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.
I was involved in a lot of the drama involved in Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. When you say WotC is behaving like a corporation, I think back to my experiences in that era, and what I saw is that while the people making the games were mostly geeks, there seemed to be an unusually high number of lawyers involved in everything.
In my opinion, it’s simple. MtG needs Standard to be healthy, and it has never been less healthy.
Judges, pay, internet tools, corporate malfeasance, etc are all outside factors, none of which are part of Standard failing and attendance being close to bloody zero.
Bad Design - someone should have been fired by now or corporate shuffled. (Don't even start with me on balance, everything comes from design)
Marketing (FNM support/promos/product) - again FIRE SOMEONE, all of them, they are MORONS.
This whole thing smacks of people running departments that are totally detached from the people they are serving and audience they are supposed to be appealing to.
Standard drives sales. Limited drives events which push product out, which ends up in cases and traded, which pushes pack sales and event participation.
Standard and Limited SUCK. Everything fails.
Sorry Modern, if Standard and limited die you will not have a game to play because they will not be able to produce new sets.
The new CEO needs to fire a lot of people and bring in blood that knows something about the game but have common sense. People who understand the consumer. They have none of that at all right now.
GreyImp drama will drive less enfranchised players away, especially those that don't want to take part in it or have some personal attachment to the conflict. Standard is down for the development and marketing reasons as usual, but it's also down because of the outside factors as well. That and the prices on MtG singles is ludicrous and has been this way for ages. The company is afraid of Chronicles happening, but when the competition can offer a complete experience for a fraction of the cost anyone not in bed with MtG will take the better deal.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I was involved in a lot of the drama involved in Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. When you say WotC is behaving like a corporation, I think back to my experiences in that era, and what I saw is that while the people making the games were mostly geeks, there seemed to be an unusually high number of lawyers involved in everything.
In my opinion, it’s simple. MtG needs Standard to be healthy, and it has never been less healthy.
I think this is true, but when I look at this latest set, it just seems like they forgot what makes Magic fun to a lot of people. I wont buy...a single thing from this set, not a single chase card to me.
I dont play standard, but I was for a good while there buying a lot of cards, to build Modern decks.
Now, I dont even do that. It does feel a lot like 4th Edition.
I was involved in a lot of the drama involved in Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. When you say WotC is behaving like a corporation, I think back to my experiences in that era, and what I saw is that while the people making the games were mostly geeks, there seemed to be an unusually high number of lawyers involved in everything.
In my opinion, it’s simple. MtG needs Standard to be healthy, and it has never been less healthy.
I think this is true, but when I look at this latest set, it just seems like they forgot what makes Magic fun to a lot of people. I wont buy...a single thing from this set, not a single chase card to me.
I dont play standard, but I was for a good while there buying a lot of cards, to build Modern decks.
Now, I dont even do that. It does feel a lot like 4th Edition.
You're not wrong. I feel that the problem is that they have become over-focused on Archetype drafting, and forgot that a big part of the game to a lot of people, even in draft, is exploring the depth of the game. Everything just seems so canned, and purpose-driven. I mean, take Innistrad, for example. While archetypes certainly existed, there wasn't obvious cards that tell you to go into X or Y, and you weren't punished for picking X card because it went into 2-3 different archetypes in the format. You weren't in a canned, pre-determined decklist, and instead were allowed to explore various synergies without feeling like they meant for you to go that specific route.
This is why I feel Dominaria has a good chance of being very good: Garfield understands that what people love about this game is making it their own, not playing out a predetermined canned experience. Players want to look at the cards and figure it out for themselves, and the cynical paradigms of R&D are inbred nonsense. While there is a point to making things work together in a synergistic way, they go well and above this to the point where a lot of cards are just not good at all outside of their archetype.
As for constructed, the only rare/mythics I actively want are Zacama (Inner Timmy), Wayward Swordtooth (Seems like a very good ramp card), Blood Sun (For the jankiness), and Journey to Eternity (For EDH). I wouldn't mind Tetzimoc to toy around with, however, and might toy with Twighight Prophet and Champion of Dusk. None of the commons or uncommons really get me going, however. And that's about it. Usually around spoiler season I'm looking forward to 15-20 rares/mythics and a host of uncommons and commons. This year, there just is nothing.
I like to make decks so I usually fill with commons and uncommon that are power cards and fit places. Rares that I want to use whether I do or not.
Hard to imagine bothering right now.
DeTorra said on Loganreadyrun that the city of light blessing was created as a flavor mechanic.
They rammed that jank into the set because it goes with the story. Not because it's a good mechanic. Or because it was purposeful to the kind of standard they wanted to create. Because flavor.
It is always dangerous to "fire someone" for several reasons. But, and there is always a but, the direction from the top- i.e. Maro- who was responsible for Energy, let us not forget- is so off where it should be that I could get behind his removal. I would love to have an hour with the guy, with a bunch of decks from Legacy, Modern. I can play a match of Legacy where the game is over t3 in all three games, or effectively so- where the match takes 20-30 mins and each turn is full of decisions-and great fun is had by all, I would like to show him that. If he came back with the "new players don't like x" argument I would give up hope. There is the devil you know argument. I was certainly happy that Stoddard has been taking out of the firing line, his pronouncements made me want to throttle him-and I am concerned that people like Melissa DT are going to want an environment that pros like, which is the other end of the spectrum from designing for casuals/edh. Many a pro whines about Blood Moon and Bridge in Modern, and frankly they can sod off.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Other than design philosophy (and outrageous prices), I feel there are 2 things really hurting MTG (particularly Standard) right now:
Too big a barrier between Standard and the "next" competitive format.
Too big a barrier between Standard and casual (specifically EDH, which is the lions share of casual).
On point (1), this is pretty obvious. It's too hard for standard players to port their Standard decks into Modern; and there is too little in standard-legal sets which appeals to Modern players. This makes Standard less enticing for everyone. The time span of Modern legal sets has roughly doubled since Modern's inception, and I think the game needs support for Frontier or something similar.
Point (2) is interesting, because we have to look back to the days before EDH when 60 card casual was the go-to casual format.
I worked in a LGS for a few years starting in 2003, and there was a lot of 60 card casual being played. The old guys would be playing a lot of old cards, but right beside them there would be new players with their Elf, Goblin, Myr, or Affinity themed decks built mostly from Standard legal cards. These new players could wet their feet playing casual, and as they got a little better and more into it they could easily convert their casual deck into an FNM Standard deck.
So we have a situation where there is no real bridge between casual and Standard. This wasn't a problem 5+ years ago, because at the time this industry was experiencing such enormous growth that WotC could really do no wrong. But nowadays I think the game needs that bridge.
I would recommend 1 or 2 EDH precons a year that are made from 100% Standard cards and support Standard themes and synergies. This might take a little design (and Marketing) consideration, and it might entail printing extra cards not found in packs (like the Walker decks). Make these decks slightly cheaper than regular EDH products, and you have a situation were new EDH players are automatically being groomed for Standard, and standard players can more easily jump into EDH.
Maybe my proposed solutions are not the best, but I do feel it would help the game and community if Standard were more closely connected to other constructed formats.
Maybe this is a terrible thing to say but part of the problem is the player base. Net decking is a very evil thing nothing worse than showing up and playing the same 2-3 decks. The last few years I have abandoned standard due to all the net decking. Seems like innistrad and before there was diversity locally with lots of home brews but as the pros dial in how to win the most they limit the options as certain decks push the brews out of competition for all but the best of players.
Net decking is nothing new. And it can't be blamed for lack of diversity. Rav/TS Standard was as diverse as eternal, despite all the (many) viable deck lists being available on line.
The lack of diversity stems from WotC pushing good-stuff above synergy so that almost every deck is running a lot of the same cards and a similar game plan.
Other than design philosophy (and outrageous prices), I feel there are 2 things really hurting MTG (particularly Standard) right now:
Too big a barrier between Standard and the "next" competitive format.
