Let's make Standard always contain at least 7 sets and rotate 2 times a year.
Traditional Standard rotation happens once per year, at release of an autumn block. This schedule was devised at the epoch of 3-set blocks. At the time, all 3 sets of a block were linked together thematically and mechanically, so there was perfect sense for them to leave Standard in one move. The last (spring) set of a traditional 3-set block typically contained the most powerful and sophisticated cards and mechanics. This at least partially compensated the fact that its cards would have 6 month shorter Standard lifetime than those of the autumn set.
Nowadays, in combination with the new block schedule, the old rotation scheme poses at least 2 big problems:
The "once-per-year" rotation have catastrophic effect on Standard decklists and players. Players and decks momentarily lose half of the cardpool. For many newer players this is enough to stop playing at all! Each such rotation is akin to a giant asteroid hitting the Earth, killing 90% of species and totally destroying the ecosystem and eliminating biodiversity.
The later the set comes in a Standard year schedule, the less value it has, because its cards Standard lifetimes are shorter than those of cards from earlier sets. The Summer set has only 15 month of lifetime in contrast to the Autumn set that has full 24! This gives players far less incentive to buy Summer product. There was no such problem for Classic and Core Sets because they either rotated once in two years, or had to last until the next one was printed.
WoTC's initial reasoning of making Standard rotate twice a year was right, but the greed forced them to reduce the lifetime of the cards in the process. They tried to achieve both a good goal (make Standard more dynamic and balanced) and a bad one (make more money by forcing players to buy cards more often), and the community ditched them. Then they backed off and returned to the old scheme, that don't fit well with the new "2 blocks, 2 sets" paradigm.
We, the community, can make them fix their mistake!
Let's make Standard rotate 2 times per year, by a single block, but let there always remain at least 7 sets in Standard! This will increase the lifetime of a 2nd block by half a year. This change will achieve the following goals:
The Standard will become a healthier format, because now it will "shake up" twice per year. The rotation will become less catastrophic. Our favorite cards lifetime will increase, but the decks will have to change more often and in smaller bits. Instead of catastrophic revolutionary change we will have gradual evolution and transition.
The cards from Spring and Summer set will stop feeling like underdogs because they had far shorter Standard lifetime. These will now be on par with Autumn and Winter sets in value. As a side effect, the Standard card prices will drop, because the value will be more evenly spread between Autumn and Spring blocks. No more $50 Standard mythics at release!
There will be more cards in standard on average at any moment.
The average lifetime of a card in Standard will increase (see Reason 2).
This is a win/win change for everybody, including WoTC! They would have greater predictability of the sales and higher conversion rates for new players.
Here is an example of what this rotation scheme would look like apllied to current Standard. When the 1st set of Atlazan block goes in, Battle for Zendikar and Oath of Gatewatch goes out. The
Standard will consist of 7 sets:
SOI-EMN, KLD-AER, AKH-HOU, Atlazan.
Than, after the release of Atlazan Set2:
SOI-EMN, KLD-AER, AKH-HOU, Atlazan-Atl_set2.
Than, after the release of MysteryBlockThatComesAfterAtlazan:
KLD-AER, AKH-HOU, Atlazan-Atl_set2, MystBlockSet1.
et cetera.
It is easy to see that Standard will fluctuate between 7-8 sets (instead of 5-8 sets like now). The transitions in these scheme would be far less catastrophic.
There was an argument that 7-8 rotation would lessen the need to ban. This was proven wrong by some commentators.
Wizards showed us they listen. Let's make them hear us again! Due to the adoption of a State of Standard thread that includes this subject matter, this thread is locked. -hoser2
I have been thinking this since they reverted. I really like the effort you put into presenting it clearly.
I think this would be better, but I have another question. Why rotate blocks? What if standard was always 8 sets? If we rotated a set every time a new set came in, there would be more diversity in Standard and the card pools would be deeper half the time. Sure, some cards in the second half of the block would be worse without the support of the cards from the first half of the block. So what? We just won't play them. We don't play lots of cards. The point would be that we might play some of these cards and there would be a deeper look for deckbuilders to consider.
Wasn't this exactly how they had set up rotation but people rioted because it was too confusing and because decks fell out of favor more quickly?
Pretty much. Equally, I'm not at all convinced it will make Standard healthier in the least; rather it will give the facade of always changing, however will in actual practice create a chaotic mess of a format that is difficult for people to grok or get a handle on, and creates problems for deck building as you constantly need to keep track of not only what is coming in but what is also leaving. Not only that, but you hit two other problems:
1. Bottled decks that become unplayable when key pieces from a different set rotate out. This is just plain unpleasant. It's not that he format becomes harsher to the deck's existence, but rather that pieces were removed. That's not actual diversity, nor is it particularly fun.
2. Decreased deck diversity due to a lower card pool available. Simply put, the wider the pool, the more options you have available. The smaller the pool, the fewer options available.
The notion that constant deck changes in Standard is healthier than stability is faulty; Change in and of itself isn't necessarily a good thing, particularly when it becomes apparent that those changes are due to hamstring certain strategies or a lack of available tools elsewhere.
