What the hell is happening at Wizards? They keep making, then reversing, *****ty decisions. Crazy idea, next time you guys have an idea, ask yourselves "Are we probably going to have to reverse this decision in a few months" or "Is this a ******* stupid thing to do?" If the answer is yes, don't do it.
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What the hell is happening at Wizards? They keep making, then reversing, *****ty decisions. Crazy idea, next time you guys have an idea, ask yourselves "Are we probably going to have to reverse this decision in a few months" or "Is this a ******* stupid thing to do?" If the answer is yes, don't do it.
There are decisions that everyone thinks won't work, but works out in the end. It's what they do when those decisions don't pan out. At least they are admitting tokens aren't working out and going back to actual cards, unlike those money losing NHL franchises like the Arizona Coyotes. I swear, that Bettman wanted to make hockey work in the desert so bad that he'd rather give Winnipeg the Atlanta Thrashers than the Arizona Coyotes, who were originally the Winnipeg Jets.
Because of the whole Arizona Coyotes fiasco, nobody thought hockey would ever work in the desert, especially Las Vegas, but hockey really worked out in Las Vegas, at least for now. You don't know if you don't try, and if it doesn't work, it isn't stupid to do something, and go back if it doesn't work out.
Imagine a life where you think every decision you make will never work out. You will never get anything done.
I kind of wish that they didn't try to change things at all, and release sets and products like the have been releasing them in 2005 to 2008, with the exception we get core set every year instead of every other year, and part of the core set has new cards like it was from M10 to Origins. They should have kept theme decks the way they were, 4 per expert set, 5 per core set, and never changed them at all.
I would also liked it if they went back to one to specific alt art cards, (1, 5, or 10 cards), being prerelease promos, rather than having any of the rares or mythic rares be the prerelease promo, although I shouldn't care about this since I never attended a prerelease.
Only a few months late, but whatever. I don't actually mind the foil tokens if they happened maybe once a year for a particularly cool (and hopefully useful) token like 4/4 Angels or something. Having ONLY foil tokens though was a terrible idea and they really should have seen this coming. I have to say I don't have a ton of faith in WotC's decision-making at this point. Here's hoping Return to Dominaria turns out well.
They SHOULD simply give out TOKENS AND FNM Promos, so everyone gets something.
This, totally this.
The tokens are cool enough, but I'm not going to go and hit up an FNM just to get one.
Now if it were "Top 4 and you get Fatal Push, everyone else gets the shiny Saproling"? That'd get a lot more people in the door.
Now to get the right cards as promos...
If I were WotC, I would leverage the new 3-and-1 model. In this model, they will be pumping out a new set once every 3 months. Here is how I would structure FNM Promos:
WotC selects 3 popular Rares from the previous set to be the Promos that people win if they do well at FNM.
WotC also selects 3 popular uncommons from the previous set to be promos that are handed out to every participant at FNM.
Each card selected will have variant art, be foiled and have a promo watermark/stamp.
This means that WotC simply needs to design 6 cards per set that they know will be both playable and popular.
"the real-world results did not match our expectations"
What exactly were their expectations???
Tokens instead of playable... people will totally rush standard FNM to get these. We are geniuses!
Standard participation nose dives. Hmm, lets go back that'll fix everything!
Their expectations were that competitive players would go to Saturday instead, leaving newbies and casuals to play out at a gentler level on Friday.
As it happened they played Commander, as ever. The competitive players thought that Standard was a brown shower and that they would turn up on the Friday with their casual mates and also play Commander. The whole thing was to get casuals to play Standard and it failed. FNM attendance for other formats was largely unchanged I would wager.
I may have turned up for more Modern FNM or some such if the promo was 1/1 dovescape birds or some such.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Good promos don't even have to be produced once a month. Hell I'd take Fatal Pushes for 3 months. Its not like I make it in every week to get them.
The promo needs to rotate to ensure people are excited and want to show up. Promos last a month to ensure everyone has at least 1 week to get the promo they want (and those more dedicated can acquire a playset).
Congratulations for the first step to fixing the problems. Now give us back the good removal, hate, land destruction, playable combos and counter magic.
"These changes are the results of feedback from players and stores across the globe"
I want names.
I want to know who in his sane mind told them "screw foil promo, we want flipping tokens. (get it? cos they flip)
it seems I was right lol
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Huey, Dewey and Louie are always dressed in RUG. it is CLEARLY going to be the wedges block Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
Trying to force people out of their habits (standard FNM) and make them play a different night is so ill thought it's hard to see what the logic could have been. Out of touch from reality and their customers obviously.
Much like within the game itself, it's worse to commit to a mistake to avoid looking stupid than it is to make the best movein the bad situation you've put yourself in. They did the right thing here, even though they obviously should never have done tokens in the first place. Let's take a moment here and appreciate that WotC actually did something right.
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When I hit my 3000 post mark, I'm gone for good.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Thank god, these tokens are killing me and attendance at FNM is sometimes 0. Need some good playable uncommons or even commons as foils for prizes instead of these god forsaken tokens.