Too big a barrier between Standard and casual (specifically EDH, which is the lions share of casual).
On point (1), this is pretty obvious. It's too hard for standard players to port their Standard decks into Modern; and there is too little in standard-legal sets which appeals to Modern players. This makes Standard less enticing for everyone. The time span of Modern legal sets has roughly doubled since Modern's inception, and I think the game needs support for Frontier or something similar.
Point (2) is interesting, because we have to look back to the days before EDH when 60 card casual was the go-to casual format.
I worked in a LGS for a few years starting in 2003, and there was a lot of 60 card casual being played. The old guys would be playing a lot of old cards, but right beside them there would be new players with their Elf, Goblin, Myr, or Affinity themed decks built mostly from Standard legal cards. These new players could wet their feet playing casual, and as they got a little better and more into it they could easily convert their casual deck into an FNM Standard deck.
So we have a situation where there is no real bridge between casual and Standard. This wasn't a problem 5+ years ago, because at the time this industry was experiencing such enormous growth that WotC could really do no wrong. But nowadays I think the game needs that bridge.
I would recommend 1 or 2 EDH precons a year that are made from 100% Standard cards and support Standard themes and synergies. This might take a little design (and Marketing) consideration, and it might entail printing extra cards not found in packs (like the Walker decks). Make these decks slightly cheaper than regular EDH products, and you have a situation were new EDH players are automatically being groomed for Standard, and standard players can more easily jump into EDH.
Maybe my proposed solutions are not the best, but I do feel it would help the game and community if Standard were more closely connected to other constructed formats.
EDH and Modern are the premier formats in MtG right now. EDH dominates casual play, and not only has a big barrier between itself and standard, it has a big barrier between itself and all 60 card magic. EDH is more or less an an entirely different game compared to 60 card magic. When it comes to modern, the issue not only is the barrier where your standard deck doesn’t translate to modern, but also that modern is effectively gated towards new players who have to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars to build a real deck(multiple decks if you want to be competitive long term).
Maybe this is a terrible thing to say but part of the problem is the player base. Net decking is a very evil thing nothing worse than showing up and playing the same 2-3 decks. The last few years I have abandoned standard due to all the net decking. Seems like innistrad and before there was diversity locally with lots of home brews but as the pros dial in how to win the most they limit the options as certain decks push the brews out of competition for all but the best of players.
Net decking existed 20 years ago. It will always be with us. What is now missing to a large degree is 60 card casual and the gentlemen’s agreement that went with it, which invariably included “no net decking, build your own deck”.
It is always dangerous to "fire someone" for several reasons. But, and there is always a but, the direction from the top- i.e. Maro- who was responsible for Energy, let us not forget- is so off where it should be that I could get behind his removal. I would love to have an hour with the guy, with a bunch of decks from Legacy, Modern. I can play a match of Legacy where the game is over t3 in all three games, or effectively so- where the match takes 20-30 mins and each turn is full of decisions-and great fun is had by all, I would like to show him that. If he came back with the "new players don't like x" argument I would give up hope. There is the devil you know argument. I was certainly happy that Stoddard has been taking out of the firing line, his pronouncements made me want to throttle him-and I am concerned that people like Melissa DT are going to want an environment that pros like, which is the other end of the spectrum from designing for casuals/edh. Many a pro whines about Blood Moon and Bridge in Modern, and frankly they can sod off.
If you like the speed of Legacy or Modern, more power to you, but it’s not for everybody. You should realize that the speed of these formats is largely not by design but a result of a card pool consisting of dozens of sets and 3-5 color mana bases. I personally think both formats are way to fast, and prefer a pace where 4-6 cmc cards are viable.
. You should realize that the speed of these formats is largely not by design but a result of a card pool consisting of dozens of sets and 3-5 color mana bases. I personally think both formats are way to fast, and prefer a pace where 4-6 cmc cards are viable.
On the flipside, you should realise that the viability of your 4-6 cc cards is by design.
Not too long ago, high cc cards were the exception even in Standard. In order to create the environment you now know and love, WotC has had to nerf LD, counter-spells, sweepers, spot removal, and anything combo; as well as heavily pushing big midrange creatures. Before that MTG was always naturally hostile to higher ccs.
Obviously Standard was never as fast as today's Legacy, but it wasn't nearly as clunky and forgiving as it has been in recent years. That is by design.
. You should realize that the speed of these formats is largely not by design but a result of a card pool consisting of dozens of sets and 3-5 color mana bases.
On the flipside, you should realise that the viability of your 4-6 cc cards is by design.
Not too long ago, high cc cards were the exception even in Standard. In order to create the environment you now know and love, WotC has had to nerf LD, counter-spells, sweepers, spot removal, and anything combo; as well as heavily pushing big midrange creatures. Before that MTG was always naturally hostile to higher ccs.
Obviously Standard was never as fast as today's Legacy, but it wasn't nearly as clunky and forgiving as it has been in recent years. That is by design.
No need to get hostile.
I don’t recall a Standard where 4cmc cards were chased out of the format like they are in today’s Modern. I recall not so long ago people complaining about Planeswalkers in Modern, and now you pretty much never see them aside from the ones that cost less than 4. With Legacy, to a bystander like me 3cmc looks like it’s pushing it. I remember a time where cards like Serra Angel and Spiritmonger were premiere threats at 5cmc.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you that they are trying to slow the game down by design. Where I disagree is that I think it’s a good idea, they’re just doing a crappy job of implementing it.
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
I know you meant this is an entirely different context but the bolded part made me laugh out loud, considering all the drama of this past week.
The way they're handling that issue is just about the worst thing they could possibly do PR-wise. Have they never heard about the Streisand effect?? I websearched 'mtg pedo' and found the judge issue being discussed in all sorts of places already: not only places like 4chan and voat but also on forums for tabletop miniatures, mmorpgs, mixed martial arts, and more. All it takes is a news agency to pick up the story and give it a nice clickbaitey title like "Are there pedophiles on the prey in YOUR child's card game?" and WotC will have a titan-size PR clusterf**k on their hands that may even spread to affect the Hasbro brand. Do they want to drive away potential new customers? Because the way they're handling this is how you drive away potential new customers.
The best I can tell is that they either had a technical mess up with the website and left people up they had already dealt with, or in the absolute worse case they actually left judges who were convicted in the judge program and are actively denying they ever had them in the program to begin with. The disenfranchised youtuber crowd already spread the news all over to the point that I was hearing it in a live stream of PUBG, and the guy running it doesn't even play MtG. This is all on top of the fact that Tolarian, Wedge, and in general anyone being sponsored by anyone with a Mid-large company is being campaigned against. People think these things don't matter, but they matter far more to the people who are not playing that could potentially be playing the game. I've already had two conversations come up with people I tried introducing to this game where it basically went more like:
"Why are you playing this game? It sounds like no one knows what they are doing and the company is about to get hit by a lawsuit or something."
Then I'm scrambling trying to figure out what is going on since I zoned out of this stuff. This has literally been my life for the last 4-5 weeks, which is why instead of doing anything with MtG I've been playing Total War: Warhammer 2 with friends and picked up Force of Will. With FNM also down this is just a natural disaster.
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 didn't intend any hostilities, I apologise if my post came off as such.
I'm not saying 4+ ccs were ever pushed out of standard. Even Geddon and Wrath are 4cc cards. But fair decks curving into 5 and 6 cc cards only happens because WotC stopped supporting multiple play styles which hosed this strategy (as well as seriously creeping the power of middle costed creatures, and inventing PWs as super midrange value engines).
I'm not trying to say that it's a good or bad idea because I don't know. Only that this style of meta was heavily engineered, not the other way around.
As for what's a good idea, that is hard to say. WotC made the choice to bore some players rather than frustrate other players. That seemed to work, but is it possible that bored players are slower to leave than frustrated players; and that too many players have finally had enough of playing on-curve-fair-magic-only? Maybe WotC needs to risk a little more frustration for some players in favour of less boredom for othets?