To be frank, Standard's "normal" rotation already barely has the cardpool to function as a diverse format. Reducing the number of sets - and the amount of time available - in Standard does not actually create a healthy diversity. It just turns it into a chaotic mess with bottled decks that live and die very short lifespans by the fact that key piece leave earlier than others. This is not even getting into the format fatigue that was already happening with only a year's worth of this set up. Shaking things up more constantly does not make the format healthier in and of itself, particularly when it involves removing tools. While the notion that the "average" lifespan increases, the truth is that interactions exist for short periods of time at best and end up just disappearing very quickly. There is less time for decks to simmer when tools are constantly stripped from them at multiple points in the year.
Not only this, but the notion that the "mass" rotation is catastrophic to players is faulty. Simply put, it is very difficult for players to keep up with a constantly changing format. They become fatigued when cards get removed constantly through out the year, and this is what led a lot of player to quit following the new rotation schedule. It's just too much to deal with to constantly try and figure out what is leaving, what is coming in, what is now good because it interacts with X new card, what is now good because X deck has left the format, what cards you now need to pick up, etc. People are much better at dealing with this in one go rather than dealing with it constantly. The constant changes was just too fatiguing for the average player to keep up with at all, and made predicting the format at all almost impossible, and to a significant degree made the format both miserable and downright demoralizing.
The need to ban will always exist when they screw up as well; it doesn't matter if they have a shorter time span in standard or not. Copter was banned just 3 months after it was released, after all, and a faster rotation schedule would not have changed this. Emrakul would rotate at the same time regardless of which system you used, so a faster rotation would not make a ban less needed. Saheeli-Cat is a problem in the format regardless of whether it is around for 2 years or 18 months. Even if a busted interaction exists for 6 months, it should still be banned and historically has been baned. There is no decreased pressure for bannings because of shorter rotation schedules at all. The provocation for a ban in standard has nothing to do with Standard getting stale. The current bannings had nothing to do with this concept at all, and they did not happen to shake up standard. They happened because the format was in a miserable state due to them pushing cards to absurdity.
Faster rotations, while an interesting concept, ended up being one of the worst failures of the game. Not just from a player perspective standpoint, but also in its impact on the health of the format. We tried this system, and it failed spectacularly. Change for the sake of change is not itself indicative of format health. Bans are done for negative impacts on the format, not on staleness.
Yeah that's a good idea. The fact that some sets have a much shorter lifespan than others in standard is pretty messed up. I absolutely think that the current rotation rules will not last very much longer.
Nowadays, in combination with the new block schedule, the old rotation scheme poses at least 3 big problems:
The "once-per-year" rotation have catastrophic effect on Standard decklists and players. Players and decks momentarily lose half of the cardpool. For many newer players this is enough to stop playing at all! Each such rotation is akin to a giant asteroid hitting the Earth, killing 90% of species and totally destroying the ecosystem and eliminating biodiversity.
This is the way Standard has always operated. Somehow, it's survived. I think you are overrated the impact of losing half of the format on a yearly basis, because the format's done that since the beginning.
Now I'm not saying "but it's always been this way" is an argument for keeping something a certain way; once can certainly improve things with changes. But you're acting like it's some kind of major threat, when one would expect that the format wouldn't have managed to stay so popular for so long if it was such a big issue. The point is, players didn't seem to have big issues dealing with this and Standard stayed popular.
Beyond that, your proposed solution causes the same thing to happen, just less suddenly. That does have the benefit of being less impactful, but it also means you have to worry about it more frequently. Depending on which cards rotate out, your deck may be rendered completely unplayable during the mid-season rotation, forcing you to get a totally new deck, which is the same problem people had with the previous twice-a-year rotation. Granted, it being four blocks instead of three does make it less likely you'd have to get a totally new one mid-season, but the possibility is still strongly there. I don't really see how this is much of an improvement over the system that players demonstrably disliked.
The later the set comes in a Standard year schedule, the less value it has, because its cards Standard lifetimes are shorter than those of cards from earlier sets. The Summer set has only 15 month of lifetime in contrast to the Autumn set that has full 24! This gives players far less incentive to buy Summer product. There was no such problem for Classic and Core Sets because they either rotated once in two years, or had to last until the next one was printed.
"Only" 15 months of lifetime? That's over a year. I find it difficult to believe that someone would, at the time of the set's release, decide not to bother with it because it would "only" be legal for 15 months but then get gung ho over the next set because it would be a full 24. Also, this is completely speculative on your part. We haven't seen the results of the once-a-year rotation with 2-set blocks yet. Maybe the summer set won't be seen as less valuable. Your entire argument here relies entirely on a speculation.
The Standard remains stale for the most part of the year after the Autumn block is completely printed. This provokes WoTC to ban the most powerful cards to shake up things, and then some other card rises to the top, and then another ban, etc...
No, no, no, no. While I may have disagreed with your previous points, they at least made some kind of sense. This claim of yours is incorrect to a baffling degree.
FIRST: The claim that once-a-year-rotation prompts them to ban cards to avoid staleness can be proven incorrect in one pretty quick way: There weren't constantly bans in Standard in the past under the once-a-year-rotation (well, at least after Mercadian Masques got released, there were a flurry of bans beforehand because they weren't all that good at balancing cards back then). And up until the most recent batch, when the rare ban did happen, it was because of cards that were totally overpowered and were overtaking the metagame. I suppose Caw-Blade being as absurdly dominant as it was can be considered "stale" but that's not what you're talking about. And even that still doesn't fit your narrative, because after Jace and Stoneforge were banned, that was it! No more bannings happened for years. Same thing with the Affinity bannings; they were banned, and that was it, no more bannings required as you seem to be convinced was the case. Granted, the Affinity bannings did come about a year after Skullclamp was axed, but Skullclamp was... Skullclamp. I mean, it's kind of self evident why that card was banned, and it sure wasn't to shake anything up.
