Also, they keep making Masters sets... they want to give people incentive to buy into eternal formats. Eternal formats have a lot more "customer" retention. Standard is where people get bummed out and stop playing because their 500$ investment is now worth 42.11$.
This is also why the next three sets in Ravnica will bring a lot of people back to Standard. Shocklands are money, and always will be. People will buy into this mana base, despite its price, because they can be confident it will be worth something in 2 years.
Almost all the people I play with have moved on to Modern or EDH. After a few Standard rotations... they have begun to see Standard as some sort of pyramiding scheme where people just lose money. If a new Ravnica set is released, we would just buy singles good for eternal formats like Shocklands, but we will not play Standard.
Also, they keep making Masters sets... they want to give people incentive to buy into eternal formats. Eternal formats have a lot more "customer" retention. Standard is where people get bummed out and stop playing because their 500$ investment is now worth 42.11$.
This is also why the next three sets in Ravnica will bring a lot of people back to Standard. Shocklands are money, and always will be. People will buy into this mana base, despite its price, because they can be confident it will be worth something in 2 years.
Almost all the people I play with have moved on to Modern or EDH. After a few Standard rotations... they have begun to see Standard as some sort of pyramiding scheme where people just lose money. If a new Ravnica set is released, we would just buy singles good for eternal formats like Shocklands, but we will not play Standard.
Yeah, the transition happens anywhere between 2 to 4 years. I've played for a lot longer and I don't even bother with FNM anymore because standard FNM and draft are just a waste of time. Thing is I want to see modern get support outside of standard because Legacy is just not a viable thing long term.
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 problem with moving away from Standard to EDH/Commander or Modern is more of a question of one's play style. Do they enjoy two to three hour grind fests in a 100 singleton format or do they prefer a more fast paced format that's less time consuming? To me they mainly do this because it's more affordable, not because it's better. When it comes to non-Singleton formats like Standard and Modern it's less about getting the most fun out of playing Magic when it's more about winning to the point where players are being pressured to cheat in order to get ahead unless it's Kitchen Table Casual.
As Magic players, one can make the argument that we expect way too much from Wizards of the Coast as all we're doing is setting ourselves up for disappointment when things don't go our own way. That's pretty much the entertainment industry in a nutshell nowadays where we've grown accustomed to this culture of instant gratification. We're excited about one thing and then months later we move onto the next and then the cycle repeats itself. That's sort of a pyramid scheme in itself but I guess that's capitalism for ya.
"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
To the Op, the destruction of standard started about 3 1/2 years ago now where the design model for standard was intentionally changed from overall card balance to a new fancy 'print cards people want to buy' and nerf counters and kill spells because 'no one likes their fatty countered or removed'. Standard has been falling apart and a dumpster fire the whole time. Thus the bans, the lack of participation, the utterly crappy standard metas we've seen since.
Thanks Maro and team.
They still haven't sworn off all this philosophy. It's why we're still seeing the pushed cards and why they still resist ban hammering them. They like to say 'lesson learned' but it looks more like 'lesson interpreted the way we want to'.
Promos out then in, rotation shortened then walked back, don't play on Friday play when we want you to, 40+ dollar cards, Kaladesh (nuff said), BaB disaster, it's like they're trying to screw themselves but really they're just bumbling while trying to make more money for the Hasbro overlords. Sometimes you have to do things better (the traditional way) to make more money not just push out more product. This is one of those cases.
To the Op, the destruction of standard started about 3 1/2 years ago now where the design model for standard was intentionally changed from overall card balance to a new fancy 'print cards people want to buy' and nerf counters and kill spells because 'no one likes their fatty countered or removed'. Standard has been falling apart and a dumpster fire the whole time. Thus the bans, the lack of participation, the utterly crappy standard metas we've seen since.
Thanks Maro and team.
They still haven't sworn off all this philosophy. It's why we're still seeing the pushed cards and why they still resist ban hammering them. They like to say 'lesson learned' but it looks more like 'lesson interpreted the way we want to'.
Promos out then in, rotation shortened then walked back, don't play on Friday play when we want you to, 40+ dollar cards, Kaladesh (nuff said), BaB disaster, it's like they're trying to screw themselves but really they're just bumbling while trying to make more money for the Hasbro overlords. Sometimes you have to do things better (the traditional way) to make more money not just push out more product. This is one of those cases.