I honestly don't know, and I'm kind of glad it's not my problem to sort out.
I'm no expert, and I don't have all the information WotC does, but I'll put in my 2 treasure tokens as well.
I think a one issue is that Standard has shown less potential for cheap casual decks to do interesting things that are more able to be worth taking to FNM. And here I mean mono or dual color decks, preferably mono-color, that are primarily made of commons with relatively few uncommons.
The gap between rarities in power level has grown too large, and the interesting things have been clustered up towards higher rarities. Back in RTR era standard I was having fun brewing common and uncommon only decks for less than $20, mono-color, one of each color, all of which had coherent strategies, and while not top table in FNM, were at least able to win some rounds without extreme luck and get compliments even from competitive players for doing interesting things with them.
Unfortunately, the average quality of commons has gone way down, and uncommons no longer cover as many bases as they used to in order to help make complete feeling decks that aren't using things outside of viable mana curves without relying on rares. Ever since RTR rotated out, I haven't felt like I could make proper decks like the above without dipping into the pool of rare and mythic options, and even then, there was less interesting new options that could be made, because most of the interactions were very much 'on rails' and specifying things like certain mechanics and tribes and such, so brewing was too boring and wasn't variable enough, and you got stuck within sets/blocks, which often didn't fill out pools well for constructed viable options.
It feels like the percentage of cards in sets which are constructed viable has gone down, and of those that remain, more of them are restricted in what other cards they work well with. Even the rares and mythics seem to have less of them feeling brew-worthy, even if they aren't top table constructed power level.
This is an issue of power dispartity between the top decks, and the average/median power level of cards in a set, as well as things like mechanics like energy, tribal, and devoid being mis-used in an overall sense such that there aren't enough good cards that play well with others outside of set/block.
Another issue is not meeting expectations, to the point that people who want to have fun certain ways just give up. When they _do_ create a tribe, they don't always make sure it's fun in Standard, or even in limited. For instance, Shadows Over Inistrad block didn't really have the proper diversity and tools to create a true werewolf deck that felt right for casual constructed, the cards didn't work together well enough. This obviously left out werewolf lovers. Even the legendary didn't work out right as a proper EDH lead for a werewolf deck that people wanted.
Too many effects these days happen on the wrong points in mana curves, not interacting well with the rest of the effects that go with them in a proper order, often coming a bit too late in exchange for a minor upside, or all being clustered around a relatively small range of mana costs for synergistic effects that then can't truly be played properly together because the deck doesn't work out, since almost everything would be 3-4 cmc.
We see tons of 4 color good-stuff decks because getting the right cards and effects that work together well is more important than getting your colors right reliably, and individual colors don't have in-color complete options, because the number of playable strategies that are able to be done completely and competitively within one or two colors has gone down.
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The next issue is cards retaining value. Players don't go and spend money on standard and draft and keep the cards unless they expect them to retain value long term, that means they need a degree of them to be viable in casual or competitive formats that are actually played. WotC has been good about printing stuff in Standard for EDH, but too much of it is only in the high rarities, and isn't staples that can be brewed into different decks, but is instead specific cards that fit only in specific strategies. They haven't printed nearly enough per set of cards that seem like they'll go into Modern. In particular, they haven't printed enough cards that are key to allow players to actually enter Modern from Standard, which in particular means things like mana bases (fetches and shocks in particular are part of why people liked RTR and were hopeful due to Tarkir but got annoyed later), and things like bolt, seize, path, and push. Opt and Push are great, but the issue is having _enough_ cards like that.
Optimally, I'd say each set needs cards that are Modern playable at least at these rates:
1 mythic (either reprint or new)
7 rare (about at least two of the least of reprints or new cards)
6 uncommon
6 common (for commons and uncommons combined, there should be at least one of each color, and within each there should be at least one good reprint or one good new card depending on which is least)
And of the above, at least 50% should be staples that fit in multiple decks, and no more than 25% should be sideboard focused cards.
When I say modern playable here, I don't mean it has to be T1, but it should be at least not be stuff that is budget alternatives or minor casual theme decks.
Players need to feel more of their cards retain playability value, otherwise the costs for Standard and Limited are much too high.
And when I'm talking value here, I don't mean cost value in the secondary market, they can be cheap cards there, I mean in terms of playability. Cards that don't just take up binder and box space once a set rotates out, but that you actually want to put into decks.
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Card quality:
As has been mentioned by others in the thread, card quality seems to be down, at least in the US. Cards need to be more resilient to the elements and of better starting quality. Cards that can't be played in tournaments are no fun, and every time a card that you would have wanted to play comes out bad to start with or is ruined by it's low quality before it's time causes people to be feel less confident buying future cards. Even just cards not 'feeling good' in your hands causes loss of consumer motivation on a subconscious level even with more casual players.
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Vorthos:
As a Vorthos player, I'm very down on the continuity since Origins. WotC has been portraying things inconsistently, retconning like crazy with questionable reasons for it, and has handled most of their planeswalker characters poorly overall.
Jace has gone through the messed up memories story arcs one too many times, and has a serious problem of 'informed intelligence' where we are told about his intelligence by him solving a puzzle or something, but his on screen decision making and planning portrays him as far less intelligent. His abilities have also been portrayed inconsistently, leaving it unclear what kinds of spells he can cast and what kinds of non-magical skills he possesses and how good they are. Does he still have the sword skills he learned in AoA taught by Kallist? Can he use summoning magic at all anymore, or just illusions now? How easy is it for him to maintain telepathic contact with people? How easy is it for him to put groups of regular soldiers to sleep or mentally stun them? How good and strong is his telekinesis? Can he still do counter-spells and how reliably?
Nissa's character has been all over the place, while they seem to have strongly moved away from her old racism elements for marketing understandable reasons (I think it would have been better to introduce a fresh character instead for that purpose though), her behavior has been generally erratic, different writers seem to have different handles on her character and personality. She sometimes feels like a writer's crutch with how variable her power levels are, as her leyline and world elemental magic seem to be exactly how powerful the plot demands her to be, and she can provide similarly 'exactly how much is needed' power ups to the other Gatewatch members. Her exact personal philosophy and ideals have been gone into a lot, but don't leave a clear picture despite that, possibly because there isn't a consistent vision between the writers, despite such things being core to her character's focus in most of her appearances.
Chandra has been better handled than many of the others, but more due to her simplicity as a character and of her ability set than good handling of her. She's basically a bit childish/emotional and uses fire magic. You don't need that much more detail. Making it clearer if she can use summon magic like in the cards and the old online free comic would be nice, as would better acknowledging her past interactions with Jace and Gideon from the Purifying Fire and the original Zendikar block tie in content.
Liliana seems to be linked to some serious issues with post-mending timeline continuity. Her backstory means that the post-mending situation has been long, except recent retcons and decisions have established it to not be long enough ago for her backstory to make sense. She should have at least been able to slow her aging more without the demons' help relatively easily on multiple of the planes we know she has access to and can network with people on with her level of social skills and personal power, and should have been nowhere near as desperate and old as she was at the point in the timeline far enough ago for her to have made those contracts, given how long ago the mending is currently established to be, as well as the age she was when her spark ignited. It also feels like the Chain Veil arc has added undue complications that were part of an older overaching story plan that is no longer the main focus, but the WotC writers trapped themselves into due to involving Liliana, Ob, Garruk, and Jace into it in such a prominent way previously. It feels like she's half-running on the plot line they were originally planning on prior to the Origins reboot, and it shows in how busy her arcs tend to be, like they are trying to cram an entire separate storyline for the whole of magic into just her personal bits.