SECOND: The cards that were banned this time were not due to staleness. In fact, the metagame was quite different from the metagame before Kaladesh. And just look at the cards that were banned. It's true Reflector Mage was pretty omnipresent before Kaladesh, but Smuggler's Copter did not even exist beforehand, and Emrakul wasn't as big of a force.
The reason cards were banned was because people didn't like the format, in large part due to some pretty poor design and development choices Wizards of the Coast made. Admittedly, it wasn't just that format that was driving people away, it was the fact it was just the newest disliked format after several disliked formats; both Khans-Battle and Dragons-SOI were duds too, especially the latter. And you can't blame once-a-year rotation on those, because those were when the rotation was twice a year!
And the reason people are still suggesting bans? People still don't like the format, and it's again due to bad design decisions that the bannings didn't manage to fix. Their insistence on making threats amazing but answers terrible has finally caught up to them and it's why people have been driven away from Standard. Sure, CopyCat may have been an accident, but they were the ones who decided to make removal so inefficient that the card became a problem, and they went into Vehicles with eyes wide open. This has nothing to do with your idea of "staleness" and everything to do with Wizards of the Coast's bad design choices over the last several years.
And the bans happened under the twice-a-year rotation! True, they announced a return to a once-a-year rotation, but until Amonkhet is released, we're still functionally under twice a year because the change to once a year won't have any actual effect on the legality of sets until then. And even if we they never backed off and stuck to the twice a year rotation with three blocks, you would've almost certainly still seen the Emrakul and Smuggler's Copter bans because they wouldn't have rotated out with Amonkhet (they might have shown mercy to Reflector Mage).
Not only all that, but your change doesn't fix any of that! It doesn't get rid of the banned cards any faster than they would be under the once-a-year rotation outside of Emrakul, nor does it solve any of the current problems in the metagame. Gideon, the Vehicles, and the CopyCat combo are legal for the same length of time.
The idea that the bans happened because once-a-year rotation forced them to ban cards to cause a metagame shakeup, and that your proposed new rotation would fix it, is completely nonsensical.
Your point on the bannings is true. Perhaps faster rotation really would not lessen the probability of bans.
However, the following line makes me think you haven't understood the proposal correctly:
1. Bottled decks that become unplayable when key pieces from a different set rotate out. This is just plain unpleasant. It's not that he format becomes harsher to the deck's existence, but rather that pieces were removed. That's not actual diversity, nor is it particularly fun.
2. Decreased deck diversity due to a lower card pool available. Simply put, the wider the pool, the more options you have available. The smaller the pool, the fewer options available.
Probably you thought that the proposal is to return to the hated 5-6 sets (3 blocks) scheme. That would obviously cause the problems you described.
But the proposal is to move to 7-8 sets rotation scheme! It will actually increase the lifetime of the cards and average cardpool over the current 5-8 scheme. The whole idea of proposal is to prolong the life of Spring blocks to achieve the symmetry between the blocks, not to cut something!
However, the point that the "player fatigue" from the more frequent rotations was the primary reason to abandon the new rotation format is not correct. This was the official reason WoTC gave us. They did it to cover the real reason, that was players quiting because their Standard card investments were to became junk in 15-18 months (instead of 15-24 months as before). Simply put, there were no more option to buy a deck from an Autumn set and enjoy it for 2 years. There is an eternal antagonism between WoTC and players in the regard of cards lifespan. WoTC's marketing department would always try to force players to buy cards more often. Every player I know who was complaining about the new rotation scheme actually complained about how Standard becoming financially unbearable, not about "rotation scheme becoming too complicated and hard to follow". Magic is a very complicated game, and it's players are more than capable to understand the new rotation rules, which are quite simple in comparison to actual Magic rules.
Thanks for you support, hoser2!
Initially I thought about the rotation in single sets too. However, some problems became apparent with the scheme:
The sets would become unlinked in flavor and mechanics.
It would be harder for R&D to balance mechanics between sets with regard to this schedule.
That would really be too much for the players to follow what cards are out.
This scheme will provide a much more stable and diverse format, but it could become a logistic nightmare for everybody.
So I would stand for 7-8 rotation 2 times a year.
Thanks for a long and thoughtful answer, Lord Seth!
Your (and thememan's) point on the bannings is completely reasonable, so I remove the argument of the bans from my original post. Nonetheless, the arguments of the decreased value of Summer set and of diversity still stand. 7-8 Standard will be at any moment at least 2 sets more diverse than the current 5-8 sets Standard. And a player's deck will have to change more often because of twice a year rotation, but every deck that was possible under 5-8 rotation would be possible under 7-8. And the format and meta will change more often but the tools (the cards!) will stay longer. That means that the card will have more opportunity to interact within different metas and within a wider cardpool. Therefore, players would be incentivized to gather useful cards for Standard (as the game name implies), and not to just buy into the best deck, then dump it, then buy another best deck, etc. (like they do now)
And all people I know who wanted to drop from Standard, wanted to do this because of smaller lifespan of their cards. They simply can't afford to spend so much on pieces of cardboard on a regular basis. The same argument goes for lesser lifespan of Summer sets. There are many people with lower income who play Magic, and they care of such things, even if you are not aware of it.