To the Op, the destruction of standard started about 3 1/2 years ago now where the design model for standard was intentionally changed from overall card balance to a new fancy 'print cards people want to buy' and nerf counters and kill spells because 'no one likes their fatty countered or removed'. Standard has been falling apart and a dumpster fire the whole time. Thus the bans, the lack of participation, the utterly crappy standard metas we've seen since.
Thanks Maro and team.
They still haven't sworn off all this philosophy. It's why we're still seeing the pushed cards and why they still resist ban hammering them. They like to say 'lesson learned' but it looks more like 'lesson interpreted the way we want to'.
Promos out then in, rotation shortened then walked back, don't play on Friday play when we want you to, 40+ dollar cards, Kaladesh (nuff said), BaB disaster, it's like they're trying to screw themselves but really they're just bumbling while trying to make more money for the Hasbro overlords. Sometimes you have to do things better (the traditional way) to make more money not just push out more product. This is one of those cases.
To the Op, the destruction of standard started about 3 1/2 years ago now where the design model for standard was intentionally changed from overall card balance to a new fancy 'print cards people want to buy' and nerf counters and kill spells because 'no one likes their fatty countered or removed'. Standard has been falling apart and a dumpster fire the whole time. Thus the bans, the lack of participation, the utterly crappy standard metas we've seen since.
Thanks Maro and team.
They still haven't sworn off all this philosophy. It's why we're still seeing the pushed cards and why they still resist ban hammering them. They like to say 'lesson learned' but it looks more like 'lesson interpreted the way we want to'.
Promos out then in, rotation shortened then walked back, don't play on Friday play when we want you to, 40+ dollar cards, Kaladesh (nuff said), BaB disaster, it's like they're trying to screw themselves but really they're just bumbling while trying to make more money for the Hasbro overlords. Sometimes you have to do things better (the traditional way) to make more money not just push out more product. This is one of those cases.
I don't think we will be out of the doldrums until after Ravnica rotates out. That is when the new-new-new Standard will fully be here, with sets wholly designed in the new 3-Sets-and-a-Core-Set design philosophy. Until then, we will still be hobbled by WotC's years' long meddling with how Standard works.
Agreed. However, if everyone do what we did and no one play Standard... it would be bad for WoTc business.
Standard is still a good starting point for beginners. Cheaper entry cost, and the cards are easier to acquire because they are from newer sets.
I've played the game both ways and wizards delivers great limited and draft products. The trouble comes into weaving their limited designed sets together into a concise whole.
Modern and legacy are actually games in of themselves. They are basically the living card game concept married to a quickplay product.
Ultimately, I think the company should run the PT with a cube format for eternal based on some reprint set(s) and core set. Let the GP carry the modern and legacy crowd.
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 will happily play Standard, as long as I can destroy my opponent's mana or hand every now and then. Otherwise if it is Combat-The Gathering/ Creatures the Tappening and you can count me out. There are so many colors of magic, but standard is just one grey mess. It is perfectly OK if everyone hates their hand or land being attacked, it should never be the number one deck, but when the whole game is reduced to mid range mush or who drew their soon-to-be-banned artifact first the whole format becomes pants, all because Johnny Newbie fills in a form to say he would play more if the counters and discard were weaker. Well newsflash, if you quit at the first sign of Stone Rain, Counterspell or Hymn, good riddance. The game does not need players who quit the moment things get different, moving away from the idea of big things bumping off each other. Hell we have so many moving parts but Johnny Newbie wants to play Top Trumps with critters. Until standard is more than critters plus planeswalkers it will always be a second class mtg experience.
I've played the game both ways and wizards delivers great limited and draft products. The trouble comes into weaving their limited designed sets together into a concise whole.
I'm probably attracting some frowns for "defending" them, but the problem with non-rotating formats is the ever-increasing card pool just makes it harder and harder for new products to "weave in", which is why generally they don't like it (and at the worst times they ignore it than BFZ Eldrazi winter happens).
