot ways that got us here. Moment of Craving is the closest and that's just weak. Red only has Bombard and I know it's going to draft with Ixalan which has a lot of removal (and that's the whole large/small set thing) but omg talk about midrange creature smashfest. Impale is fine for limited yay less than 5cmc but Doomblade where for art thou?
Melissa DeTorra's recent article that admits Energy is a monster and she explains how they're hoping to avoid it happening again.
While recognizing the problem is good, what the article doesn't address is if they've done anything to put out the fire. Rivals isn't feeling particularly potent especially because of the 'rails' they've put on too many cards as theman points out above. Which by the way his post hits the nail on the head.
Disappointing DeTorra and crew either didn't see or didn't get listened to opening up the general spells and interaction cards so they could be used in any tribe. There's no reason to hook every card in a set to a particular tribe, it's counterproductive and makes for a crap draft environment people get sick of quickly.
Recently I'd talked with people about the next ban and I was thinking they won't/shouldn't ban anything again.
Now with the full set revealed I'm not so sure.
I do think the timing is bad. If they do ban things it should be before people have decided what they're going to build for a new block and bought cards.
I couldn't find the date of the next ban but if the new team and balance aren't confident that new Strats are going to out compete or at least be level with what's killing Standard right now maybe they should kill Aether Hub. It could serve to force more green into Temur land base and make the deck less perfect on curve. I know there's a loud minority that get colicy whenever you talk ban but really value has been wrung from these cards already and if no one is playing Standard you don't exactly get any use out of any of your cards.
WotC needs emergency medics on standard right now. They should be begging people to play at this point.
Talk about a hugely creature centric set... I don't see any premium, efficient removal in this new set that would indicate they've thrown out the idiot ways that got us here. Moment of Craving is the closest and that's just weak. Red only has Bombard and I know it's going to draft with Ixalan which has a lot of removal (and that's the whole large/small set thing) but omg talk about midrange creature smashfest. Impale is fine for limited yay less than 5cmc but Doomblade where for art thou?
Moment of Craving is actually a good card; it is reminiscient of Pharika's Cure, which saw heavy sideboard play in MBC even though the deck had Doom Blade/Ultimate price. This is a better version of that card, and really is good *and* on the level of power needed given previous precedent (As Cure was played right next to Doom Blade). We still need Doom Blade, but I have no issue with Moment of Craving at all.
Your point stands, however. The only actively good non-creature card is the Divinationnvariant that draws you three if you have Citys blessing. Most control decks begrudgingly run Divination, amd one with significant late game implication is very good. One of the more distressing things to see is that the reason they weakened removal was as a result of it being much better than the creatures, yet they have continued to push creatures to a point where near everyone is a must answer threat.
I only play standard and limited. Rivials did nothing to change the current meta at all. I play energy and haven’t played a game since November cause of how bland the format is. Sadly something needs done immediately. As well as someone getting sh*tcanned at wotc for being terrible at their job.
I think that it is a little ironic that in the midst of terrible standard play-wise, the support for FNMs is even worse than before. Like, they are not willing to try any of multiple ways to get people to play standard.
I have taken many long breaks from this hobby, including most of the modern era, but I can’t recall it ever being this bad when it comes to Standard, not for this long a period of time. People seem to hate and avoid it, where it previously was the dominant format for most of my experience.
What's happened this time is that wotc is being forced to deal with some very vocal and toxic elements on top of the set issues. Force of Will company had an issue like this and nearly pulled out of the united states market entirely, but wotc has no real way to escape the situation.
What I believe you’re talking about is very recent. The problems with Standard go back longer than that.
Most the people I know don't care about the toxic online stuff.
We want a good game.
We want support for our stores and for Standard that makes sense.
WotC needs better management across the brand and especially in promotion/marketing, they are failing utterly right now.
I do care about the toxic online stuff. Right now, I’m not ready to walk away from the investment in both time and money I’ve made over the past year, and I don’t really have anywhere else to be. The online crap has me almost one foot out the door, and Standard continuing to be on life support is eventually going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
The whole situation with standard would just be another Caw Blade era misfire if WoTC actually addressed all the issues people had otherwise, such as the lack of FNM promos, acknowledging judges as employees and compensating them, and addressing criticism in a way that puts themselves on the high ground instead of tumbling into a pit full of horned vipers. The typical corporate way they are handling things is putting themselves in a bad light and they aren't equipped to handle the kind of targeted, spiteful hatred they have wrought on themselves. EA is bad, but their worse situation is no where near this level.
If the judges were happy they'd probably have fewer leaks to say the least.
Private Mod Note
():
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!
