All along the way, we're listening to and very appreciative of feedback. For example, our experiment with Mythic Edition resulted in quite a bit of feedback. We were able to address some of that by supplying a limited amount of this product to ChannelFireball Events for sale at Grand Prix between now and the end of 2018, including at events outside the United States and Canada. You can preorder Guilds of Ravnica: Mythic Edition from ChannelFireball for pickup at Grand Prix right now! Head on over to their preorder website for more details.
Reading it, it came across as a sorry-but-not-sorry apology while also being out of touch.
I personally think it's worse than that. It's an indirect admission that they found a new demographic of players who prefer to play online/on-the-go and make their purchases online/directly and decided to slowly alter their practices to primarily cater to this lot.
The main point is they're not that stupid to just do it for its own sake, so while they definitely won't release numbers, there's a good chance this demographic spends more than the "classic" (or "old") demographic of distributor-LGS-customer they've been using the past 25 years (and mainly only due to a lack of technology back then and they didn't quite catch on said technology on its early phases).
So it's not "we're out of touch with you". It's "You're no longer as relevant to us" put in the nicest PR way possible. Also, "We forgot your forte was in complaining and doomsaying, so here have some BAB promos and extended Mythic Collections options to slow your death down. It'll make for a good show for our new demographic we do actually "listen" to our customers anyway."
I'm not saying they are or will maliciously cut us away. They won't. But the direction they're headed and their change of demographic will naturally hurt us due to the factors involved and when it happens (it already is, actually), they will favor the benefits of the new direction for the new demographic than the harm done to the old "band-aid LGS system old men yelling at clouds" group of the past. They might throw us some band-aids of our own (BAB promos, this extension) to slow our decline, but that's pretty much all they'll do, because we just aren't that relevant anymore.
wizards is worried about there being a long-term in the first place. the whole 'throw everything at the board and see what sticks' campaign speaks of desperation more than flat out incompetence (im sure there is some of that too).
it may seem like they are snubbing the older generation of players in favor of the new; but that implies that the importance of each is remotely even. they need to be pushing for growth in the 15-35 yr old age bracket as hard as possible if they want to keep the ship afloat.
regardless, colt47 pointed it out earlier, but instead of it being some indicator of the direction of their business philosophy; it was likely an order from on high to pad the bottom line. considering this continuous pattern of kicking themselves in the nuts, they need a win however they can get it.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Reading into it I think CFB gave some serious criticism in the backrooms to the wotc liaisons. I doubt wotc would have done this otherwise.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Some of the individual cards are already on pre-sale on Ebay, going from $200 for Liliana, the Last Hope and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria to $50+ for Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker and Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast.
Whether those prices are sellable is another story, and if the supply of these is high they most certainly will go down in price.
Seems like another fiasco in the making. How soon before Starcity games wants their allotment, or MTGGoldfish, or...? Then it will trickle down to LGS level.
What a mess.
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
i mean their choice to use CFB is still self serving. CFB runs GPs, and the distribution is directly tied to the events. if any of those other entities ran GPs it would likely be a different story. SCG had their chance and refused, and the others dont have the resources. since wizards isnt giving CFB product to sell/ship through their store normally, no one has any room to complain.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
They are doing their best to destroy the LGS's ability to make any profit from their game at all. They sneakily raise prices but don't change the MSRP to take money from the stores, make deals with Amazon to circumvent the stores, try to sell a product exclusively themselves to cut LGS out completely, then realize 'oh GP attendance is still going down, lets let Ch Fireball have some to sell to pull people in', and Fireball is screaming because they're barely able to make a profit off of events anymore while LGSs are still cut out of the loop.
They are doing their best to screw themselves. Eventually game stores will stop holding events if they can't make any money off WotC products.
It's like they're trying to screw up from all different directions at once.
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Maximum Effort
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I came to this thread looking for exactly this and wasn’t disappointed. Phenomenal art on this one. With a nice throwback in the Thaumatic compass.
Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/experimentation-2018-09-21
also, not a bad plan dangling the carrot to get more bodies at events.
not that i think this will do much to assuage the community. if we are good at anything, its complaining and doomsaying.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I personally think it's worse than that. It's an indirect admission that they found a new demographic of players who prefer to play online/on-the-go and make their purchases online/directly and decided to slowly alter their practices to primarily cater to this lot.
The main point is they're not that stupid to just do it for its own sake, so while they definitely won't release numbers, there's a good chance this demographic spends more than the "classic" (or "old") demographic of distributor-LGS-customer they've been using the past 25 years (and mainly only due to a lack of technology back then and they didn't quite catch on said technology on its early phases).
So it's not "we're out of touch with you". It's "You're no longer as relevant to us" put in the nicest PR way possible. Also, "We forgot your forte was in complaining and doomsaying, so here have some BAB promos and extended Mythic Collections options to slow your death down. It'll make for a good show for our new demographic we do actually "listen" to our customers anyway."
I'm not saying they are or will maliciously cut us away. They won't. But the direction they're headed and their change of demographic will naturally hurt us due to the factors involved and when it happens (it already is, actually), they will favor the benefits of the new direction for the new demographic than the harm done to the old "band-aid LGS system old men yelling at clouds" group of the past. They might throw us some band-aids of our own (BAB promos, this extension) to slow our decline, but that's pretty much all they'll do, because we just aren't that relevant anymore.
it may seem like they are snubbing the older generation of players in favor of the new; but that implies that the importance of each is remotely even. they need to be pushing for growth in the 15-35 yr old age bracket as hard as possible if they want to keep the ship afloat.
regardless, colt47 pointed it out earlier, but instead of it being some indicator of the direction of their business philosophy; it was likely an order from on high to pad the bottom line. considering this continuous pattern of kicking themselves in the nuts, they need a win however they can get it.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)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!
Whether those prices are sellable is another story, and if the supply of these is high they most certainly will go down in price.
Seems like another fiasco in the making. How soon before Starcity games wants their allotment, or MTGGoldfish, or...? Then it will trickle down to LGS level.
What a mess.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)They are doing their best to screw themselves. Eventually game stores will stop holding events if they can't make any money off WotC products.
It's like they're trying to screw up from all different directions at once.