Gideon... really shouldn't have been made to be from Theros, his original character didn't feel or look Greek enough, and the shoehorning done was really awkward. Like Jace, what he can do is somewhat unclear at times as well, if he has any powers besides his special weapon and indestructibility, he doesn't use them much. He also seems to be granted importance by NPCs far too easily for too little reason, rising through the ranks and becoming local organization leader in pretty much every arc and plane he's shown up in far too easily, without really showing the levels of charisma or leadership skills that you would expect would be needed to explain what happens, relying instead of being an indestructible good guy. He feels like a pet rock passed around by the plot more than an actual character a lot of the time.
Overall, we've had tons of retcons, usually part of introducing new blocks and sets to excuse fitting plot elements and characters they want in, relatively little payoff, and characters who may have actually gotten LESS interesting than they started out due to awkward handling by a writing team that isn't all on the same board and too much PR focus.
We've also gotten a lot of faction focused worlds where it's hard for players to properly sympathize with the factions that they would most want to play in the style of, creating an awkward disconnect between the settings and the gameplay.
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The Masters sets are poison to consumer confidence.
The high prices and limited print runs make them give about as much confidence to players as things like Star Wars Battlefront II. Collectors might prefer cards being kept more expensive, but expensive cardboard isn't so great for players, and it creates a bad balance between players and collectors. Making reprint focused sets be collector motivations focused is a bad idea to start with, collectors should be most interested in the first printed versions of cards, or rare rewards versions like alternate art promos, not cards simply being playable in a competitive format.
The price difference between it and normal sets alienates players who might otherwise be interested in graduating from Standard to non-rotating formats, setting up a sort of elitism that makes new players nervous about non-rotating formats, and less willing to consider playing magic at all once they find out about it, since it seems like WotC will gouge you once they bait you in with Standard, and any good cards are too good for current Standard reprints, because they'd rather make people pay more for them in Masters sets, and make Standard cards less worthwhile to buy in the first place, since they'll mostly only be played in Standard, and not retain play value long term.
The limited print runs encourage buy-outs that alienate players AND collectors in favor of speculators who gamble on the secondary card market by inflating the prices on the secondary market and making it hard to get in the primary market in some areas.
WotC hasn't been handling the issues surrounding modern internet sales in the secondary market, where buyouts can happen beyond the local level, price data is shared rapidly, and speculators treat the card markets like a stock market with less regulations. They need to change their policies to take into account the nature of the internet, and have repeatedly shown that they don't understand it, and have made worse and not addressed the excesses of it's worst elements that harm the game.
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The Wizards Brand:
The target market groups have been losing confidence in the Wizards brand. Just look at the players lost from D&D to Pathfinder, for instance. Wizards has been experimenting in various ways with their products in ways that alienate players, rather than giving people what they want, and introducing their experiments as new products, they've been destroying old elements out of mistaken beliefs about what the consumer wants.
They've shown a serious disconnect with their target audiences, and competitors have started eating up the consumers that WotC is abandoning. They aren't adapting properly or fast enough to changing technology either, and have used numerous consumer unfriendly practices when they have worked with technology in the slow and awkward and constantly re-starting way they have.
Wizards seems to have lost sight of things around the time of 4th edition, and the way they've handled 5th edition has shown that while they have listened to feedback, they haven't fully understood it or listened to enough of it, nor made a clear decision. They also haven't put enough resources into editing and play-testing of sufficient quality in either magic or D&D. Repeated mistakes have eroded the confidence of long-time players, especially the more obvious ones that most players pick up on quickly in the first read-throughs of new magic sets or D&D books, making it obvious they aren't getting enough or smart enough people to look through their products with fresh eyes prior to sending things off to print. Standard bans and super-obvious D&D book errata issues make it clear that quality control has been suffering and Wizards might not really have the talent levels to give us trustworthy products anymore, especially not at the premium prices demanded by full color rulebooks and collectible card games when it comes to hobbies, and when competing with other products like Pathfinder, Hearthstone, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, etc.
But even the 'super obvious' stuff are just the things that go too far, its the subtle stuff that are merely questionable that erode confidence even before things stumble into the 'too far' zone. Complaints over things like Collected Company and Seige Rhino being too far away in power level from the rest of the format started turning up long before we had Standard bans after all. Questionable quality control and game balance can't be ignored even if it never goes completely over the edge into disaster zone.
In short, WotC has lost confidence of people, and not just in the Magic brand, but in D&D as well, which carries over in the brand-name trust issues.
I didn't intend any hostilities, I apologise if my post came off as such.
I'm not saying 4+ ccs were ever pushed out of standard. Even Geddon and Wrath are 4cc cards. But fair decks curving into 5 and 6 cc cards only happens because WotC stopped supporting multiple play styles which hosed this strategy (as well as seriously creeping the power of middle costed creatures, and inventing PWs as super midrange value engines).
I'm not trying to say that it's a good or bad idea because I don't know. Only that this style of meta was heavily engineered, not the other way around.
As for what's a good idea, that is hard to say. WotC made the choice to bore some players rather than frustrate other players. That seemed to work, but is it possible that bored players are slower to leave than frustrated players; and that too many players have finally had enough of playing on-curve-fair-magic-only? Maybe WotC needs to risk a little more frustration for some players in favour of less boredom for othets?
I honestly don't know, and I'm kind of glad it's not my problem to sort out.
Creeping the power of middle costed creatures and pushing Planeswalkers dates back to Lorwyn block in 2007. Ten years. That’s kind of old news at this point, the game has had ups and downs since then. If it was the cause of what is currently ailing Standard, it would have happened before now. It would also be ruining Modern. What is killing Standard right now is a design change that began with BFZ, which I would describe as a massive, across the board lowering of the power level of all cards resulting in a Standard format dominated by the mistakes.
Creeping the power of middle costed creatures and pushing Planeswalkers dates back to Lorwyn block in 2007. Ten years. That’s kind of old news at this point,
True, but they they've been pushing them more and more. And they've been gradually nerfing dorks, sweepers, Mana Leak, and removal all the while. This might have started in 2007, but it has been taken to the extreme.
It's been less than 5 years since WotC have really taken those things away from us. Given that bored players will probably hang in for a while before they jump ship, and that Standard has been having problems for years, I do not think we can rule out their core design philosophies as being part of the problem.
Also WotC were riding an explosive growth in the gaming community 5 years ago. MTG in 2012 may have been popular despite design, not because of it.
Creeping the power of middle costed creatures and pushing Planeswalkers dates back to Lorwyn block in 2007. Ten years. That’s kind of old news at this point,
True, but they they've been pushing them more and more. And they've been gradually nerfing dorks, sweepers, Mana Leak, and removal all the while. This might have started in 2007, but it has been taken to the extreme.
It's been less than 5 years since WotC have really taken those things away from us. Given that bored players will probably hang in for a while before they jump ship, and that Standard has been having problems for years, I do not think we can rule out their core design philosophies as being part of the problem.
Also WotC were riding an explosive growth in the gaming community 5 years ago. MTG in 2012 may have been popular despite design, not because of it.
They are not pushing creatures necessarily. The creatures dominating Standard right now aren’t seeing modern play on the whole. Creatures might be on top right now, but their power level compared to Modern is down just like everything else.
I don't think they need modern level power as that format is defined by whatever got pushed across multiple years. They'd have to go full blown yugioh to compete. They mostly just need to cut down on raw filler cards and get at least one decent one mana mana dork to enable the treasure strategies.
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!
There shouldn't be speculation at this point that design philosophy is the problem or not.
It is.
Maro's design changes got us here. He's said so. He's even admitted that 'mistakes were made'. Please don't doubt this the evidence is out there in articles and tweets and yes it's from Maro's questionnaires and misinterpretation of flawed data. He presented the way to make more money to the HASBRO overlords and everyone at WotC drank the coolaid.
Product differentiation right now comes from the top, new CEO is pushing to pick up new markets and relying on the cogs to keep their regular products upticking. WotC is failing utterly on several fronts.