What had 10,000 cards for them to check against new designs has 15,000 now and will have 20,000 in the future. Meanwhile their overall brain capacity power definitely didn't scale in response (and if anything I wouldn't be surprised reverse happens on the occasion that corporate headquarters loves to cut costs...). Never a problem for us players because we outnumber them tremendously, but same corporate law on them so they can't utilize us to do the "beta-testing" to begin with (knowing the idiosyncrasies out there there's some frivolous lawsuit waiting to happen if it did and even frivolous ones waste time and money).
So, yeah, I honestly don't blame them for preferring Standard, but here's where the "defending" ends, because well, recently they've shown they can't even handle Standard either. Saheeli-Felidar got through the cracks is probably the poster-child for this issue for me at least (although it's not the only one, just the easiest obvious one to use as example).
So at this point, they really have to clean their Standard act altogether, for sure, but I also have a question for everyone who wants them to progress to Modern - logistically it's not possible to have them design for Modern the same way they did for Standard BEFORE the trainwreck. In fact, chances are if they designed for Modern, many mistakes will make pass and we'll have "Eldrazi Winters" on occasion. Cards (old or new) will hit the banlist as a result (pretty much the same trainwreck Standard went through), except it'll be the norm. So will you accept that?
The ideal world that R&D can design for a non-rotating format shaking things positively without breaking anything is impossible - the reality is Modern will just run the course that Standard has recently run on, except that that would be the norm for the format instead. When it happened in Standard we can easily blame R&D because Standard was precisely designed to prevent that from happening (and has been their excuse for years), so they have no excuse, but for Modern it's literally there. Note the positive changes Modern saw recently were in some ways just flukes and on top of that were flukes from a Standard-orientated design... trust me if it was shifted towards Modern design, we'll see more disasters like Eldrazi than good flukes on the frequency.
Also, on the topic of paper magic, it's way too profitable for them to give it up until the whole bubble collapses and/or dwindles down (honestly its too unstable to predict either way). But seriously they should design effective small-scale software for use at higher-level tournaments (such as PT) because I've been hearing a lot of unsavory things about the top level of play nowadays that can be solved with good software. I know they're terrible at it but they keep trying to do it on a large-scale, so I'm thinking a small-scale program might be a solution for one problem (ambiguity on sloppy play/cheating) while being a step towards the other one (making actually good MTG software).
I will happily play Standard, as long as I can destroy my opponent's mana or hand every now and then. Otherwise if it is Combat-The Gathering/ Creatures the Tappening and you can count me out. There are so many colors of magic, but standard is just one grey mess. It is perfectly OK if everyone hates their hand or land being attacked, it should never be the number one deck, but when the whole game is reduced to mid range mush or who drew their soon-to-be-banned artifact first the whole format becomes pants, all because Johnny Newbie fills in a form to say he would play more if the counters and discard were weaker. Well newsflash, if you quit at the first sign of Stone Rain, Counterspell or Hymn, good riddance. The game does not need players who quit the moment things get different, moving away from the idea of big things bumping off each other. Hell we have so many moving parts but Johnny Newbie wants to play Top Trumps with critters. Until standard is more than critters plus planeswalkers it will always be a second class mtg experience.
It's somehow a mystery to me why new players get turned off by counterspells. When I was a newbie to this game... my beginner deck got totally trounced on by a mono blue control deck packed with counterspells, forbid, capsize, propaganda, and energy vortex as win con. Well, I kept losing to that deck for awhile.. but after some months of playing I built my own mono blue control deck.. packed with just as many counterspells as that deck and killed him with Cognivore, was satisfying.
Well, about Standard... I guess Wotc just wants magical creatures to keep fighting each other. To be fair... I did like the design of The Scarab God, and will be getting three copies of him when the price drops at rotation.
So I've made threads in the past trying to ascertain why Standard, my favorite format, has been dying these past few years. I've come up with a few (what I think anyway) valid reasons as to why this is happening and what the future may hold for the game in its paper form (and why it may go away):
MTG Online and MTG Arena
MTG Online has been around for a while now. Cards are cheaper to buy here than in paper form (because Wizards doesn't have to worry about card stock, ink, and shipping costs). Magic players, many of which who are somewhat awkward/anti-social IRL, have even less incentive to attend physical tournaments. Instead, they can play the game in the comfort of their home, and have little to no interaction with other people as they see fit. Aside from playing the game, that is. MTG Arena is the same deal, BUT (as of right now) it exclusively supports the Standard format. Which, AGAIN, gives Standard players less reasons to play at stores/tournaments.