Besides, at the time of Standard inception there were Classic sets that provided a strong basis for players. Cards from those sets stayed legal for 2 years until the next Classic set was available. And that set reprinted the most vital parts of the last one. We knew that such things as the Painlands, Wrath of God, Llanowar Elves and others would always stay with us. Now we don't.
We need something to rely on.
Wasn't this exactly how they had set up rotation but people rioted because it was too confusing and because decks fell out of favor more quickly?
No, they wanted Standard to contain 5-6 sets (3 blocks), and blocks would rotate faster. The proposal is to actually prolong the life of Spring an Summer sets so the Standard would contain 7-8 sets (4 blocks), but to rotate sets in smaller chunks.
Wasn't this exactly how they had set up rotation ...
No. They wanted to have sets rotate both faster and more often. I believe the OP is proposing that Standard rotate at the same speed or even slower for the spring and summer sets, but more often. In the once and present system sets rotated as follows:
Season Duration Rotation season
---------------------------------------
Fall 24 months Fall
Winter 21 months Fall
Spring 18 months Fall
Summer 15 months Fall
Wizards wanted to make the sets rotate as follows
Season Duration Rotation season
---------------------------------------
Fall 18 months Spring
Winter 15 months Spring
Spring 18 months Fall
Summer 15 months Fall
I believe the OP is proposing the following
Season Duration Rotation season
---------------------------------------
Fall 24 months Fall
Winter 21 months Fall
Spring 24 months Spring
Summer 21 months Spring
... but people rioted because it was too confusing and because decks fell out of favor more quickly?
Why did people riot? I think there was a complex set of causes for people to stop playing standard. I don't see a significant difference in the confusion induced by these three systems.
I don't think it will help. The problem with Standard has long been the proliferation of information that would only mildly be reduced by this measure, coupled with a card design policy that has reduced the power of several ways of controlling the game.
You can attack hands, lands, or you can cast counterspells, tax to make permanents useless or remove permanents as they come down. Wizards have severely neutered hand destruction, killed land destruction and nigh on all meaningful taxes, weakened counterspells, and kept a reasonable to weak set of removal spells. In that environment there simply are not enough ways to control the best couple of decks that inevitably rise to the top. The lack of diversity causes standard to stagnate. If a greedy mana deck rises to the top there is no opportunity for someone to start throwing Stone Rains into an existing shell and punish it. If you make the game about two or three things, essentially simpler, you will get your answers and solve the format more quickly.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I think standard should end up like block constructed. Have it as a short term format that is used only for high level play. So new set comes out you have a pro tour then a few standard gp's. After this have gp's run as frontier, modern, legacy and limited only. Standard has proven to be good when it is fresh but bad when it is solved. I think for average store play you should have a frontier or extended where cards stay legal longer.
I think stores should just schedule standard until gamedays and after that run fnm and other tournaments as frontier, draft, modern etc. I think the standard season needs to be shorter and other formats like frontier need to be promoted.
For rotation I'm not really sure what the right answer is. I think doing a big reset is better than multiple little resets as it provides some retention of cards between old and new formats while bringing in completely new deck ideas. On the other hand, without a frequent short hand rotation we end up with situations like in YuGiOh with Zoodiac Barrage, which is basically "Lets take Eldrich Evolution, completely nix the part about converted mana cost restrictions, and make it tribal eldrazi", and end up having to put more emphasis on card bannings instead of letting it flush out naturally.
By the way, they are banning that prior mentioned YuGiOh card, which should say something given how bonkers the power level is in that game sometimes.
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 standard should end up like block constructed. Have it as a short term format that is used only for high level play. So new set comes out you have a pro tour then a few standard gp's. After this have gp's run as frontier, modern, legacy and limited only. Standard has proven to be good when it is fresh but bad when it is solved. I think for average store play you should have a frontier or extended where cards stay legal longer.
I think stores should just schedule standard until gamedays and after that run fnm and other tournaments as frontier, draft, modern etc. I think the standard season needs to be shorter and other formats like frontier need to be promoted.
This would probably work if Standard wasn't the biggest money maker and most popular format in addition to having the lowest cost to entry (lol, lowest entry cost while also being the most expensive to play in). I personally feel standard isn't featured enough throughout the year.
I think I like big rotations instead of lots of small ones. At the very least, I'd like to do 1 or 2 standard rotations in the current change before I decide if it's something I don't like.
I believe small card pools causes standard to get figured out to quickly. I believe that has been the problem with standard for the most part. A larger card pool takes a longer time to figure out. I'm still not sure if modern is figured out and that format has been going for years without rotation. I think rotation needs to slow down instead of speeding up. I thought standard was much more fun years ago with core sets, huge card pools, and slower rotation.
I believe small card pools causes standard to get figured out to quickly. I believe that has been the problem with standard for the most part. A larger card pool takes a longer time to figure out. I'm still not sure if modern is figured out and that format has been going for years without rotation. I think rotation needs to slow down instead of speeding up. I thought standard was much more fun years ago with core sets, huge card pools, and slower rotation.
Once a year rotation is better than twice I agree, but certain sets being legal for much smaller amounts of time than others is still problematic. I don't claim to know what the best fix is, other than releasing fewer standard legal sets a year.
I like the one year rotation. The one change I would make is make the sets much larger than they are currently. I know this would be more work for the set developers but a lot of the extra cards could be reprints.
I'll put my two cents in, I think wizards should stop rotating on the block, and rotate every three months with a new set. That will keep the format always fluid.
I feel the block setup is great, as far as story goes, but story and mechanics are not the same thing, and one should not get in the way of the other.
Keeping the format fluid is a burden to players. Sure WOTC want more money, but the player fatigue exists.
It may be cool for you that play only t2, but horrible for those who play modern/legacy/vintage/pauper. I have a skeleton of a mardu deck only for game days and sometimes FNM. There is little to no reason to play t2 since it is way too similar with it's cousin modern. Meaning way too fast.
Sure, It is more expensive but the cards don't rotate, rarely a deck goes down the gutter with a new set (except with bans). call of the herd used to be a strong card. Now it is rare garbage because it is obsolete.
I can see your point being valid since WOTC already burn her customer's by flooding the market with product. (Conspiracy. What a flash in a pan)
there are always issues with standard and i dont see them being solved that easily.
-standard cards rotate
-cards worth $ tend to lose their value once rotated
-the format gets solved fairly quickly.
-the number of tier 1 decks is normally a handful.
-the cost of decks can be prohibitive sometimes
A big issue I think is that for synergistic decks or strategies, wizards just does not print the support for a standard deck. especially since they moved from 3 set blocks to 2 set blocks, the number of cards that would make sense to synergize has decreased dramatically. This really limits being able to build a deck that is "greater than the sum of its parts."
a card like torrential gearhulk isn't limited by a set mechanic or tribal-matters theme.
there are always issues with standard and i dont see them being solved that easily.
-standard cards rotate
-cards worth $ tend to lose their value once rotated
-the format gets solved fairly quickly.
-the number of tier 1 decks is normally a handful.
-the cost of decks can be prohibitive sometimes
A big issue I think is that for synergistic decks or strategies, wizards just does not print the support for a standard deck. especially since they moved from 3 set blocks to 2 set blocks, the number of cards that would make sense to synergize has decreased dramatically. This really limits being able to build a deck that is "greater than the sum of its parts."
a card like torrential gearhulk isn't limited by a set mechanic or tribal-matters theme.
The other option I would propose would be moving to 4 set blocks, this would allow the main set in each block to operate in a manner simular to the core set, and encourage the printing of "staple" cards again. We could move back to a true once per year rotation, when one block rotates the next one starts, being a 4 block set, it would fall in the 3month cycle, allowing for the full block to move in by the time rotations hit.
I think I like this idea. The fast cycle and constant drive to buy brand new cards is what drove me to Modern. I enjoy playing Magic, but I'm poor folk now. I have a job and bills. That said, I do pay attention to Standard. I like to see how people are innovating.
4 set blocks sound awesome if your centered around something like Kaladesh or Zendikar or Mirrodin...but other planes would just be unbearable.
If wizards wants to keep to 2 set blocks, it would make sense if more of the sets/blocks worked well with each other. This is where I miss the core set; you could utilize it to add in some synergy cards for the blocks previous and after without needing to keep to the block/set flavor if you needed to insert an answer or hoser card without ruining the blocks limited environment.
what really bothers me the most is, wizards utilizing the mythic rarity to justify printing extremely strong effects on 1 card, and not as a place to print a card with UNIQUE effects or abilities. These types of cards should be more cost taxing; like torrential gearhulk costing 3UUU or 2UUUU to balance its powerful effect.
Let's make Standard always contain at least 7 sets and rotate 2 times a year.
Traditional Standard rotation happens once per year, at release of an autumn block. This schedule was devised at the epoch of 3-set blocks. At the time, all 3 sets of a block were linked together thematically and mechanically, so there was perfect sense for them to leave Standard in one move. The last (spring) set of a traditional 3-set block typically contained the most powerful and sophisticated cards and mechanics. This at least partially compensated the fact that its cards would have 6 month shorter Standard lifetime than those of the autumn set.
Nowadays, in combination with the new block schedule, the old rotation scheme poses at least 2 big problems:
We, the community, can make them fix their mistake!
Let's make Standard rotate 2 times per year, by a single block, but let there always remain at least 7 sets in Standard! This will increase the lifetime of a 2nd block by half a year. This change will achieve the following goals:
This is a win/win change for everybody, including WoTC! They would have greater predictability of the sales and higher conversion rates for new players.
Here is an example of what this rotation scheme would look like apllied to current Standard. When the 1st set of Atlazan block goes in, Battle for Zendikar and Oath of Gatewatch goes out. The
Standard will consist of 7 sets:
SOI-EMN, KLD-AER, AKH-HOU, Atlazan.
Than, after the release of Atlazan Set2:
SOI-EMN, KLD-AER, AKH-HOU, Atlazan-Atl_set2.
Than, after the release of MysteryBlockThatComesAfterAtlazan:
KLD-AER, AKH-HOU, Atlazan-Atl_set2, MystBlockSet1.
et cetera.
It is easy to see that Standard will fluctuate between 7-8 sets (instead of 5-8 sets like now). The transitions in these scheme would be far less catastrophic.
There was an argument that 7-8 rotation would lessen the need to ban. This was proven wrong by some commentators.
Wizards showed us they listen. Let's make them hear us again!
Due to the adoption of a State of Standard thread that includes this subject matter, this thread is locked. -hoser2
I think this would be better, but I have another question. Why rotate blocks? What if standard was always 8 sets? If we rotated a set every time a new set came in, there would be more diversity in Standard and the card pools would be deeper half the time. Sure, some cards in the second half of the block would be worse without the support of the cards from the first half of the block. So what? We just won't play them. We don't play lots of cards. The point would be that we might play some of these cards and there would be a deeper look for deckbuilders to consider.
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
Pretty much. Equally, I'm not at all convinced it will make Standard healthier in the least; rather it will give the facade of always changing, however will in actual practice create a chaotic mess of a format that is difficult for people to grok or get a handle on, and creates problems for deck building as you constantly need to keep track of not only what is coming in but what is also leaving. Not only that, but you hit two other problems:
1. Bottled decks that become unplayable when key pieces from a different set rotate out. This is just plain unpleasant. It's not that he format becomes harsher to the deck's existence, but rather that pieces were removed. That's not actual diversity, nor is it particularly fun.
2. Decreased deck diversity due to a lower card pool available. Simply put, the wider the pool, the more options you have available. The smaller the pool, the fewer options available.
The notion that constant deck changes in Standard is healthier than stability is faulty; Change in and of itself isn't necessarily a good thing, particularly when it becomes apparent that those changes are due to hamstring certain strategies or a lack of available tools elsewhere.
To be frank, Standard's "normal" rotation already barely has the cardpool to function as a diverse format. Reducing the number of sets - and the amount of time available - in Standard does not actually create a healthy diversity. It just turns it into a chaotic mess with bottled decks that live and die very short lifespans by the fact that key piece leave earlier than others. This is not even getting into the format fatigue that was already happening with only a year's worth of this set up. Shaking things up more constantly does not make the format healthier in and of itself, particularly when it involves removing tools. While the notion that the "average" lifespan increases, the truth is that interactions exist for short periods of time at best and end up just disappearing very quickly. There is less time for decks to simmer when tools are constantly stripped from them at multiple points in the year.
Not only this, but the notion that the "mass" rotation is catastrophic to players is faulty. Simply put, it is very difficult for players to keep up with a constantly changing format. They become fatigued when cards get removed constantly through out the year, and this is what led a lot of player to quit following the new rotation schedule. It's just too much to deal with to constantly try and figure out what is leaving, what is coming in, what is now good because it interacts with X new card, what is now good because X deck has left the format, what cards you now need to pick up, etc. People are much better at dealing with this in one go rather than dealing with it constantly. The constant changes was just too fatiguing for the average player to keep up with at all, and made predicting the format at all almost impossible, and to a significant degree made the format both miserable and downright demoralizing.
The need to ban will always exist when they screw up as well; it doesn't matter if they have a shorter time span in standard or not. Copter was banned just 3 months after it was released, after all, and a faster rotation schedule would not have changed this. Emrakul would rotate at the same time regardless of which system you used, so a faster rotation would not make a ban less needed. Saheeli-Cat is a problem in the format regardless of whether it is around for 2 years or 18 months. Even if a busted interaction exists for 6 months, it should still be banned and historically has been baned. There is no decreased pressure for bannings because of shorter rotation schedules at all. The provocation for a ban in standard has nothing to do with Standard getting stale. The current bannings had nothing to do with this concept at all, and they did not happen to shake up standard. They happened because the format was in a miserable state due to them pushing cards to absurdity.
Faster rotations, while an interesting concept, ended up being one of the worst failures of the game. Not just from a player perspective standpoint, but also in its impact on the health of the format. We tried this system, and it failed spectacularly. Change for the sake of change is not itself indicative of format health. Bans are done for negative impacts on the format, not on staleness.
Now I'm not saying "but it's always been this way" is an argument for keeping something a certain way; once can certainly improve things with changes. But you're acting like it's some kind of major threat, when one would expect that the format wouldn't have managed to stay so popular for so long if it was such a big issue. The point is, players didn't seem to have big issues dealing with this and Standard stayed popular.
Beyond that, your proposed solution causes the same thing to happen, just less suddenly. That does have the benefit of being less impactful, but it also means you have to worry about it more frequently. Depending on which cards rotate out, your deck may be rendered completely unplayable during the mid-season rotation, forcing you to get a totally new deck, which is the same problem people had with the previous twice-a-year rotation. Granted, it being four blocks instead of three does make it less likely you'd have to get a totally new one mid-season, but the possibility is still strongly there. I don't really see how this is much of an improvement over the system that players demonstrably disliked.
"Only" 15 months of lifetime? That's over a year. I find it difficult to believe that someone would, at the time of the set's release, decide not to bother with it because it would "only" be legal for 15 months but then get gung ho over the next set because it would be a full 24. Also, this is completely speculative on your part. We haven't seen the results of the once-a-year rotation with 2-set blocks yet. Maybe the summer set won't be seen as less valuable. Your entire argument here relies entirely on a speculation.
No, no, no, no. While I may have disagreed with your previous points, they at least made some kind of sense. This claim of yours is incorrect to a baffling degree.
FIRST: The claim that once-a-year-rotation prompts them to ban cards to avoid staleness can be proven incorrect in one pretty quick way: There weren't constantly bans in Standard in the past under the once-a-year-rotation (well, at least after Mercadian Masques got released, there were a flurry of bans beforehand because they weren't all that good at balancing cards back then). And up until the most recent batch, when the rare ban did happen, it was because of cards that were totally overpowered and were overtaking the metagame. I suppose Caw-Blade being as absurdly dominant as it was can be considered "stale" but that's not what you're talking about. And even that still doesn't fit your narrative, because after Jace and Stoneforge were banned, that was it! No more bannings happened for years. Same thing with the Affinity bannings; they were banned, and that was it, no more bannings required as you seem to be convinced was the case. Granted, the Affinity bannings did come about a year after Skullclamp was axed, but Skullclamp was... Skullclamp. I mean, it's kind of self evident why that card was banned, and it sure wasn't to shake anything up.
SECOND: The cards that were banned this time were not due to staleness. In fact, the metagame was quite different from the metagame before Kaladesh. And just look at the cards that were banned. It's true Reflector Mage was pretty omnipresent before Kaladesh, but Smuggler's Copter did not even exist beforehand, and Emrakul wasn't as big of a force.
The reason cards were banned was because people didn't like the format, in large part due to some pretty poor design and development choices Wizards of the Coast made. Admittedly, it wasn't just that format that was driving people away, it was the fact it was just the newest disliked format after several disliked formats; both Khans-Battle and Dragons-SOI were duds too, especially the latter. And you can't blame once-a-year rotation on those, because those were when the rotation was twice a year!
And the reason people are still suggesting bans? People still don't like the format, and it's again due to bad design decisions that the bannings didn't manage to fix. Their insistence on making threats amazing but answers terrible has finally caught up to them and it's why people have been driven away from Standard. Sure, CopyCat may have been an accident, but they were the ones who decided to make removal so inefficient that the card became a problem, and they went into Vehicles with eyes wide open. This has nothing to do with your idea of "staleness" and everything to do with Wizards of the Coast's bad design choices over the last several years.
And the bans happened under the twice-a-year rotation! True, they announced a return to a once-a-year rotation, but until Amonkhet is released, we're still functionally under twice a year because the change to once a year won't have any actual effect on the legality of sets until then. And even if we they never backed off and stuck to the twice a year rotation with three blocks, you would've almost certainly still seen the Emrakul and Smuggler's Copter bans because they wouldn't have rotated out with Amonkhet (they might have shown mercy to Reflector Mage).
Not only all that, but your change doesn't fix any of that! It doesn't get rid of the banned cards any faster than they would be under the once-a-year rotation outside of Emrakul, nor does it solve any of the current problems in the metagame. Gideon, the Vehicles, and the CopyCat combo are legal for the same length of time.
The idea that the bans happened because once-a-year rotation forced them to ban cards to cause a metagame shakeup, and that your proposed new rotation would fix it, is completely nonsensical.
However, the following line makes me think you haven't understood the proposal correctly:
Probably you thought that the proposal is to return to the hated 5-6 sets (3 blocks) scheme. That would obviously cause the problems you described.
But the proposal is to move to 7-8 sets rotation scheme! It will actually increase the lifetime of the cards and average cardpool over the current 5-8 scheme. The whole idea of proposal is to prolong the life of Spring blocks to achieve the symmetry between the blocks, not to cut something!
However, the point that the "player fatigue" from the more frequent rotations was the primary reason to abandon the new rotation format is not correct. This was the official reason WoTC gave us. They did it to cover the real reason, that was players quiting because their Standard card investments were to became junk in 15-18 months (instead of 15-24 months as before). Simply put, there were no more option to buy a deck from an Autumn set and enjoy it for 2 years. There is an eternal antagonism between WoTC and players in the regard of cards lifespan. WoTC's marketing department would always try to force players to buy cards more often. Every player I know who was complaining about the new rotation scheme actually complained about how Standard becoming financially unbearable, not about "rotation scheme becoming too complicated and hard to follow". Magic is a very complicated game, and it's players are more than capable to understand the new rotation rules, which are quite simple in comparison to actual Magic rules.
Initially I thought about the rotation in single sets too. However, some problems became apparent with the scheme:
So I would stand for 7-8 rotation 2 times a year.
Your (and thememan's) point on the bannings is completely reasonable, so I remove the argument of the bans from my original post. Nonetheless, the arguments of the decreased value of Summer set and of diversity still stand. 7-8 Standard will be at any moment at least 2 sets more diverse than the current 5-8 sets Standard. And a player's deck will have to change more often because of twice a year rotation, but every deck that was possible under 5-8 rotation would be possible under 7-8. And the format and meta will change more often but the tools (the cards!) will stay longer. That means that the card will have more opportunity to interact within different metas and within a wider cardpool. Therefore, players would be incentivized to gather useful cards for Standard (as the game name implies), and not to just buy into the best deck, then dump it, then buy another best deck, etc. (like they do now)
And all people I know who wanted to drop from Standard, wanted to do this because of smaller lifespan of their cards. They simply can't afford to spend so much on pieces of cardboard on a regular basis. The same argument goes for lesser lifespan of Summer sets. There are many people with lower income who play Magic, and they care of such things, even if you are not aware of it.
Besides, at the time of Standard inception there were Classic sets that provided a strong basis for players. Cards from those sets stayed legal for 2 years until the next Classic set was available. And that set reprinted the most vital parts of the last one. We knew that such things as the Painlands, Wrath of God, Llanowar Elves and others would always stay with us. Now we don't.
We need something to rely on.
No, they wanted Standard to contain 5-6 sets (3 blocks), and blocks would rotate faster. The proposal is to actually prolong the life of Spring an Summer sets so the Standard would contain 7-8 sets (4 blocks), but to rotate sets in smaller chunks.
Season Duration Rotation season
---------------------------------------
Fall 24 months Fall
Winter 21 months Fall
Spring 18 months Fall
Summer 15 months Fall
Wizards wanted to make the sets rotate as follows
Season Duration Rotation season
---------------------------------------
Fall 18 months Spring
Winter 15 months Spring
Spring 18 months Fall
Summer 15 months Fall
I believe the OP is proposing the following
Season Duration Rotation season
---------------------------------------
Fall 24 months Fall
Winter 21 months Fall
Spring 24 months Spring
Summer 21 months Spring
Why did people riot? I think there was a complex set of causes for people to stop playing standard. I don't see a significant difference in the confusion induced by these three systems.
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
You can attack hands, lands, or you can cast counterspells, tax to make permanents useless or remove permanents as they come down. Wizards have severely neutered hand destruction, killed land destruction and nigh on all meaningful taxes, weakened counterspells, and kept a reasonable to weak set of removal spells. In that environment there simply are not enough ways to control the best couple of decks that inevitably rise to the top. The lack of diversity causes standard to stagnate. If a greedy mana deck rises to the top there is no opportunity for someone to start throwing Stone Rains into an existing shell and punish it. If you make the game about two or three things, essentially simpler, you will get your answers and solve the format more quickly.
I think stores should just schedule standard until gamedays and after that run fnm and other tournaments as frontier, draft, modern etc. I think the standard season needs to be shorter and other formats like frontier need to be promoted.
By the way, they are banning that prior mentioned YuGiOh card, which should say something given how bonkers the power level is in that game sometimes.
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 I like big rotations instead of lots of small ones. At the very least, I'd like to do 1 or 2 standard rotations in the current change before I decide if it's something I don't like.
Perhaps rotating individual sets would work better, rather than whole blocks. Or perhaps getting away from 2-block sets. Either way could work
Once a year rotation is better than twice I agree, but certain sets being legal for much smaller amounts of time than others is still problematic. I don't claim to know what the best fix is, other than releasing fewer standard legal sets a year.
I feel the block setup is great, as far as story goes, but story and mechanics are not the same thing, and one should not get in the way of the other.
Behind the eyes of truth, is a world of illustions.
Dragon Riderof a Mist Dragonn anyway with the Dragon Riders Clan.
It may be cool for you that play only t2, but horrible for those who play modern/legacy/vintage/pauper. I have a skeleton of a mardu deck only for game days and sometimes FNM. There is little to no reason to play t2 since it is way too similar with it's cousin modern. Meaning way too fast.
Sure, It is more expensive but the cards don't rotate, rarely a deck goes down the gutter with a new set (except with bans).
call of the herd used to be a strong card. Now it is rare garbage because it is obsolete.
I can see your point being valid since WOTC already burn her customer's by flooding the market with product. (Conspiracy. What a flash in a pan)
-standard cards rotate
-cards worth $ tend to lose their value once rotated
-the format gets solved fairly quickly.
-the number of tier 1 decks is normally a handful.
-the cost of decks can be prohibitive sometimes
A big issue I think is that for synergistic decks or strategies, wizards just does not print the support for a standard deck. especially since they moved from 3 set blocks to 2 set blocks, the number of cards that would make sense to synergize has decreased dramatically. This really limits being able to build a deck that is "greater than the sum of its parts."
a card like torrential gearhulk isn't limited by a set mechanic or tribal-matters theme.
WBG Karador GBW
R Daretti R
RG Omnath GR
WRG Modern Burn GRW
WB Modern Tokens BW
DCI Rules Advisor as of 5/18/2015
The other option I would propose would be moving to 4 set blocks, this would allow the main set in each block to operate in a manner simular to the core set, and encourage the printing of "staple" cards again. We could move back to a true once per year rotation, when one block rotates the next one starts, being a 4 block set, it would fall in the 3month cycle, allowing for the full block to move in by the time rotations hit.
Behind the eyes of truth, is a world of illustions.
Dragon Riderof a Mist Dragonn anyway with the Dragon Riders Clan.
If wizards wants to keep to 2 set blocks, it would make sense if more of the sets/blocks worked well with each other. This is where I miss the core set; you could utilize it to add in some synergy cards for the blocks previous and after without needing to keep to the block/set flavor if you needed to insert an answer or hoser card without ruining the blocks limited environment.
what really bothers me the most is, wizards utilizing the mythic rarity to justify printing extremely strong effects on 1 card, and not as a place to print a card with UNIQUE effects or abilities. These types of cards should be more cost taxing; like torrential gearhulk costing 3UUU or 2UUUU to balance its powerful effect.
WBG Karador GBW
R Daretti R
RG Omnath GR
WRG Modern Burn GRW
WB Modern Tokens BW
DCI Rules Advisor as of 5/18/2015