The drive for more products is damaging them more than they know. They should be reprinting Modern staples in Standard sets. Even if it's only one or two cards per set that is where they should be printing those cards. The Modern Masters (and other premium releases) are leading to product fatigue and harming sales overall. It pulls away from regular releases. Why buy the recent crap product when you can save and just buy the expensive stuff. And then people get sick of that too. These reprints can also help them make standard better.
The talk of creature magic (midrange fest) is because of fundamental design.
Maro has said (in so many words) people don't like their fattys countered or killed lets give them cards they want to buy.
That attitude is completely asinine when you're designing a game that requires balance.
We are suffering the results.
Even in this recent release they are still not fixing answers and bolstering control to match creature quality (great time for some reprints right?).
It's not just Energy. It started going off the rails with CoCo and continued through bans (when they admitted things are FUBAR) all the way to now. 3 deck Standard is boring.
Marketing
These guys are completely detached from reality. They have no connection to the consumers and are not properly tracking LGS info. They are top down jacking up MTG and should get cleaned out to start over with community connected individuals dedicated to making the game succeed first.
Story
(a little bit of vomit in my throat) They need to strip this department out, completely disconnect it from development.
City's Blessing as an example was explained by DeTorra yesterday as "a flavor mechanic". Story over game integrity is a design philosophy flaw.
Story should be run by an editor employing a few real writers publishing novels and online promotional short stories which the card sets can draw from for reference and flavor quotes BUT NOT design. Any card can be given a name and flavor text relating to story without compromising game design if you start from solid design and not FLAVOR. The characters are generic and juvenile, they are completely dropping the ball.
Maro is at the top of the food chain at WotC and people like Chris Cocks likely don't understand the details on the ground enough to place blame where it's due. Maybe they think there's no one else who can do his job, it's hard to say. I had hoped Unstable would be Maro's last set after all these mistakes and destruction of Standard. Since it wasn't the only interpretation is that the guys in charge think he's doing fine or the problems are not his fault.
I'd be shocked if Chris Cocks had ever played a game of magic before becoming CEO. I'm going to bet he likely still hasn't, that's not his job but then how could he possibly see that his minions are screwing him? So who at WotC is going to tell the CEO that the head designer has done a lot more damage then they might perceive? I bet it's all blamed on market shift. Bullpoop.
So until Maro decides that he's been COMPLETELY WRONG and stops his poor data collection and interpretation we will not get the better game. It would be really easy to produce. Just go back to the old ways, drop several new products and make the game work like when Standard was great.
There shouldn't be speculation at this point that design philosophy is the problem or not.
It is.
Maro's design changes got us here. He's said so. He's even admitted that 'mistakes were made'. Please don't doubt this the evidence is out there in articles and tweets and yes it's from Maro's questionnaires and misinterpretation of flawed data. He presented the way to make more money to the HASBRO overlords and everyone at WotC drank the coolaid.
Product differentiation right now comes from the top, new CEO is pushing to pick up new markets and relying on the cogs to keep their regular products upticking. WotC is failing utterly on several fronts.
The drive for more products is damaging them more than they know. They should be reprinting Modern staples in Standard sets. Even if it's only one or two cards per set that is where they should be printing those cards. The Modern Masters (and other premium releases) are leading to product fatigue and harming sales overall. It pulls away from regular releases. Why buy the recent crap product when you can save and just buy the expensive stuff. And then people get sick of that too. These reprints can also help them make standard better.
The talk of creature magic (midrange fest) is because of fundamental design.
Maro has said (in so many words) people don't like their fattys countered or killed lets give them cards they want to buy.
That attitude is completely asinine when you're designing a game that requires balance.
We are suffering the results.
Even in this recent release they are still not fixing answers and bolstering control to match creature quality (great time for some reprints right?).
It's not just Energy. It started going off the rails with CoCo and continued through bans (when they admitted things are FUBAR) all the way to now. 3 deck Standard is boring.
Marketing
These guys are completely detached from reality. They have no connection to the consumers and are not properly tracking LGS info. They are top down jacking up MTG and should get cleaned out to start over with community connected individuals dedicated to making the game succeed first.
Story
(a little bit of vomit in my throat) They need to strip this department out, completely disconnect it from development.
City's Blessing as an example was explained by DeTorra yesterday as "a flavor mechanic". Story over game integrity is a design philosophy flaw.
Story should be run by an editor employing a few real writers publishing novels and online promotional short stories which the card sets can draw from for reference and flavor quotes BUT NOT design. Any card can be given a name and flavor text relating to story without compromising game design if you start from solid design and not FLAVOR. The characters are generic and juvenile, they are completely dropping the ball.
Maro is at the top of the food chain at WotC and people like Chris Cocks likely don't understand the details on the ground enough to place blame where it's due. Maybe they think there's no one else who can do his job, it's hard to say. I had hoped Unstable would be Maro's last set after all these mistakes and destruction of Standard. Since it wasn't the only interpretation is that the guys in charge think he's doing fine or the problems are not his fault.
I'd be shocked if Chris Cocks had ever played a game of magic before becoming CEO. I'm going to bet he likely still hasn't, that's not his job but then how could he possibly see that his minions are screwing him? So who at WotC is going to tell the CEO that the head designer has done a lot more damage then they might perceive? I bet it's all blamed on market shift. Bullpoop.
So until Maro decides that he's been COMPLETELY WRONG and stops his poor data collection and interpretation we will not get the better game. It would be really easy to produce. Just go back to the old ways, drop several new products and make the game work like when Standard was great.
Did I come off as saying that card development isn't a problem? That's not at all what I meant by what I was saying earlier about the drama and stuff. I was just saying that the main difference between Caw Blade era and this one is that they drama is happening on top of the development issues so the company is getting hammered from a lot of angles. The sad thing is that they likely will retract even further into their shell if they keep getting pressed and make things worse for everyone. Honestly, they do somewhat deserve some of the flak they are getting, though. The company has given me the impression they just ignore people and print cards, then pretend to actually pay attention to people with surveys that go no where or are poorly written.
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!
Colt I can see you get it but several posters were talking about power creep and creatures in a general way instead of pointing right at the source of the problem.
Hell Maro is design, his defenders like to say 'that's not his job' a lot. Y'know what's not his job either? Data collection. That's Marketing's job.
Colt I can see you get it but several posters were talking about power creep and creatures in a general way instead of pointing right at the source of the problem.
That's kind of beggingvthe question, because there is no consensus as to what the source of the problem is. This is all speculation.
I believe it is a possibility that "power creep and creatures In General" (more so the nerfing of everything else) might in fact be the source of the problem. Yes, it worked in the past, but it's not 2013 anymore. The player base is now more established (a lower percentage of the players are new), plus the whole model of a 90%+ midrange meta is no longer fresh.
I was involved in a lot of the drama involved in Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. When you say WotC is behaving like a corporation, I think back to my experiences in that era, and what I saw is that while the people making the games were mostly geeks, there seemed to be an unusually high number of lawyers involved in everything.
In my opinion, it’s simple. MtG needs Standard to be healthy, and it has never been less healthy.
Bad Design - someone should have been fired by now or corporate shuffled. (Don't even start with me on balance, everything comes from design)
Marketing (FNM support/promos/product) - again FIRE SOMEONE, all of them, they are MORONS.
This whole thing smacks of people running departments that are totally detached from the people they are serving and audience they are supposed to be appealing to.
Standard drives sales. Limited drives events which push product out, which ends up in cases and traded, which pushes pack sales and event participation.
Standard and Limited SUCK. Everything fails.
Sorry Modern, if Standard and limited die you will not have a game to play because they will not be able to produce new sets.
The new CEO needs to fire a lot of people and bring in blood that knows something about the game but have common sense. People who understand the consumer. They have none of that at all right now.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think this is true, but when I look at this latest set, it just seems like they forgot what makes Magic fun to a lot of people. I wont buy...a single thing from this set, not a single chase card to me.
I dont play standard, but I was for a good while there buying a lot of cards, to build Modern decks.
Now, I dont even do that. It does feel a lot like 4th Edition.