Paper Card Quality has Deteriorated
There have already been multiple threads on Mtgsalvation alone that have gone into depth as to how/why this has happened. As a paper player, I personally feel like I'm playing with an inferior product. But I also see this as a sign that Wizards believes gamers won't care about this unless they're collectors (I am not one of these, I buy in for the game). It's a cost-cutting move that makes them more money in the long run, players be damned. This makes it harder for players who invest in the paper game to preserve the quality of cards they wish to trade in with vendors/buddies because the cards are more easily damaged. I find it hard to bring myself to purchase expensive $20+ cards for this reason alone, but didn't really have a problem with this in the past.
Standard Player Turnout/Tournament Coverage
I've been told by other players that play other formats that standard is a boring format because the card pool is smaller and there's only 2-3 decks that dominate the field. This is partly true, but I think it has to do with how the format is covered, more so than anything else. A lot of tournaments these days are Team Constructed. The goal from broadcasters is to highlight each format equally, but that often isn't the case. I can't tell you guys how frustrating it's been to want to tune in a watch a good Standard match, only to see Modern and Legacy get most of the screen time. Heck, at Pro Tour 25 Anniversary Turbo Fog was getting a lot of hype and placed 5th overall. It used Nexus of Fate, a card that is currently $45+. Speculators are saying the card could get even more expensive should Turbo Fog become the dominate deck in the format. How many times did I get to see the deck work on camera? Once. One time. And this happens more often than not.
I think all of these reasons (and others I haven't mentioned because they require a serious, more adult conversation) will eventually lead to the end of paper magic in the next few years. Let me know what you guys think is the root cause of all this!
I personally think, and I could be wrong, that if they attempt to branch into the esports world and become fully or even primarily online based, it will be the death of magic. The appeal of magic is it's the longest lasting, best made card game ever. Culturally it's unique, it's community is diverse and seems special to most players I speak with whether casual or pros. The cards being physical makes them have a special kind of importance and sitting across from your opponent while playing vs them has an appeal and dignity to it similar to chess.
At this point, what makes magic special is everything that sets it apart from things like Hearthstone, I get hearthstone makes more money, gives out bigger prizes and has a larger player base but that sort of makes sense, hearthstone requires less money(virtually free to play), it's far easier to learn, it's easy time wise you can literally play it on your phone while pooping but if they push to model magic after this...it will just become another online game, when it's really much more than that.
Actually walking into independently owned stores and becoming part of communities, making friends, hanging out and playing a game together, sharing a culture together is pretty awesome and unique in this day and age. As far as the competitive aspect, I think for most of us more serious players the traveling aspect, the face to face competition and the camaraderie when you show to events and see everyone you know through competition is literally the best damn part.
I don't get it, the game may be a little too expensive, especially modern and Legacy but the card market is somewhat stable. Counterfeit are becoming a bit of a problem too, but I don't think it's the end of the world. However, magic isn't even comparable to your gaming consoles and esports, it is it's very own special thing. Throwing that away for short term gains isn't wise in my opinion, interest will dwindle and it will just become another online CCG, nothing special and slowly die.
I've played the game both ways and wizards delivers great limited and draft products. The trouble comes into weaving their limited designed sets together into a concise whole.
I'm probably attracting some frowns for "defending" them, but the problem with non-rotating formats is the ever-increasing card pool just makes it harder and harder for new products to "weave in", which is why generally they don't like it (and at the worst times they ignore it than BFZ Eldrazi winter happens).
What had 10,000 cards for them to check against new designs has 15,000 now and will have 20,000 in the future. Meanwhile their overall brain capacity power definitely didn't scale in response (and if anything I wouldn't be surprised reverse happens on the occasion that corporate headquarters loves to cut costs...). Never a problem for us players because we outnumber them tremendously, but same corporate law on them so they can't utilize us to do the "beta-testing" to begin with (knowing the idiosyncrasies out there there's some frivolous lawsuit waiting to happen if it did and even frivolous ones waste time and money).