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We can't really depend on modern to hold Magic up, though. The costs of the decks for competitive play are extremely high and the format is far more suited towards players who have been with the game a long time. For new players their only real options are standard, draft/sealed, and maybe budget EDH decks, but even EDH is more of a casual pass time for the established crowd. Also the drama the company is creating due to the poor handling of various situations is also causing them to lose players.
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!
Cardboard quality is piss poor, I literally checked some of the pre onslaught commons and uncommons I had kept inside a shoebox in a closet for over 10 years, still felt, and looked just like I left them, the BFZ and newer boxes? Mostly all of them were curved, a LOT of them clearly had coloring issues (mostly from the kaladesh block) and all of them felt awful to the touch, which made me wonder if, in the long run, it would be worth keepin. However that's not what pushed me to quit attending sanctioned events again, it was the fact that the sole reason I attended FNMs was to meet up with my buddies and grab a couple of beers after the FNM, Standard was no longer fun to me and a small group of friends (mostly in our late 20's early 30's).
As far as attendance being down, it probably is, however I've noticed more "new" players while the old are moving on, in fact, the last FNM I attended was just 10 players, early in Dec, down from the usual 16-20, I thought it'd be due to the holydays, but talking to the LGS owner he said that it's been slowly but steadily declining since early Sept, but newer players seem to show up more often, and when I texted my friends to see if they were comin, they said they were already at our usual hang-out place, figured I'd play for a bit then catch up with them, after 3 turns of the first game I dropped. Playing Vs monored or energy for the bajillionth time just wasn't worth my time. Perhaps it is WotC's intention to slowly alienate the old guard, the people that have a really hard time getting hyped for cards like mastermind's acquisition when we literally lived the golden age of wishes and just can't sit through the grindfest of Midrange: The Gathering, or have better books to read than the cartoony adventures of the Jacetice League.
On a positive note, I'm grateful for all the great times I've had and the great friendships I made thanks to the game, but, for some of us, it is time to move on, maybe the direction that WotC has taken is to appeal to a younger crowd.
I think MtG will be fine in the long run, the company is just having it rough right now because of some issues they are dealing with. That and Rivals does look very good at the moment, so there is that going for it as well. However, I think the days of people rushing to get their pre-orders in are probably over for a while. There's way too much apprehension from the dominance of energy even though with double lords now I think vampires and merfolk look very, very strong. This is especially true with the new merfolk tribal land that is being released (well, it's a +1/+1 counter land, but that might as well be merfolk at this point given they have the most counters synergy and can make use of Metallic Mimic). That and we are still in a format where Walking Ballista exists.
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!
Given how bad Iconic Masters did compared to Chronicles back in the day, it did end up ruining the hype for Masters 25 and Dominaria by releasing three anniversary sets instead of one which could've made it more special. The reason why I thought players were boycotting EDH/Commander was due to all the recent drama taking place right now and they've probably come to a realization that it's nothing more than a money grab to keep MTG afloat.
"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
This I was talking to one of my friends, he was very surprised I sold my cards, one of the topics that came up was the fact that Mtg felt like a moneygrab, I'm not against a company making money, but when they basically shift the old power from commons/uncommons to Rare and mythic it just feels terrible to open packs and ignore the first 13 or so cards, only to find an sealed-bomb bulk rare at the end of it all.
I remember when I first started, I was super excited I got most of the cards I wanted for a U/G madness deck out of like 20 boosters from oddyssey block. Good luck getting most of the cards you need out of boxes, unless you're buying them like candy.
Furthermore, wishlists have done nothing for local game stores to help consumers obtain product that's either out of stock or out of print to help these stores turn a profit over purchasing online singles. If they can't turn a profit to keep their venue open then they're forced to close down. There has to be a solution to enable local game stores to compete with internet sales without caving in to big box retailers like Walmart and Target.
We're also seeing a rise of more counterfeit cards that are becoming much harder to spot due to the low print quality of MTG product as of late. It's become easy bait for casual players because the counterfeiters believe that they're too gullible to notice the difference. More local game stores are getting in counterfeit cards without even realizing it because putting in the time and effort to authenticate the cards would become too much of a hassle for owners and staff to deal with.
"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
Those commons that give +1/+1 but give other bonus if it's a pirate does seem really lazy and poor design imo.
The overall low power of every set is what makes players not even bother with buying packs and go for the singles they need instead, making the whales and big sellers profit from this.
Actually, there's a rather huge crowd of silent casual players that just buy the fake cards because they don't have the money or the willpower to climb the MTG financial wall. Their argument usually is that they don't get caught at FNM and never resell the cards so it isn't a problem. My issue is how does a person really keep track of a well crafted fake vs a real card? It may not be a problem for a casual player in the short term, but in the long term those cards will get packed away somewhere and later sold off. That's going to introduce fake cards into the market one way or another, so in general it is a bad idea to get any kind of fake. Now, if someone is taking a sharpie and writing on the back "I'm FAKE!" than it's a different story, but I just don't see people doing that.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
What it means is that I don’t open a pack and immidaitely feel bad. Just the other day I bought some packs, and pulled several useful (not monetarily expensive) commons, a Squadron Hawk-type Card, a dragon that summons a dragon from deck if my opponent activates an effect, some solid imported Japanese Exclusive Cards. And a generic monster basically mandatory for modern YGO Water Decks; all at the common rarity.