Spirits
You're not wrong. I feel that the problem is that they have become over-focused on Archetype drafting, and forgot that a big part of the game to a lot of people, even in draft, is exploring the depth of the game. Everything just seems so canned, and purpose-driven. I mean, take Innistrad, for example. While archetypes certainly existed, there wasn't obvious cards that tell you to go into X or Y, and you weren't punished for picking X card because it went into 2-3 different archetypes in the format. You weren't in a canned, pre-determined decklist, and instead were allowed to explore various synergies without feeling like they meant for you to go that specific route.
This is why I feel Dominaria has a good chance of being very good: Garfield understands that what people love about this game is making it their own, not playing out a predetermined canned experience. Players want to look at the cards and figure it out for themselves, and the cynical paradigms of R&D are inbred nonsense. While there is a point to making things work together in a synergistic way, they go well and above this to the point where a lot of cards are just not good at all outside of their archetype.
As for constructed, the only rare/mythics I actively want are Zacama (Inner Timmy), Wayward Swordtooth (Seems like a very good ramp card), Blood Sun (For the jankiness), and Journey to Eternity (For EDH). I wouldn't mind Tetzimoc to toy around with, however, and might toy with Twighight Prophet and Champion of Dusk. None of the commons or uncommons really get me going, however. And that's about it. Usually around spoiler season I'm looking forward to 15-20 rares/mythics and a host of uncommons and commons. This year, there just is nothing.
Hard to imagine bothering right now.
DeTorra said on Loganreadyrun that the city of light blessing was created as a flavor mechanic.
They rammed that jank into the set because it goes with the story. Not because it's a good mechanic. Or because it was purposeful to the kind of standard they wanted to create. Because flavor.
The only drama I want to see is firings.
On point (1), this is pretty obvious. It's too hard for standard players to port their Standard decks into Modern; and there is too little in standard-legal sets which appeals to Modern players. This makes Standard less enticing for everyone. The time span of Modern legal sets has roughly doubled since Modern's inception, and I think the game needs support for Frontier or something similar.
Point (2) is interesting, because we have to look back to the days before EDH when 60 card casual was the go-to casual format.
I worked in a LGS for a few years starting in 2003, and there was a lot of 60 card casual being played. The old guys would be playing a lot of old cards, but right beside them there would be new players with their Elf, Goblin, Myr, or Affinity themed decks built mostly from Standard legal cards. These new players could wet their feet playing casual, and as they got a little better and more into it they could easily convert their casual deck into an FNM Standard deck.
So we have a situation where there is no real bridge between casual and Standard. This wasn't a problem 5+ years ago, because at the time this industry was experiencing such enormous growth that WotC could really do no wrong. But nowadays I think the game needs that bridge.
I would recommend 1 or 2 EDH precons a year that are made from 100% Standard cards and support Standard themes and synergies. This might take a little design (and Marketing) consideration, and it might entail printing extra cards not found in packs (like the Walker decks). Make these decks slightly cheaper than regular EDH products, and you have a situation were new EDH players are automatically being groomed for Standard, and standard players can more easily jump into EDH.
Maybe my proposed solutions are not the best, but I do feel it would help the game and community if Standard were more closely connected to other constructed formats.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
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The lack of diversity stems from WotC pushing good-stuff above synergy so that almost every deck is running a lot of the same cards and a similar game plan.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
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EDH and Modern are the premier formats in MtG right now. EDH dominates casual play, and not only has a big barrier between itself and standard, it has a big barrier between itself and all 60 card magic. EDH is more or less an an entirely different game compared to 60 card magic. When it comes to modern, the issue not only is the barrier where your standard deck doesn’t translate to modern, but also that modern is effectively gated towards new players who have to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars to build a real deck(multiple decks if you want to be competitive long term).
Net decking existed 20 years ago. It will always be with us. What is now missing to a large degree is 60 card casual and the gentlemen’s agreement that went with it, which invariably included “no net decking, build your own deck”.
On the flipside, you should realise that the viability of your 4-6 cc cards is by design.
Not too long ago, high cc cards were the exception even in Standard. In order to create the environment you now know and love, WotC has had to nerf LD, counter-spells, sweepers, spot removal, and anything combo; as well as heavily pushing big midrange creatures. Before that MTG was always naturally hostile to higher ccs.
Obviously Standard was never as fast as today's Legacy, but it wasn't nearly as clunky and forgiving as it has been in recent years. That is by design.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
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No need to get hostile.
I don’t recall a Standard where 4cmc cards were chased out of the format like they are in today’s Modern. I recall not so long ago people complaining about Planeswalkers in Modern, and now you pretty much never see them aside from the ones that cost less than 4. With Legacy, to a bystander like me 3cmc looks like it’s pushing it. I remember a time where cards like Serra Angel and Spiritmonger were premiere threats at 5cmc.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you that they are trying to slow the game down by design. Where I disagree is that I think it’s a good idea, they’re just doing a crappy job of implementing it.
The best I can tell is that they either had a technical mess up with the website and left people up they had already dealt with, or in the absolute worse case they actually left judges who were convicted in the judge program and are actively denying they ever had them in the program to begin with. The disenfranchised youtuber crowd already spread the news all over to the point that I was hearing it in a live stream of PUBG, and the guy running it doesn't even play MtG. This is all on top of the fact that Tolarian, Wedge, and in general anyone being sponsored by anyone with a Mid-large company is being campaigned against. People think these things don't matter, but they matter far more to the people who are not playing that could potentially be playing the game. I've already had two conversations come up with people I tried introducing to this game where it basically went more like:
"Why are you playing this game? It sounds like no one knows what they are doing and the company is about to get hit by a lawsuit or something."
Then I'm scrambling trying to figure out what is going on since I zoned out of this stuff. This has literally been my life for the last 4-5 weeks, which is why instead of doing anything with MtG I've been playing Total War: Warhammer 2 with friends and picked up Force of Will. With FNM also down this is just a natural disaster.
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'm not saying 4+ ccs were ever pushed out of standard. Even Geddon and Wrath are 4cc cards. But fair decks curving into 5 and 6 cc cards only happens because WotC stopped supporting multiple play styles which hosed this strategy (as well as seriously creeping the power of middle costed creatures, and inventing PWs as super midrange value engines).
I'm not trying to say that it's a good or bad idea because I don't know. Only that this style of meta was heavily engineered, not the other way around.
As for what's a good idea, that is hard to say. WotC made the choice to bore some players rather than frustrate other players. That seemed to work, but is it possible that bored players are slower to leave than frustrated players; and that too many players have finally had enough of playing on-curve-fair-magic-only? Maybe WotC needs to risk a little more frustration for some players in favour of less boredom for othets?
I honestly don't know, and I'm kind of glad it's not my problem to sort out.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
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I think a one issue is that Standard has shown less potential for cheap casual decks to do interesting things that are more able to be worth taking to FNM. And here I mean mono or dual color decks, preferably mono-color, that are primarily made of commons with relatively few uncommons.
The gap between rarities in power level has grown too large, and the interesting things have been clustered up towards higher rarities. Back in RTR era standard I was having fun brewing common and uncommon only decks for less than $20, mono-color, one of each color, all of which had coherent strategies, and while not top table in FNM, were at least able to win some rounds without extreme luck and get compliments even from competitive players for doing interesting things with them.
Unfortunately, the average quality of commons has gone way down, and uncommons no longer cover as many bases as they used to in order to help make complete feeling decks that aren't using things outside of viable mana curves without relying on rares. Ever since RTR rotated out, I haven't felt like I could make proper decks like the above without dipping into the pool of rare and mythic options, and even then, there was less interesting new options that could be made, because most of the interactions were very much 'on rails' and specifying things like certain mechanics and tribes and such, so brewing was too boring and wasn't variable enough, and you got stuck within sets/blocks, which often didn't fill out pools well for constructed viable options.