So, yeah, I honestly don't blame them for preferring Standard, but here's where the "defending" ends, because well, recently they've shown they can't even handle Standard either. Saheeli-Felidar got through the cracks is probably the poster-child for this issue for me at least (although it's not the only one, just the easiest obvious one to use as example).
So at this point, they really have to clean their Standard act altogether, for sure, but I also have a question for everyone who wants them to progress to Modern - logistically it's not possible to have them design for Modern the same way they did for Standard BEFORE the trainwreck. In fact, chances are if they designed for Modern, many mistakes will make pass and we'll have "Eldrazi Winters" on occasion. Cards (old or new) will hit the banlist as a result (pretty much the same trainwreck Standard went through), except it'll be the norm. So will you accept that?
The ideal world that R&D can design for a non-rotating format shaking things positively without breaking anything is impossible - the reality is Modern will just run the course that Standard has recently run on, except that that would be the norm for the format instead. When it happened in Standard we can easily blame R&D because Standard was precisely designed to prevent that from happening (and has been their excuse for years), so they have no excuse, but for Modern it's literally there. Note the positive changes Modern saw recently were in some ways just flukes and on top of that were flukes from a Standard-orientated design... trust me if it was shifted towards Modern design, we'll see more disasters like Eldrazi than good flukes on the frequency.
Also, on the topic of paper magic, it's way too profitable for them to give it up until the whole bubble collapses and/or dwindles down (honestly its too unstable to predict either way). But seriously they should design effective small-scale software for use at higher-level tournaments (such as PT) because I've been hearing a lot of unsavory things about the top level of play nowadays that can be solved with good software. I know they're terrible at it but they keep trying to do it on a large-scale, so I'm thinking a small-scale program might be a solution for one problem (ambiguity on sloppy play/cheating) while being a step towards the other one (making actually good MTG software).
The design process is different for a non-rotating product vs a rotating one, and they aren't necessarily incompatible with one another. I think the easiest way to describe the difference of the processes is that non-rotating formats is like tending to a backyard with bush arrangements, while standard and limited is like growing a small garden each year.
Non-rotating formats are not about trying to balance the pool of cards by trying to strictly design for it. If someone lets cards from each new set into the format, that format will slowly get pushed into a faster and faster format as the pushed creatures and spells of each new set enter the format. The way to handle this is to actually produce strong policing cards to push people away from abusing this. Force of Will, Stifle, Guttural Response, Chalice of the Void, Wasteland, Rest in Peace, and Leyline of Sanctity are all cards designed to help achieve this goal. Ironically, the real way to balance these formats to make sure all parts of the color pie get represented is to make sure all the colors have an equal representation of policing cards, which is best achieved through using artifacts as they can be used universally.
Rotating formats are managed through the absence of cards. If they limit how many burn spells are available in standard and draft sets, than they can prevent archetypes from forming such as burn. This is where WoTC fell hard during the last few years and why the company went through a restructuring in the R&D + design department. If something goes wrong in the limited and standard environment, it falls onto the shoulders of those designers much more heavily than for non-rotating formats.
At the moment, the main issue the company needs to resolve is locking things down to one eternal format. Right now there is legacy and modern, but they really just need a non-RL legacy format for the eternal play. That was supposed to be the intent with bringing about modern, but it didn't achieve this because they shifted how they designed cards too much and will never reprint many of the non-RL cards in a standard set again. This helped push the production and illegal sale of proxies / counterfeit cards and has resulted in a lot of unnecessary hatred and conflict among the community: Especially between investors, collectors, and the average player. Stores and Distributors are kind of in a different sphere.
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!
2. I don't care about card stock. I don't buy these to sell them later. And trading I think has all but died as everyone just buys their cards online (why bother trading when you know exactly how much its worth? People prefer to trade a $20 card for a $20 card, may as well just spend the $20 to have both
Pucatrade, Cardsphere, this site (Marketplace), MOTL, Deckbox, etc... would beg to differ. Trading online is at its highest imho. I get about 80% of my singles through online trading, about 5-10% through in person trading, and about 10-15% are purchases from online purchases, while less than 5% are brick n' mortar purchases.