There were a few other cards, something that summons itself if 5 monsters in grave with unique names and no repeats. So on and so forth. None of those cards are teir one competitive (Okay that water monster is) but all of them feel like they have a purpose. The Squadron Dragon, is intended to be used with a higher rarity or mythic. However it also perfectly and reasonable functional with that other common I pulled. In fact both are same level so I can meld them in mtg terms.
The newest set? Of MtG, the new cards are so incredibly xenophobic/tribal, while that isn’t to say YGO cards aren’t (those dragon cards I mentioned only work with dragons). But that Highlander and OCG exclusive cards I pulled, while clearly meant for certain decks. One of them triggers their effect off being sent to graveyard by any card effect not just in-themed ones. The Highlander can be used generically in a lot of decks because Graves modulation is common and a lot of YGO Decks by nature are often puesdo Singleton.
This all goes back to, I buy a pack, even if I lose money, the packs come with cards that aren’t trash. MTG, the focus on draft, and more has lost the idea you’re buying packs to ‘boost’ your deck. Instead your buying a glorfied board games.
CerberusJund (Modern)GRB
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant Morphentress (Commander) GUB
I also play YGO (DragunFusion) and Hearthstone (Dragon Control Warrior)
That said, the problem with this system is that access to singles isn't universal. I'm fortunate to play at an LGS that always has literally every single card you'd ever need, but lots of players' stores don't have good singles collections. This forces them to shop on TCG, eBay, etc, which hurts their local MtG economies.
Here’s the thing:
You can’t build a Modern collection buying packs. Even with the yearly master sets, not even close. Singles are the best way to build a Standard deck but drafting and buying packs isn’t intolerably far behind, especially if you are building a collection to support building multiple decks instead of just one. I enjoy opening packs and drafting, and combined with buying singles to fill in the blanks and trading the spares for more singles, I have playsets of just about every card in Standard that matters at a cost I’m satisfied with.
Standard is the only format where opening packs isn’t mostly a waste.
Right now when Standard is barely played less packs are opened by players, fewer singles go into the stores, and smaller stores open fewer packs because the singles don't move. Even if you want to play you have to TCG or Channel Fireball to get the stuff you need, which is easy enough to do but players like to trade.
When sets are good and Standard is fun, standard players take the risk on packs and even boxes because they enjoy opening packs just for the rares.
Make a fun balanced game and everything follows.
I hope the tribes manage to compete with crapy energy and ramred but I don't think they'll push those out. A few cards make those strats better easily better or more resilient which can't be helped. I also don't much like the focus in Rivals on forcing you to go tribal to get the max out of cards. Forcing players to go tribe instead of leaving things open to brew and mix limits playability and leads to quickly solved meta.
What's happened this time is that wotc is being forced to deal with some very vocal and toxic elements on top of the set issues. Force of Will company had an issue like this and nearly pulled out of the united states market entirely, but wotc has no real way to escape the situation.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
What I believe you’re talking about is very recent. The problems with Standard go back longer than that.
Most the people I know don't care about the toxic online stuff.
We want a good game.
We want support for our stores and for Standard that makes sense.
WotC needs better management across the brand and especially in promotion/marketing, they are failing utterly right now.
I do care about the toxic online stuff. Right now, I’m not ready to walk away from the investment in both time and money I’ve made over the past year, and I don’t really have anywhere else to be. The online crap has me almost one foot out the door, and Standard continuing to be on life support is eventually going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Why bother when standard doesn't fire? The best chance is early on to get a little in but if after a few weeks not enough people to play FNM why waste the money?
WotC is not giving anyone reason to believe it is/will be fixed or reaching out to get people back in.
They need to act immediately to show us they're aware no one wants to play their game and incentivize big time.
You aren't wrong on this. I'm having a hard time personally coming up with 2-3 year stretch where Standard was just unpleasant for the entire run. There have certainly been worse Standards than current, and many of them (CoCo, CawBlade, Affinity, etc.), but I have a hard time figuring out when the last time we have had a consistently poor Standard environment for 2-3 years in a row.
The problem is that the R&D paradigms they fostered leading into BFZ (Which was starting to be visible in Khans) permeated well into current set design before it came apparent that Standard was falling apart.