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I could have forgiven it a tiny bit had they even been alternate art, but no, they were the same ones I get from opening packs at the very draft I attend for FNM. All it did was let me carry one fewer card per week in my draft kit since the tribal tokens also covered treasure. All I have to do now is patiently wait two months for people to come back to FNM, hoping the new promos are actually decently selected cards and that the community isn't burnt out with yet another Masters set incoming.
All I have to do now is patiently wait two months for people to come back to FNM
People actually stopped coming to FNMs because of the tokens, and you expect them to come back when promo cards return? Who are all these people that only come to FNMs for the chance of winning a foil alternate art Noose Constrictor? I have such a hard time accepting the narrative that FNM promos have a huge impact on attendance, except maybe the cream of the crop like Push and Path.
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When I hit my 3000 post mark, I'm gone for good.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
All I have to do now is patiently wait two months for people to come back to FNM
People actually stopped coming to FNMs because of the tokens, and you expect them to come back when promo cards return? Who are all these people that only come to FNMs for the chance of winning a foil alternate art Noose Constrictor? I have such a hard time accepting the narrative that FNM promos have a huge impact on attendance, except maybe the cream of the crop like Push and Path.
If they really want people back perhaps they should consider doing Fatal Push promo again. That'll get people back into the seats, and then they can choose better cards more often like Opt and actual useful Standard/Modern cards.
FNM promos actually have "Timmy trade" value as a flashy alternative in their newest casual commander deck, a foil art of a card you literally cannot get in a pack. I still think the token experiment could have gone better if they even bothered to commission new art. rk Post craps out thousands of dollars a weekend at GPs because people will spend money on stylish versions of cards they want and need. Wizards should have doubled down on fanboy madness and had Rebecca Guay make all of the FNM tokens.
All I have to do now is patiently wait two months for people to come back to FNM
People actually stopped coming to FNMs because of the tokens, and you expect them to come back when promo cards return? Who are all these people that only come to FNMs for the chance of winning a foil alternate art Noose Constrictor? I have such a hard time accepting the narrative that FNM promos have a huge impact on attendance, except maybe the cream of the crop like Push and Path.
Some competitive players like to play fancy, competitive cards.
When you remove the "competitive" pool of players from attending FNM, you don't even have enough people to run FNM half of the time.
I don't play Standard, so typically don't go to FNMs, but when Path and Serums were up for grabs, the stores were packed, and I made sure I had a deck to attend those. Promos definitely drive attendance. Especially when they're 5$+ bills.
Good promos drive up attendance.
Bad promos are crap
Tokens are worse than crap.
They need to learn from their mistakes (and successes) and give us promos people will participate to get.
Standard attendance sucks because standard sucks (thanks Maro) but taking things away and trying to send people away from FNM for no reason at all other than some moron's brilliant flash in marketing is killing the game completely.
On one hand: I applaud Wizards for actually fixing their bad decision
On the other hand: Why does WOTC keep making obviously bad decisions in the first place?
Finance. When I looked back at the decisions made and the reasonings they listed, it was odd that it was always in opposition or ignorance of the players playing the game.
From the way the sets got released, it looked like their plan was to push standard sales via faster rotation. This might be because they felt they bit more than they could chew with Modern support and found that the modern game was causing a decrease in standard sales, hence the dropping of core sets and the funneling of all non-rotating expensive cards into the masters series. When the players started complaining about the faster rotation and it was resulting in lost sales, they backed out of the decision, but still had print runs planned so it caused issues later when more sets were introduced to standard than expected. Then they had introduced masterpieces to try and push standard sales, which worked, but also crashed the price on all but the mythics and this is following close to the giant devaluation of full art lands from BFZ that we still see today.
Let me put it this way: old wizards would have reprinted Zendikar fetches and shocks regularly across core sets along with the mythics to keep the regular non-foil prices in check. The current wizards never reprints older cards except through exceptional circumstances, which is why the market is so messed up for card values. I'm hoping they are finally backtracking on years of absolute stupidity with dominaria and that masters 25 will be the last masters set they print in the next 2 years. I'd rather see cool cards like Snapcaster Mage, Noble Heirarch, Tarmogoyf, dark confidant, etc come back into standard to help sell the sets.
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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!
What exactly were their expectations???
Tokens instead of playable... people will totally rush standard FNM to get these. We are geniuses!
Standard participation nose dives. Hmm, lets go back that'll fix everything!
My 720 Peasant Cube
There are decisions that everyone thinks won't work, but works out in the end. It's what they do when those decisions don't pan out. At least they are admitting tokens aren't working out and going back to actual cards, unlike those money losing NHL franchises like the Arizona Coyotes. I swear, that Bettman wanted to make hockey work in the desert so bad that he'd rather give Winnipeg the Atlanta Thrashers than the Arizona Coyotes, who were originally the Winnipeg Jets.
Because of the whole Arizona Coyotes fiasco, nobody thought hockey would ever work in the desert, especially Las Vegas, but hockey really worked out in Las Vegas, at least for now. You don't know if you don't try, and if it doesn't work, it isn't stupid to do something, and go back if it doesn't work out.
Imagine a life where you think every decision you make will never work out. You will never get anything done.
I kind of wish that they didn't try to change things at all, and release sets and products like the have been releasing them in 2005 to 2008, with the exception we get core set every year instead of every other year, and part of the core set has new cards like it was from M10 to Origins. They should have kept theme decks the way they were, 4 per expert set, 5 per core set, and never changed them at all.
I would also liked it if they went back to one to specific alt art cards, (1, 5, or 10 cards), being prerelease promos, rather than having any of the rares or mythic rares be the prerelease promo, although I shouldn't care about this since I never attended a prerelease.
This, totally this.
The tokens are cool enough, but I'm not going to go and hit up an FNM just to get one.
Now if it were "Top 4 and you get Fatal Push, everyone else gets the shiny Saproling"? That'd get a lot more people in the door.
Now to get the right cards as promos...
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
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Game Day was a better deal.
WotC selects 3 popular Rares from the previous set to be the Promos that people win if they do well at FNM.
WotC also selects 3 popular uncommons from the previous set to be promos that are handed out to every participant at FNM.
Each card selected will have variant art, be foiled and have a promo watermark/stamp.
This means that WotC simply needs to design 6 cards per set that they know will be both playable and popular.
Their expectations were that competitive players would go to Saturday instead, leaving newbies and casuals to play out at a gentler level on Friday.
As it happened they played Commander, as ever. The competitive players thought that Standard was a brown shower and that they would turn up on the Friday with their casual mates and also play Commander. The whole thing was to get casuals to play Standard and it failed. FNM attendance for other formats was largely unchanged I would wager.
I may have turned up for more Modern FNM or some such if the promo was 1/1 dovescape birds or some such.
The promo needs to rotate to ensure people are excited and want to show up. Promos last a month to ensure everyone has at least 1 week to get the promo they want (and those more dedicated can acquire a playset).
it seems I was right lol
Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons
ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Mtg Lifestyle
Modern: (G/U)Infect (G/U)Tron
Legacy: (U/B)Tezzeret (U/B)(W/U)Miracles(W/U)(B/G)Dredge(R/W)
Commander:(U/R)Mizzix (U/R)(W/U)Sydri(U/B)(W/U)Zur(U/B)
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
If they really want people back perhaps they should consider doing Fatal Push promo again. That'll get people back into the seats, and then they can choose better cards more often like Opt and actual useful Standard/Modern cards.
Modern: (G/U)Infect (G/U)Tron
Legacy: (U/B)Tezzeret (U/B)(W/U)Miracles(W/U)(B/G)Dredge(R/W)
Commander:(U/R)Mizzix (U/R)(W/U)Sydri(U/B)(W/U)Zur(U/B)
Some competitive players like to play fancy, competitive cards.
When you remove the "competitive" pool of players from attending FNM, you don't even have enough people to run FNM half of the time.
I don't play Standard, so typically don't go to FNMs, but when Path and Serums were up for grabs, the stores were packed, and I made sure I had a deck to attend those. Promos definitely drive attendance. Especially when they're 5$+ bills.
Bad promos are crap
Tokens are worse than crap.
They need to learn from their mistakes (and successes) and give us promos people will participate to get.
Standard attendance sucks because standard sucks (thanks Maro) but taking things away and trying to send people away from FNM for no reason at all other than some moron's brilliant flash in marketing is killing the game completely.
Finance. When I looked back at the decisions made and the reasonings they listed, it was odd that it was always in opposition or ignorance of the players playing the game.
From the way the sets got released, it looked like their plan was to push standard sales via faster rotation. This might be because they felt they bit more than they could chew with Modern support and found that the modern game was causing a decrease in standard sales, hence the dropping of core sets and the funneling of all non-rotating expensive cards into the masters series. When the players started complaining about the faster rotation and it was resulting in lost sales, they backed out of the decision, but still had print runs planned so it caused issues later when more sets were introduced to standard than expected. Then they had introduced masterpieces to try and push standard sales, which worked, but also crashed the price on all but the mythics and this is following close to the giant devaluation of full art lands from BFZ that we still see today.
Let me put it this way: old wizards would have reprinted Zendikar fetches and shocks regularly across core sets along with the mythics to keep the regular non-foil prices in check. The current wizards never reprints older cards except through exceptional circumstances, which is why the market is so messed up for card values. I'm hoping they are finally backtracking on years of absolute stupidity with dominaria and that masters 25 will be the last masters set they print in the next 2 years. I'd rather see cool cards like Snapcaster Mage, Noble Heirarch, Tarmogoyf, dark confidant, etc come back into standard to help sell the sets.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Or they simply print NEW good cards that compete against them.
They just dont deliver on that front , and the random Delve mechanic cards that do are outright banned ... so GG.
Theres really no need to massivly reprint cards, if theres a somewhat constant stream of NEW good cards.
But if we get like 1 Fatal Push per 2 set Blocks, almost nothing new gets added to older formats.
If they want to power down new sets, its the price they pay , cards are just too bad for modern.
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