Paper's not going anywhere. There will still be those ( a majority of player, I believe) who still dig the social aspect of Magic.
2. I don't care about card stock. I don't buy these to sell them later. And trading I think has all but died as everyone just buys their cards online (why bother trading when you know exactly how much its worth? People prefer to trade a $20 card for a $20 card, may as well just spend the $20 to have both
Pucatrade, Cardsphere, this site (Marketplace), MOTL, Deckbox, etc... would beg to differ. Trading online is at its highest imho. I get about 80% of my singles through online trading, about 5-10% through in person trading, and about 10-15% are purchases from online purchases, while less than 5% are brick n' mortar purchases.
Paper's not going anywhere. There will still be those ( a majority of player, I believe) who still dig the social aspect of Magic.
Oh yeah, I'd say about 95% of all my singles purchases are from online vendors, and the vast majority of my purchases come from Ebay and TCG Player.
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!
To the Op, the destruction of standard started about 3 1/2 years ago now where the design model for standard was intentionally changed from overall card balance to a new fancy 'print cards people want to buy' and nerf counters and kill spells because 'no one likes their fatty countered or removed'. Standard has been falling apart and a dumpster fire the whole time. Thus the bans, the lack of participation, the utterly crappy standard metas we've seen since.
Thanks Maro and team.
They still haven't sworn off all this philosophy. It's why we're still seeing the pushed cards and why they still resist ban hammering them. They like to say 'lesson learned' but it looks more like 'lesson interpreted the way we want to'.
Promos out then in, rotation shortened then walked back, don't play on Friday play when we want you to, 40+ dollar cards, Kaladesh (nuff said), BaB disaster, it's like they're trying to screw themselves but really they're just bumbling while trying to make more money for the Hasbro overlords. Sometimes you have to do things better (the traditional way) to make more money not just push out more product. This is one of those cases.
They actually need ETB hate and support for archetypes that do not depend on that type of gameplay angle. The entire reason red is so good is because they had multiple ways to negate blocks, do damage, etc, via ETB triggers.
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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Almost all the people I play with have moved on to Modern or EDH. After a few Standard rotations... they have begun to see Standard as some sort of pyramiding scheme where people just lose money. If a new Ravnica set is released, we would just buy singles good for eternal formats like Shocklands, but we will not play Standard.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Yeah, the transition happens anywhere between 2 to 4 years. I've played for a lot longer and I don't even bother with FNM anymore because standard FNM and draft are just a waste of time. Thing is I want to see modern get support outside of standard because Legacy is just not a viable thing long term.
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!
Standard is still a good starting point for beginners. Cheaper entry cost, and the cards are easier to acquire because they are from newer sets.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
As Magic players, one can make the argument that we expect way too much from Wizards of the Coast as all we're doing is setting ourselves up for disappointment when things don't go our own way. That's pretty much the entertainment industry in a nutshell nowadays where we've grown accustomed to this culture of instant gratification. We're excited about one thing and then months later we move onto the next and then the cycle repeats itself. That's sort of a pyramid scheme in itself but I guess that's capitalism for ya.
"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
Thanks Maro and team.
They still haven't sworn off all this philosophy. It's why we're still seeing the pushed cards and why they still resist ban hammering them. They like to say 'lesson learned' but it looks more like 'lesson interpreted the way we want to'.
Promos out then in, rotation shortened then walked back, don't play on Friday play when we want you to, 40+ dollar cards, Kaladesh (nuff said), BaB disaster, it's like they're trying to screw themselves but really they're just bumbling while trying to make more money for the Hasbro overlords. Sometimes you have to do things better (the traditional way) to make more money not just push out more product. This is one of those cases.
Thanks Maro and team.
They still haven't sworn off all this philosophy. It's why we're still seeing the pushed cards and why they still resist ban hammering them. They like to say 'lesson learned' but it looks more like 'lesson interpreted the way we want to'.
Promos out then in, rotation shortened then walked back, don't play on Friday play when we want you to, 40+ dollar cards, Kaladesh (nuff said), BaB disaster, it's like they're trying to screw themselves but really they're just bumbling while trying to make more money for the Hasbro overlords. Sometimes you have to do things better (the traditional way) to make more money not just push out more product. This is one of those cases.
Thanks Maro and team.
They still haven't sworn off all this philosophy. It's why we're still seeing the pushed cards and why they still resist ban hammering them. They like to say 'lesson learned' but it looks more like 'lesson interpreted the way we want to'.
Promos out then in, rotation shortened then walked back, don't play on Friday play when we want you to, 40+ dollar cards, Kaladesh (nuff said), BaB disaster, it's like they're trying to screw themselves but really they're just bumbling while trying to make more money for the Hasbro overlords. Sometimes you have to do things better (the traditional way) to make more money not just push out more product. This is one of those cases.
I don't think we will be out of the doldrums until after Ravnica rotates out. That is when the new-new-new Standard will fully be here, with sets wholly designed in the new 3-Sets-and-a-Core-Set design philosophy. Until then, we will still be hobbled by WotC's years' long meddling with how Standard works.
I've played the game both ways and wizards delivers great limited and draft products. The trouble comes into weaving their limited designed sets together into a concise whole.
Modern and legacy are actually games in of themselves. They are basically the living card game concept married to a quickplay product.
Ultimately, I think the company should run the PT with a cube format for eternal based on some reprint set(s) and core set. Let the GP carry the modern and legacy crowd.
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 probably attracting some frowns for "defending" them, but the problem with non-rotating formats is the ever-increasing card pool just makes it harder and harder for new products to "weave in", which is why generally they don't like it (and at the worst times they ignore it than BFZ Eldrazi winter happens).
What had 10,000 cards for them to check against new designs has 15,000 now and will have 20,000 in the future. Meanwhile their overall brain capacity power definitely didn't scale in response (and if anything I wouldn't be surprised reverse happens on the occasion that corporate headquarters loves to cut costs...). Never a problem for us players because we outnumber them tremendously, but same corporate law on them so they can't utilize us to do the "beta-testing" to begin with (knowing the idiosyncrasies out there there's some frivolous lawsuit waiting to happen if it did and even frivolous ones waste time and money).
So, yeah, I honestly don't blame them for preferring Standard, but here's where the "defending" ends, because well, recently they've shown they can't even handle Standard either. Saheeli-Felidar got through the cracks is probably the poster-child for this issue for me at least (although it's not the only one, just the easiest obvious one to use as example).
So at this point, they really have to clean their Standard act altogether, for sure, but I also have a question for everyone who wants them to progress to Modern - logistically it's not possible to have them design for Modern the same way they did for Standard BEFORE the trainwreck. In fact, chances are if they designed for Modern, many mistakes will make pass and we'll have "Eldrazi Winters" on occasion. Cards (old or new) will hit the banlist as a result (pretty much the same trainwreck Standard went through), except it'll be the norm. So will you accept that?
The ideal world that R&D can design for a non-rotating format shaking things positively without breaking anything is impossible - the reality is Modern will just run the course that Standard has recently run on, except that that would be the norm for the format instead. When it happened in Standard we can easily blame R&D because Standard was precisely designed to prevent that from happening (and has been their excuse for years), so they have no excuse, but for Modern it's literally there. Note the positive changes Modern saw recently were in some ways just flukes and on top of that were flukes from a Standard-orientated design... trust me if it was shifted towards Modern design, we'll see more disasters like Eldrazi than good flukes on the frequency.
Also, on the topic of paper magic, it's way too profitable for them to give it up until the whole bubble collapses and/or dwindles down (honestly its too unstable to predict either way). But seriously they should design effective small-scale software for use at higher-level tournaments (such as PT) because I've been hearing a lot of unsavory things about the top level of play nowadays that can be solved with good software. I know they're terrible at it but they keep trying to do it on a large-scale, so I'm thinking a small-scale program might be a solution for one problem (ambiguity on sloppy play/cheating) while being a step towards the other one (making actually good MTG software).
It's somehow a mystery to me why new players get turned off by counterspells. When I was a newbie to this game... my beginner deck got totally trounced on by a mono blue control deck packed with counterspells, forbid, capsize, propaganda, and energy vortex as win con. Well, I kept losing to that deck for awhile.. but after some months of playing I built my own mono blue control deck.. packed with just as many counterspells as that deck and killed him with Cognivore, was satisfying.
Well, about Standard... I guess Wotc just wants magical creatures to keep fighting each other. To be fair... I did like the design of The Scarab God, and will be getting three copies of him when the price drops at rotation.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I personally think, and I could be wrong, that if they attempt to branch into the esports world and become fully or even primarily online based, it will be the death of magic. The appeal of magic is it's the longest lasting, best made card game ever. Culturally it's unique, it's community is diverse and seems special to most players I speak with whether casual or pros. The cards being physical makes them have a special kind of importance and sitting across from your opponent while playing vs them has an appeal and dignity to it similar to chess.
At this point, what makes magic special is everything that sets it apart from things like Hearthstone, I get hearthstone makes more money, gives out bigger prizes and has a larger player base but that sort of makes sense, hearthstone requires less money(virtually free to play), it's far easier to learn, it's easy time wise you can literally play it on your phone while pooping but if they push to model magic after this...it will just become another online game, when it's really much more than that.
Actually walking into independently owned stores and becoming part of communities, making friends, hanging out and playing a game together, sharing a culture together is pretty awesome and unique in this day and age. As far as the competitive aspect, I think for most of us more serious players the traveling aspect, the face to face competition and the camaraderie when you show to events and see everyone you know through competition is literally the best damn part.
I don't get it, the game may be a little too expensive, especially modern and Legacy but the card market is somewhat stable. Counterfeit are becoming a bit of a problem too, but I don't think it's the end of the world. However, magic isn't even comparable to your gaming consoles and esports, it is it's very own special thing. Throwing that away for short term gains isn't wise in my opinion, interest will dwindle and it will just become another online CCG, nothing special and slowly die.
The design process is different for a non-rotating product vs a rotating one, and they aren't necessarily incompatible with one another. I think the easiest way to describe the difference of the processes is that non-rotating formats is like tending to a backyard with bush arrangements, while standard and limited is like growing a small garden each year.
Non-rotating formats are not about trying to balance the pool of cards by trying to strictly design for it. If someone lets cards from each new set into the format, that format will slowly get pushed into a faster and faster format as the pushed creatures and spells of each new set enter the format. The way to handle this is to actually produce strong policing cards to push people away from abusing this. Force of Will, Stifle, Guttural Response, Chalice of the Void, Wasteland, Rest in Peace, and Leyline of Sanctity are all cards designed to help achieve this goal. Ironically, the real way to balance these formats to make sure all parts of the color pie get represented is to make sure all the colors have an equal representation of policing cards, which is best achieved through using artifacts as they can be used universally.
Rotating formats are managed through the absence of cards. If they limit how many burn spells are available in standard and draft sets, than they can prevent archetypes from forming such as burn. This is where WoTC fell hard during the last few years and why the company went through a restructuring in the R&D + design department. If something goes wrong in the limited and standard environment, it falls onto the shoulders of those designers much more heavily than for non-rotating formats.
At the moment, the main issue the company needs to resolve is locking things down to one eternal format. Right now there is legacy and modern, but they really just need a non-RL legacy format for the eternal play. That was supposed to be the intent with bringing about modern, but it didn't achieve this because they shifted how they designed cards too much and will never reprint many of the non-RL cards in a standard set again. This helped push the production and illegal sale of proxies / counterfeit cards and has resulted in a lot of unnecessary hatred and conflict among the community: Especially between investors, collectors, and the average player. Stores and Distributors are kind of in a different sphere.
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!
Pucatrade, Cardsphere, this site (Marketplace), MOTL, Deckbox, etc... would beg to differ. Trading online is at its highest imho. I get about 80% of my singles through online trading, about 5-10% through in person trading, and about 10-15% are purchases from online purchases, while less than 5% are brick n' mortar purchases.
Paper's not going anywhere. There will still be those ( a majority of player, I believe) who still dig the social aspect of Magic.
Oh yeah, I'd say about 95% of all my singles purchases are from online vendors, and the vast majority of my purchases come from Ebay and TCG Player.
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!
They actually need ETB hate and support for archetypes that do not depend on that type of gameplay angle. The entire reason red is so good is because they had multiple ways to negate blocks, do damage, etc, via ETB triggers.
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!