I said it before, and I'll say it again: Somebody(or a group of somebodies) should have been fired after CoCo nuked the format and Standard continued to decline. Fundamentally, they need to just abandon all of their paradigms they *think* they know, and start from scratch with zero assumptions (Except the obvious ones). Particularly involving removal, which is just an egregious problem right now, as well as printing so many damned spells that require creatures to work. While it's fine to have some, they have moved so significantly into that space that there just isn't much non-creature worthy spells of interest, at all. I'm not even talking Removal, I'm talking interesting Instants, Sorceries, and Enchantments.
They also have definitely not learned how to make a good Tribal limited format, and fundamentally do not understand why Tribal limited formats tend not to work very well. If most cards are only good in a given archetype, then the drafting tends to devolve into an on-rails experience; the problem with this is that due to the semi-random nature of draft, it is very easy to get screwed in pack 2 or 3 out of your Tribe for not other reason than it was opened poorly. When you construct your entire limited format around this, it turns into a damn unpleasant mess.
Lorwyn had the right idea, executed somewhat poorly. They simply had too many different Tribal synergies going on, and wasn't quite focused on what it was trying to do. Having creatures with two different creature types in a tribal set means that a lot of creatures can slot into at least two different draft archetypes with relative ease. The problem is that R&D has gotten, frankly, lazy. Really bloody lazy, and don't want to revisit their paradigms. Even as Standard was falling apart, they refused to admit their paradigms were fundamentally flawed and wrong. Even still, it is apparent that they are resistant to it. There needs to be some major cleaning house going on of some sort, even if it is reshuffling their teams. Things need to change, and they need to become more cognizant of what their job is and what the decisions they make lead to. They also need to realize that Draft formats that are cookie-cutter on-rails archetype experiences are not enjoyable formats, particularly when removal is so ***** that people can't branch out into a Good-Stuff deck if they want to.
Melissa DeTorra's recent article that admits Energy is a monster and she explains how they're hoping to avoid it happening again.
While recognizing the problem is good, what the article doesn't address is if they've done anything to put out the fire. Rivals isn't feeling particularly potent especially because of the 'rails' they've put on too many cards as theman points out above. Which by the way his post hits the nail on the head.
Disappointing DeTorra and crew either didn't see or didn't get listened to opening up the general spells and interaction cards so they could be used in any tribe. There's no reason to hook every card in a set to a particular tribe, it's counterproductive and makes for a crap draft environment people get sick of quickly.
Recently I'd talked with people about the next ban and I was thinking they won't/shouldn't ban anything again.
Now with the full set revealed I'm not so sure.
I do think the timing is bad. If they do ban things it should be before people have decided what they're going to build for a new block and bought cards.
I couldn't find the date of the next ban but if the new team and balance aren't confident that new Strats are going to out compete or at least be level with what's killing Standard right now maybe they should kill Aether Hub. It could serve to force more green into Temur land base and make the deck less perfect on curve. I know there's a loud minority that get colicy whenever you talk ban but really value has been wrung from these cards already and if no one is playing Standard you don't exactly get any use out of any of your cards.
WotC needs emergency medics on standard right now. They should be begging people to play at this point.
Talk about a hugely creature centric set... I don't see any premium, efficient removal in this new set that would indicate they've thrown out the idiot ways that got us here.
Moment of Craving is the closest and that's just weak. Red only has Bombard and I know it's going to draft with Ixalan which has a lot of removal (and that's the whole large/small set thing) but omg talk about midrange creature smashfest. Impale is fine for limited yay less than 5cmc but Doomblade where for art thou?
Moment of Craving is actually a good card; it is reminiscient of Pharika's Cure, which saw heavy sideboard play in MBC even though the deck had Doom Blade/Ultimate price. This is a better version of that card, and really is good *and* on the level of power needed given previous precedent (As Cure was played right next to Doom Blade). We still need Doom Blade, but I have no issue with Moment of Craving at all.
Your point stands, however. The only actively good non-creature card is the Divinationnvariant that draws you three if you have Citys blessing. Most control decks begrudgingly run Divination, amd one with significant late game implication is very good. One of the more distressing things to see is that the reason they weakened removal was as a result of it being much better than the creatures, yet they have continued to push creatures to a point where near everyone is a must answer threat.
BWTokens
GCollected Stompany
BWGUSeance Insanity
URUR Bloo
The whole situation with standard would just be another Caw Blade era misfire if WoTC actually addressed all the issues people had otherwise, such as the lack of FNM promos, acknowledging judges as employees and compensating them, and addressing criticism in a way that puts themselves on the high ground instead of tumbling into a pit full of horned vipers. The typical corporate way they are handling things is putting themselves in a bad light and they aren't equipped to handle the kind of targeted, spiteful hatred they have wrought on themselves. EA is bad, but their worse situation is no where near this level.
If the judges were happy they'd probably have fewer leaks to say the least.
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!