It feels like the percentage of cards in sets which are constructed viable has gone down, and of those that remain, more of them are restricted in what other cards they work well with. Even the rares and mythics seem to have less of them feeling brew-worthy, even if they aren't top table constructed power level.
This is an issue of power dispartity between the top decks, and the average/median power level of cards in a set, as well as things like mechanics like energy, tribal, and devoid being mis-used in an overall sense such that there aren't enough good cards that play well with others outside of set/block.
Another issue is not meeting expectations, to the point that people who want to have fun certain ways just give up. When they _do_ create a tribe, they don't always make sure it's fun in Standard, or even in limited. For instance, Shadows Over Inistrad block didn't really have the proper diversity and tools to create a true werewolf deck that felt right for casual constructed, the cards didn't work together well enough. This obviously left out werewolf lovers. Even the legendary didn't work out right as a proper EDH lead for a werewolf deck that people wanted.
Too many effects these days happen on the wrong points in mana curves, not interacting well with the rest of the effects that go with them in a proper order, often coming a bit too late in exchange for a minor upside, or all being clustered around a relatively small range of mana costs for synergistic effects that then can't truly be played properly together because the deck doesn't work out, since almost everything would be 3-4 cmc.
We see tons of 4 color good-stuff decks because getting the right cards and effects that work together well is more important than getting your colors right reliably, and individual colors don't have in-color complete options, because the number of playable strategies that are able to be done completely and competitively within one or two colors has gone down.
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The next issue is cards retaining value. Players don't go and spend money on standard and draft and keep the cards unless they expect them to retain value long term, that means they need a degree of them to be viable in casual or competitive formats that are actually played. WotC has been good about printing stuff in Standard for EDH, but too much of it is only in the high rarities, and isn't staples that can be brewed into different decks, but is instead specific cards that fit only in specific strategies. They haven't printed nearly enough per set of cards that seem like they'll go into Modern. In particular, they haven't printed enough cards that are key to allow players to actually enter Modern from Standard, which in particular means things like mana bases (fetches and shocks in particular are part of why people liked RTR and were hopeful due to Tarkir but got annoyed later), and things like bolt, seize, path, and push. Opt and Push are great, but the issue is having _enough_ cards like that.
Optimally, I'd say each set needs cards that are Modern playable at least at these rates:
1 mythic (either reprint or new)
7 rare (about at least two of the least of reprints or new cards)
6 uncommon
6 common (for commons and uncommons combined, there should be at least one of each color, and within each there should be at least one good reprint or one good new card depending on which is least)
And of the above, at least 50% should be staples that fit in multiple decks, and no more than 25% should be sideboard focused cards.
When I say modern playable here, I don't mean it has to be T1, but it should be at least not be stuff that is budget alternatives or minor casual theme decks.
Players need to feel more of their cards retain playability value, otherwise the costs for Standard and Limited are much too high.
And when I'm talking value here, I don't mean cost value in the secondary market, they can be cheap cards there, I mean in terms of playability. Cards that don't just take up binder and box space once a set rotates out, but that you actually want to put into decks.
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Card quality:
As has been mentioned by others in the thread, card quality seems to be down, at least in the US. Cards need to be more resilient to the elements and of better starting quality. Cards that can't be played in tournaments are no fun, and every time a card that you would have wanted to play comes out bad to start with or is ruined by it's low quality before it's time causes people to be feel less confident buying future cards. Even just cards not 'feeling good' in your hands causes loss of consumer motivation on a subconscious level even with more casual players.
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Vorthos:
As a Vorthos player, I'm very down on the continuity since Origins. WotC has been portraying things inconsistently, retconning like crazy with questionable reasons for it, and has handled most of their planeswalker characters poorly overall.
Jace has gone through the messed up memories story arcs one too many times, and has a serious problem of 'informed intelligence' where we are told about his intelligence by him solving a puzzle or something, but his on screen decision making and planning portrays him as far less intelligent. His abilities have also been portrayed inconsistently, leaving it unclear what kinds of spells he can cast and what kinds of non-magical skills he possesses and how good they are. Does he still have the sword skills he learned in AoA taught by Kallist? Can he use summoning magic at all anymore, or just illusions now? How easy is it for him to maintain telepathic contact with people? How easy is it for him to put groups of regular soldiers to sleep or mentally stun them? How good and strong is his telekinesis? Can he still do counter-spells and how reliably?
Nissa's character has been all over the place, while they seem to have strongly moved away from her old racism elements for marketing understandable reasons (I think it would have been better to introduce a fresh character instead for that purpose though), her behavior has been generally erratic, different writers seem to have different handles on her character and personality. She sometimes feels like a writer's crutch with how variable her power levels are, as her leyline and world elemental magic seem to be exactly how powerful the plot demands her to be, and she can provide similarly 'exactly how much is needed' power ups to the other Gatewatch members. Her exact personal philosophy and ideals have been gone into a lot, but don't leave a clear picture despite that, possibly because there isn't a consistent vision between the writers, despite such things being core to her character's focus in most of her appearances.
Chandra has been better handled than many of the others, but more due to her simplicity as a character and of her ability set than good handling of her. She's basically a bit childish/emotional and uses fire magic. You don't need that much more detail. Making it clearer if she can use summon magic like in the cards and the old online free comic would be nice, as would better acknowledging her past interactions with Jace and Gideon from the Purifying Fire and the original Zendikar block tie in content.
Liliana seems to be linked to some serious issues with post-mending timeline continuity. Her backstory means that the post-mending situation has been long, except recent retcons and decisions have established it to not be long enough ago for her backstory to make sense. She should have at least been able to slow her aging more without the demons' help relatively easily on multiple of the planes we know she has access to and can network with people on with her level of social skills and personal power, and should have been nowhere near as desperate and old as she was at the point in the timeline far enough ago for her to have made those contracts, given how long ago the mending is currently established to be, as well as the age she was when her spark ignited. It also feels like the Chain Veil arc has added undue complications that were part of an older overaching story plan that is no longer the main focus, but the WotC writers trapped themselves into due to involving Liliana, Ob, Garruk, and Jace into it in such a prominent way previously. It feels like she's half-running on the plot line they were originally planning on prior to the Origins reboot, and it shows in how busy her arcs tend to be, like they are trying to cram an entire separate storyline for the whole of magic into just her personal bits.
Gideon... really shouldn't have been made to be from Theros, his original character didn't feel or look Greek enough, and the shoehorning done was really awkward. Like Jace, what he can do is somewhat unclear at times as well, if he has any powers besides his special weapon and indestructibility, he doesn't use them much. He also seems to be granted importance by NPCs far too easily for too little reason, rising through the ranks and becoming local organization leader in pretty much every arc and plane he's shown up in far too easily, without really showing the levels of charisma or leadership skills that you would expect would be needed to explain what happens, relying instead of being an indestructible good guy. He feels like a pet rock passed around by the plot more than an actual character a lot of the time.
Overall, we've had tons of retcons, usually part of introducing new blocks and sets to excuse fitting plot elements and characters they want in, relatively little payoff, and characters who may have actually gotten LESS interesting than they started out due to awkward handling by a writing team that isn't all on the same board and too much PR focus.
We've also gotten a lot of faction focused worlds where it's hard for players to properly sympathize with the factions that they would most want to play in the style of, creating an awkward disconnect between the settings and the gameplay.
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The Masters sets are poison to consumer confidence.
The high prices and limited print runs make them give about as much confidence to players as things like Star Wars Battlefront II. Collectors might prefer cards being kept more expensive, but expensive cardboard isn't so great for players, and it creates a bad balance between players and collectors. Making reprint focused sets be collector motivations focused is a bad idea to start with, collectors should be most interested in the first printed versions of cards, or rare rewards versions like alternate art promos, not cards simply being playable in a competitive format.
The price difference between it and normal sets alienates players who might otherwise be interested in graduating from Standard to non-rotating formats, setting up a sort of elitism that makes new players nervous about non-rotating formats, and less willing to consider playing magic at all once they find out about it, since it seems like WotC will gouge you once they bait you in with Standard, and any good cards are too good for current Standard reprints, because they'd rather make people pay more for them in Masters sets, and make Standard cards less worthwhile to buy in the first place, since they'll mostly only be played in Standard, and not retain play value long term.
The limited print runs encourage buy-outs that alienate players AND collectors in favor of speculators who gamble on the secondary card market by inflating the prices on the secondary market and making it hard to get in the primary market in some areas.
WotC hasn't been handling the issues surrounding modern internet sales in the secondary market, where buyouts can happen beyond the local level, price data is shared rapidly, and speculators treat the card markets like a stock market with less regulations. They need to change their policies to take into account the nature of the internet, and have repeatedly shown that they don't understand it, and have made worse and not addressed the excesses of it's worst elements that harm the game.
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The Wizards Brand:
The target market groups have been losing confidence in the Wizards brand. Just look at the players lost from D&D to Pathfinder, for instance. Wizards has been experimenting in various ways with their products in ways that alienate players, rather than giving people what they want, and introducing their experiments as new products, they've been destroying old elements out of mistaken beliefs about what the consumer wants.
They've shown a serious disconnect with their target audiences, and competitors have started eating up the consumers that WotC is abandoning. They aren't adapting properly or fast enough to changing technology either, and have used numerous consumer unfriendly practices when they have worked with technology in the slow and awkward and constantly re-starting way they have.
Wizards seems to have lost sight of things around the time of 4th edition, and the way they've handled 5th edition has shown that while they have listened to feedback, they haven't fully understood it or listened to enough of it, nor made a clear decision. They also haven't put enough resources into editing and play-testing of sufficient quality in either magic or D&D. Repeated mistakes have eroded the confidence of long-time players, especially the more obvious ones that most players pick up on quickly in the first read-throughs of new magic sets or D&D books, making it obvious they aren't getting enough or smart enough people to look through their products with fresh eyes prior to sending things off to print. Standard bans and super-obvious D&D book errata issues make it clear that quality control has been suffering and Wizards might not really have the talent levels to give us trustworthy products anymore, especially not at the premium prices demanded by full color rulebooks and collectible card games when it comes to hobbies, and when competing with other products like Pathfinder, Hearthstone, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, etc.
But even the 'super obvious' stuff are just the things that go too far, its the subtle stuff that are merely questionable that erode confidence even before things stumble into the 'too far' zone. Complaints over things like Collected Company and Seige Rhino being too far away in power level from the rest of the format started turning up long before we had Standard bans after all. Questionable quality control and game balance can't be ignored even if it never goes completely over the edge into disaster zone.
In short, WotC has lost confidence of people, and not just in the Magic brand, but in D&D as well, which carries over in the brand-name trust issues.
Creeping the power of middle costed creatures and pushing Planeswalkers dates back to Lorwyn block in 2007. Ten years. That’s kind of old news at this point, the game has had ups and downs since then. If it was the cause of what is currently ailing Standard, it would have happened before now. It would also be ruining Modern. What is killing Standard right now is a design change that began with BFZ, which I would describe as a massive, across the board lowering of the power level of all cards resulting in a Standard format dominated by the mistakes.
True, but they they've been pushing them more and more. And they've been gradually nerfing dorks, sweepers, Mana Leak, and removal all the while. This might have started in 2007, but it has been taken to the extreme.
It's been less than 5 years since WotC have really taken those things away from us. Given that bored players will probably hang in for a while before they jump ship, and that Standard has been having problems for years, I do not think we can rule out their core design philosophies as being part of the problem.
Also WotC were riding an explosive growth in the gaming community 5 years ago. MTG in 2012 may have been popular despite design, not because of it.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
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They are not pushing creatures necessarily. The creatures dominating Standard right now aren’t seeing modern play on the whole. Creatures might be on top right now, but their power level compared to Modern is down just like everything else.
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!
It is.
Maro's design changes got us here. He's said so. He's even admitted that 'mistakes were made'. Please don't doubt this the evidence is out there in articles and tweets and yes it's from Maro's questionnaires and misinterpretation of flawed data. He presented the way to make more money to the HASBRO overlords and everyone at WotC drank the coolaid.
Product differentiation right now comes from the top, new CEO is pushing to pick up new markets and relying on the cogs to keep their regular products upticking. WotC is failing utterly on several fronts.
The drive for more products is damaging them more than they know. They should be reprinting Modern staples in Standard sets. Even if it's only one or two cards per set that is where they should be printing those cards. The Modern Masters (and other premium releases) are leading to product fatigue and harming sales overall. It pulls away from regular releases. Why buy the recent crap product when you can save and just buy the expensive stuff. And then people get sick of that too. These reprints can also help them make standard better.
The talk of creature magic (midrange fest) is because of fundamental design.
Maro has said (in so many words) people don't like their fattys countered or killed lets give them cards they want to buy.
That attitude is completely asinine when you're designing a game that requires balance.
We are suffering the results.
Even in this recent release they are still not fixing answers and bolstering control to match creature quality (great time for some reprints right?).
It's not just Energy. It started going off the rails with CoCo and continued through bans (when they admitted things are FUBAR) all the way to now. 3 deck Standard is boring.
Marketing
These guys are completely detached from reality. They have no connection to the consumers and are not properly tracking LGS info. They are top down jacking up MTG and should get cleaned out to start over with community connected individuals dedicated to making the game succeed first.
Story
(a little bit of vomit in my throat) They need to strip this department out, completely disconnect it from development.
City's Blessing as an example was explained by DeTorra yesterday as "a flavor mechanic". Story over game integrity is a design philosophy flaw.
Story should be run by an editor employing a few real writers publishing novels and online promotional short stories which the card sets can draw from for reference and flavor quotes BUT NOT design. Any card can be given a name and flavor text relating to story without compromising game design if you start from solid design and not FLAVOR. The characters are generic and juvenile, they are completely dropping the ball.
Maro is at the top of the food chain at WotC and people like Chris Cocks likely don't understand the details on the ground enough to place blame where it's due. Maybe they think there's no one else who can do his job, it's hard to say. I had hoped Unstable would be Maro's last set after all these mistakes and destruction of Standard. Since it wasn't the only interpretation is that the guys in charge think he's doing fine or the problems are not his fault.
I'd be shocked if Chris Cocks had ever played a game of magic before becoming CEO. I'm going to bet he likely still hasn't, that's not his job but then how could he possibly see that his minions are screwing him? So who at WotC is going to tell the CEO that the head designer has done a lot more damage then they might perceive? I bet it's all blamed on market shift. Bullpoop.
So until Maro decides that he's been COMPLETELY WRONG and stops his poor data collection and interpretation we will not get the better game. It would be really easy to produce. Just go back to the old ways, drop several new products and make the game work like when Standard was great.
Did I come off as saying that card development isn't a problem? That's not at all what I meant by what I was saying earlier about the drama and stuff. I was just saying that the main difference between Caw Blade era and this one is that they drama is happening on top of the development issues so the company is getting hammered from a lot of angles. The sad thing is that they likely will retract even further into their shell if they keep getting pressed and make things worse for everyone. Honestly, they do somewhat deserve some of the flak they are getting, though. The company has given me the impression they just ignore people and print cards, then pretend to actually pay attention to people with surveys that go no where or are poorly written.
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!
Hell Maro is design, his defenders like to say 'that's not his job' a lot. Y'know what's not his job either? Data collection. That's Marketing's job.
That's kind of beggingvthe question, because there is no consensus as to what the source of the problem is. This is all speculation.
I believe it is a possibility that "power creep and creatures In General" (more so the nerfing of everything else) might in fact be the source of the problem. Yes, it worked in the past, but it's not 2013 anymore. The player base is now more established (a lower percentage of the players are new), plus the whole model of a 90%+ midrange meta is no longer fresh.
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UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats