With such a limited card pool decks will get figure out even quicker. This isn't the first time they have sped up rotation and I blame the last one on the uninspiring format that standard is today. Smaller card pool = less competitive decks so get ready for a format with 2 or 3 tier 1 decks. Meaning the format will become Rock, Paper, Scissors.
With such a limited card pool decks will get figure out even quicker. This isn't the first time they have sped up rotation and I blame the last one on the uninspiring format that standard is today. Smaller card pool = less competitive decks so get ready for a format with 2 or 3 tier 1 decks. Meaning the format will become Rock, Paper, Scissors.
There are already a lot of teir 1 decks. Many more than we've had been in the past. The problem with all of them is either you are playing control or you win by creatures. So no matter what color I pick or strategy I use we all win in the same fashion? What's the point?
This has actually been one of the most diverse standards we've had in a very long time.
Very not happy with this change. The Standard environment wouldn't get so stale if there weren't 8-9 obviously OP cards (out of a possible 250) that are bound to be staples of Standard decks, and a whole set full of absolute garbage to go with them. A bit more equality in power level throughout the set would allow innovative deck-builders to really make fun decks that would be competitive against Tier 1 decks.
The reason we want Sphinx's Revelation to go away isn't because it's been around 6 months longer than its welcome, it's because it's so freakin' good that within a two year period no matter what else is in print, there's really just no reason to run ANY other option but that one, and THAT is what makes things stale and also what makes those OP cards so expensive.
I think this comment really cuts to the heart of the whole issue. A slight flattening of power levels would, in my opinion, go a long way toward keeping standard fresh AND keeping prices on the secondary market in check. This issue has actually come the forefront of my mind very recently, as I've been doing a bit of belated spring cleaning, and have begun to notice how many cards I own that are virtually worthless.
Keeping with your Sphinx's Revelation example, I, as, primarily, a control player, have felt limited by how absurdly powerful this card is. There have been plenty of instances in which I've wanted to experiment with control brews that don't include blue and white, but, in the end, I always have trouble justifying not including absurdly overpowered cards such as Sphinx's Revelation. Sure, I know that there's nothing keeping me from brewing without these two colors, but I'm sure that most everyone can understand what I'm trying to get at here.
In short, if Wizards wants to continue getting my money, they need to work on making more of what they print playable. If nothing else, it's just sort of wasteful to print so many cards that will never see the light of day.
In short, if Wizards wants to continue getting my money, they need to work on making more of what they print playable. If nothing else, it's just sort of wasteful to print so many cards that will never see the light of day.
A million times this. Is there a way we could get everyone to Twitter this statement to Wizards?
For starters, get them on the pros. Predictably, we can't count on them to voice our opinion because of conflict of interest. LSV has already chimed in claiming all the changes are for the better and Standard as of now is worse in every aspect. The echo chamber comment section is going strong.
Very not happy with this change. The Standard environment wouldn't get so stale if there weren't 8-9 obviously OP cards (out of a possible 250) that are bound to be staples of Standard decks, and a whole set full of absolute garbage to go with them. A bit more equality in power level throughout the set would allow innovative deck-builders to really make fun decks that would be competitive against Tier 1 decks.
The reason we want Sphinx's Revelation to go away isn't because it's been around 6 months longer than its welcome, it's because it's so freakin' good that within a two year period no matter what else is in print, there's really just no reason to run ANY other option but that one, and THAT is what makes things stale and also what makes those OP cards so expensive.
I think this comment really cuts to the heart of the whole issue. A slight flattening of power levels would, in my opinion, go a long way toward keeping standard fresh AND keeping prices on the secondary market in check. This issue has actually come the forefront of my mind very recently, as I've been doing a bit of belated spring cleaning, and have begun to notice how many cards I own that are virtually worthless.
Keeping with your Sphinx's Revelation example, I, as, primarily, a control player, have felt limited by how absurdly powerful this card is. There have been plenty of instances in which I've wanted to experiment with control brews that don't include blue and white, but, in the end, I always have trouble justifying not including absurdly overpowered cards such as Sphinx's Revelation. Sure, I know that there's nothing keeping me from brewing without these two colors, but I'm sure that most everyone can understand what I'm trying to get at here.
In short, if Wizards wants to continue getting my money, they need to work on making more of what they print playable. If nothing else, it's just sort of wasteful to print so many cards that will never see the light of day.
This is faulty logic though. Because no matter how big the card pool gets, there's always going to be the best cards in the format being played. You look over at Modern, a format in which you have like 10 years of blocks legal in... but at the end of the day the best cards for that format are going to get played. Sphinx's Rev, Pack Rat, Elspeth, Domri, Xenagos, Mutavault aren't even really played in Modern because there are cards that are far better.
I echo what a lot of people are on the board are saying about the lands and the price of standard in general. This was an issue before this change even. And that's just that it's hard to play at a semi-competitive level without being really committed to playing this game money-wise. I got to the point where I was comfortable spending probably 500 dollars a year between FNMs and singles playing Standard and would mostly play the same types of decks and it allowed me to get away with buying fewer staples to build some of these different decks. And it always bothered me that most of the cards I bought would be worth 10% of their current value in a year or two. So it feels like unless you are really into the competitive scene, this is always going to be an issue.
It's a legit complaint IMO. And the solution is to either invest in Modern (probably costs more money up front, but far less over 3-4 years) or play a format like EDH where you can get away with spending far less money and get potentially as much enjoyment out of it.
Very not happy with this change. The Standard environment wouldn't get so stale if there weren't 8-9 obviously OP cards (out of a possible 250) that are bound to be staples of Standard decks, and a whole set full of absolute garbage to go with them. A bit more equality in power level throughout the set would allow innovative deck-builders to really make fun decks that would be competitive against Tier 1 decks.
The reason we want Sphinx's Revelation to go away isn't because it's been around 6 months longer than its welcome, it's because it's so freakin' good that within a two year period no matter what else is in print, there's really just no reason to run ANY other option but that one, and THAT is what makes things stale and also what makes those OP cards so expensive.
I think this comment really cuts to the heart of the whole issue. A slight flattening of power levels would, in my opinion, go a long way toward keeping standard fresh AND keeping prices on the secondary market in check. This issue has actually come the forefront of my mind very recently, as I've been doing a bit of belated spring cleaning, and have begun to notice how many cards I own that are virtually worthless.
Keeping with your Sphinx's Revelation example, I, as, primarily, a control player, have felt limited by how absurdly powerful this card is. There have been plenty of instances in which I've wanted to experiment with control brews that don't include blue and white, but, in the end, I always have trouble justifying not including absurdly overpowered cards such as Sphinx's Revelation. Sure, I know that there's nothing keeping me from brewing without these two colors, but I'm sure that most everyone can understand what I'm trying to get at here.
In short, if Wizards wants to continue getting my money, they need to work on making more of what they print playable. If nothing else, it's just sort of wasteful to print so many cards that will never see the light of day.
This is faulty logic though. Because no matter how big the card pool gets, there's always going to be the best cards in the format being played. You look over at Modern, a format in which you have like 10 years of blocks legal in... but at the end of the day the best cards for that format are going to get played. Sphinx's Rev, Pack Rat, Elspeth, Domri, Xenagos, Mutavault aren't even really played in Modern because there are cards that are far better.
I echo what a lot of people are on the board are saying about the lands and the price of standard in general. This was an issue before this change even. And that's just that it's hard to play at a semi-competitive level without being really committed to playing this game money-wise. I got to the point where I was comfortable spending probably 500 dollars a year between FNMs and singles playing Standard and would mostly play the same types of decks and it allowed me to get away with buying fewer staples to build some of these different decks. And it always bothered me that most of the cards I bought would be worth 10% of their current value in a year or two. So it feels like unless you are really into the competitive scene, this is always going to be an issue.
It's a legit complaint IMO. And the solution is to either invest in Modern (probably costs more money up front, but far less over 3-4 years) or play a format like EDH where you can get away with spending far less money and get potentially as much enjoyment out of it.
It isn't faulty logic though. Just because the best cards will always be chosen out of a pool, doesn't mean you can't have more cards that are at least playable.
In short, if Wizards wants to continue getting my money, they need to work on making more of what they print playable. If nothing else, it's just sort of wasteful to print so many cards that will never see the light of day.
A million times this. Is there a way we could get everyone to Twitter this statement to Wizards?
Such good points. I did some tweetin this morning.
With such a limited card pool decks will get figure out even quicker. This isn't the first time they have sped up rotation and I blame the last one on the uninspiring format that standard is today. Smaller card pool = less competitive decks so get ready for a format with 2 or 3 tier 1 decks. Meaning the format will become Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Control and Aggro used to have a buddy, his name was Combo. WotC hates combo so they locked him in the basement.
This change will definitely make a lot of the format end up being midrange vs. midrange, or control vs. midrange, or control vs. control. These games are all awful, take a lot of time, and are boring as paint to watch/play.
#FreeCOMBO!
I agree, smaller card pool will stagnate the format. The reason wizard hates combo is really do to pros and high level players complaining that it's unfair for timmy to beat them on luck of random draws. I remember when dragon storm took off it wasn't timmy crying fowl. Timmy enjoyed the occasional turn three win.
It's a legit complaint IMO. And the solution is to either invest in Modern (probably costs more money up front, but far less over 3-4 years) or play a format like EDH where you can get away with spending far less money and get potentially as much enjoyment out of it.
The thing is Modern only costs upfront because of insane price hikes. Not too long ago, you could make a decent Zoo (sans goyfs and fetchlands) or Burn deck that is significantly cheaper than most competitive Standard decks. They are not expensive because it is Modern, they are expensive because they have been out of print longer and thus easier targets for people who play Magic: The Speculation.
Very not happy with this change. The Standard environment wouldn't get so stale if there weren't 8-9 obviously OP cards (out of a possible 250) that are bound to be staples of Standard decks, and a whole set full of absolute garbage to go with them. A bit more equality in power level throughout the set would allow innovative deck-builders to really make fun decks that would be competitive against Tier 1 decks.
The reason we want Sphinx's Revelation to go away isn't because it's been around 6 months longer than its welcome, it's because it's so freakin' good that within a two year period no matter what else is in print, there's really just no reason to run ANY other option but that one, and THAT is what makes things stale and also what makes those OP cards so expensive.
I think this comment really cuts to the heart of the whole issue. A slight flattening of power levels would, in my opinion, go a long way toward keeping standard fresh AND keeping prices on the secondary market in check. This issue has actually come the forefront of my mind very recently, as I've been doing a bit of belated spring cleaning, and have begun to notice how many cards I own that are virtually worthless.
Keeping with your Sphinx's Revelation example, I, as, primarily, a control player, have felt limited by how absurdly powerful this card is. There have been plenty of instances in which I've wanted to experiment with control brews that don't include blue and white, but, in the end, I always have trouble justifying not including absurdly overpowered cards such as Sphinx's Revelation. Sure, I know that there's nothing keeping me from brewing without these two colors, but I'm sure that most everyone can understand what I'm trying to get at here.
In short, if Wizards wants to continue getting my money, they need to work on making more of what they print playable. If nothing else, it's just sort of wasteful to print so many cards that will never see the light of day.
This is faulty logic though. Because no matter how big the card pool gets, there's always going to be the best cards in the format being played. You look over at Modern, a format in which you have like 10 years of blocks legal in... but at the end of the day the best cards for that format are going to get played. Sphinx's Rev, Pack Rat, Elspeth, Domri, Xenagos, Mutavault aren't even really played in Modern because there are cards that are far better.
I echo what a lot of people are on the board are saying about the lands and the price of standard in general. This was an issue before this change even. And that's just that it's hard to play at a semi-competitive level without being really committed to playing this game money-wise. I got to the point where I was comfortable spending probably 500 dollars a year between FNMs and singles playing Standard and would mostly play the same types of decks and it allowed me to get away with buying fewer staples to build some of these different decks. And it always bothered me that most of the cards I bought would be worth 10% of their current value in a year or two. So it feels like unless you are really into the competitive scene, this is always going to be an issue.
It's a legit complaint IMO. And the solution is to either invest in Modern (probably costs more money up front, but far less over 3-4 years) or play a format like EDH where you can get away with spending far less money and get potentially as much enjoyment out of it.
Actually, Mutavault, Revelation, Pack Rat, and Domri all see decent amounts of play in Modern.
Very not happy with this change. The Standard environment wouldn't get so stale if there weren't 8-9 obviously OP cards (out of a possible 250) that are bound to be staples of Standard decks, and a whole set full of absolute garbage to go with them. A bit more equality in power level throughout the set would allow innovative deck-builders to really make fun decks that would be competitive against Tier 1 decks.
The reason we want Sphinx's Revelation to go away isn't because it's been around 6 months longer than its welcome, it's because it's so freakin' good that within a two year period no matter what else is in print, there's really just no reason to run ANY other option but that one, and THAT is what makes things stale and also what makes those OP cards so expensive.
I think this comment really cuts to the heart of the whole issue. A slight flattening of power levels would, in my opinion, go a long way toward keeping standard fresh AND keeping prices on the secondary market in check. This issue has actually come the forefront of my mind very recently, as I've been doing a bit of belated spring cleaning, and have begun to notice how many cards I own that are virtually worthless.
Keeping with your Sphinx's Revelation example, I, as, primarily, a control player, have felt limited by how absurdly powerful this card is. There have been plenty of instances in which I've wanted to experiment with control brews that don't include blue and white, but, in the end, I always have trouble justifying not including absurdly overpowered cards such as Sphinx's Revelation. Sure, I know that there's nothing keeping me from brewing without these two colors, but I'm sure that most everyone can understand what I'm trying to get at here.
In short, if Wizards wants to continue getting my money, they need to work on making more of what they print playable. If nothing else, it's just sort of wasteful to print so many cards that will never see the light of day.
This is faulty logic though. Because no matter how big the card pool gets, there's always going to be the best cards in the format being played. You look over at Modern, a format in which you have like 10 years of blocks legal in... but at the end of the day the best cards for that format are going to get played. Sphinx's Rev, Pack Rat, Elspeth, Domri, Xenagos, Mutavault aren't even really played in Modern because there are cards that are far better.
I echo what a lot of people are on the board are saying about the lands and the price of standard in general. This was an issue before this change even. And that's just that it's hard to play at a semi-competitive level without being really committed to playing this game money-wise. I got to the point where I was comfortable spending probably 500 dollars a year between FNMs and singles playing Standard and would mostly play the same types of decks and it allowed me to get away with buying fewer staples to build some of these different decks. And it always bothered me that most of the cards I bought would be worth 10% of their current value in a year or two. So it feels like unless you are really into the competitive scene, this is always going to be an issue.
It's a legit complaint IMO. And the solution is to either invest in Modern (probably costs more money up front, but far less over 3-4 years) or play a format like EDH where you can get away with spending far less money and get potentially as much enjoyment out of it.
Actually, Mutavault, Revelation, Pack Rat, and Domri all see decent amounts of play in Modern.
I was going to point that out but you beat me to it
Here is the real issue for players and grinders. We will have to invest in decks more often than before. At least right now I can trade and speculate to keep the game basically free for me. Now this is going to be even harder to accomplish if not impossible. Big money is getting involved in the secondary market. There is evidence in the mass buy outs that have been happening. Right now most care predictable in price and generally follow the same trend down after release. It is a slow fall though. If that card has a shorter lifespan expect that fall to be off the end of a cliff. When a card is good expect it to see even worse spikes than you do now. Again all because of the lifespan of the card being shorter. There is no real competition online either. All the stores rise and lower their prices in collusion with each other. Competition doesn't actually exist to keep these cards from getting out of hand in their price. Demand is the only factor that can effect the price at this point. Again demand is going to see big spikes and falls because of the shorter lifespan.
For WotC nothing will change the 2nd market doesn't really effect them. If you are not doing limited tournaments they make no money at all. Constructed is not the format they get paid from so they don't care. They only thing they care about is reprinting cards for Modern Masters type of product. Other than that WotC could care less about constructed.
Very not happy with this change. The Standard environment wouldn't get so stale if there weren't 8-9 obviously OP cards (out of a possible 250) that are bound to be staples of Standard decks, and a whole set full of absolute garbage to go with them. A bit more equality in power level throughout the set would allow innovative deck-builders to really make fun decks that would be competitive against Tier 1 decks.
The reason we want Sphinx's Revelation to go away isn't because it's been around 6 months longer than its welcome, it's because it's so freakin' good that within a two year period no matter what else is in print, there's really just no reason to run ANY other option but that one, and THAT is what makes things stale and also what makes those OP cards so expensive.
I think this comment really cuts to the heart of the whole issue. A slight flattening of power levels would, in my opinion, go a long way toward keeping standard fresh AND keeping prices on the secondary market in check. This issue has actually come the forefront of my mind very recently, as I've been doing a bit of belated spring cleaning, and have begun to notice how many cards I own that are virtually worthless.
Keeping with your Sphinx's Revelation example, I, as, primarily, a control player, have felt limited by how absurdly powerful this card is. There have been plenty of instances in which I've wanted to experiment with control brews that don't include blue and white, but, in the end, I always have trouble justifying not including absurdly overpowered cards such as Sphinx's Revelation. Sure, I know that there's nothing keeping me from brewing without these two colors, but I'm sure that most everyone can understand what I'm trying to get at here.
In short, if Wizards wants to continue getting my money, they need to work on making more of what they print playable. If nothing else, it's just sort of wasteful to print so many cards that will never see the light of day.
This is faulty logic though. Because no matter how big the card pool gets, there's always going to be the best cards in the format being played. You look over at Modern, a format in which you have like 10 years of blocks legal in... but at the end of the day the best cards for that format are going to get played. Sphinx's Rev, Pack Rat, Elspeth, Domri, Xenagos, Mutavault aren't even really played in Modern because there are cards that are far better.
I echo what a lot of people are on the board are saying about the lands and the price of standard in general. This was an issue before this change even. And that's just that it's hard to play at a semi-competitive level without being really committed to playing this game money-wise. I got to the point where I was comfortable spending probably 500 dollars a year between FNMs and singles playing Standard and would mostly play the same types of decks and it allowed me to get away with buying fewer staples to build some of these different decks. And it always bothered me that most of the cards I bought would be worth 10% of their current value in a year or two. So it feels like unless you are really into the competitive scene, this is always going to be an issue.
It's a legit complaint IMO. And the solution is to either invest in Modern (probably costs more money up front, but far less over 3-4 years) or play a format like EDH where you can get away with spending far less money and get potentially as much enjoyment out of it.
Oh, I certainly understand that there will always be cards that stand out as better than the rest, and that those cards will see the most play. I was tired when I typed that last night, and I fear that I didn't make my point quite as clear as I could have. There was a reason that I described what I would like to see as a slight flattening of power levels. I would like to see some of the most powerful cards within a given set perhaps taken down a notch, and, similarly, I would like to see some of the weakest, most pointless cards within a set made more playable. Hopefully, that would result in a greater number of cards, perhaps at the uncommon level, become more viable deck inclusions. I think that AvalonAurora vocalized that idea quite well, and I don't think I can really add anything that hasn't been said.
If a situation such as this were to occur, I could imagine that, while not necessarily format defining, a greater number of playable cards at the rare level and, in particular, below, could create a much more diverse standard environment. Sure, the very best cards in the pool would, most likely, find their way into many of the decks seeing play, but I would imagine that it could contribute to a greater diversity in the other cards that comprise the decks. Furthermore, I believe that a greater number of playable cards at lower rarity levels could contribute to a great deal of diversity in the tier two decks that see play. While I understand that many people wouldn't be terribly interested in playing a deck that is tier two, I think that it would make the game much more enjoyable for those of us who are more in the direction of being casual players.
Shocked to see so many otherwise well-spoken people who are either misinformed, bad at math, or both. You guys are acting like two rotations per year is the end of the world, and ignoring the fact that only two sets are rotating in each rotation rather than four. It's the same number of sets per year rotating as it is now. This is literally a matter of 2 + 2 = 4, and people here aren't getting it. It's not complicated.
Standard will end up having a smaller card pool (5-6 sets instead of 5-8.) That, the core set being gone, and way it affects limited are really the only significant changes here. It's not that big a deal, so stop acting like it's going to be that much more expensive. It's not.
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The Standard environment wouldn't get so stale if there weren't 8-9 obviously OP cards (out of a possible 250) that are bound to be staples of Standard decks, and a whole set full of absolute garbage to go with them.
That does actually nail the point. However, getting rid of the Core sets might help towards that goal. It's the Core sets that are riddled with unplayable junk. Reprints of reprints going back years, most of them so underpowered you'd be embarrassed to run them in a kitchen table deck.
I'm also determinedly optimistic about the new block pattern. 2x sets per block means there should be less room for padded filler. I'm predicting the average quality per card might go up.
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Core sets are where a lot of sb stuff and standard staple cards come from. Stuff like Negate, Cancel, Mystic Elf, red 3 damage burn spells the Lords like Goblin King. For this to work wizards will have to make better sets, better than they ever have, and frankly, I don't have that much faith in wizards anymore. With out core set there will be less of every spell type to go around creatures , removal , counter spells and so on. If you like playing the Intro Decks and like how they feel so incomplete you are going to love the new standard.
I think it'll make STD a little more interested and give it more cards to play with, but the biggest issue I see with this is how there turning the game even more of a money pit than ever before and this is going to push a lot of folks away from the competitive game that simply cannot afford it Personally I do not like this move and I don't even play anymore. I had actually thought of coming back to the competitive side of MtG but after seeing this ...... think I am gonna stay away.
I see the discussion appears to be really only over a couple points and I think they sort of miss the point. Atleast a few of the more recent posters get it, but the amount of misinformation on this thread is astounding.
1. Prices. Let's take a step back. The extra rotation isn't nearly as impactful as our current rotations. Each time, 2 sets are rotating out. Just 2 sets. So picturing how current rotation works and then comparing only works to a certain point. Right now rotation means dropping half the legal cards. This is much bigger. The cards leaving usually have a bigger immediate effect on the metagame than the cards coming in. With the new scheme the rotation will be much softer.
So yes a card is legal for 18 months. This will affect prices, but probably not as much as introducing Mythics did. All it does is slightly de-value Standard only staples. The problem of course as highlighted is must have cards used by multiple archetypes. Something like lands comes up a lot. Like Temples are a perfect example of lands that are pretty much Standard only. Rare land cycles generally sit around $6-8 if they aren't going to see much other play. Right now each block generally has a rare land cycle, and the Core Set has a Rare land cycle. About twice a year you have must have lands, and generally one of these 2 are reprints. Nothing in the new scheme prevents them from doing the same. The pre-rotation price dropping happening twice a year might cause some interesting side affects as people prematurely de-value archetypes that will get support in the next set making other legal cards cheaper. At best it means price expectations stabilize lower, at worst it means inflation across the board as people over value their cards because of the cost they acquired them at. We seen this happen already, where cards that see some play in Modern are very expensive even though the price is driven by Standard but no one is willing to sell for less. It will likely be a combination of both which means Standard remains largely unchanged and prices for eternal formats continue to climb.
The bigger question is how wizards handles the departure of the Core Set. I imagine there will still have to be a certain number of reprints. But at this point it is all speculation. I do think this does put the onus on Wizards to make better sets. This move generally gives them a lot more control so they have that much more room to fail in a different. Yes the impact of these failures are slightly shorter lived, but with less cards to work with your options are more limited. I am of the mind that we should trust Wizards. I'm not really sure where all the skepticism comes from but they print the cards so they can make these sets however they see fit. They could make them in a way that does cause you to pay more, or they could make them in a way that works almost how it does now. Completely depends on how they approach reprints. I'm not saying they won't make some mistakes. They made some early ones with Mythics, but they are much better now.
2. Wizards doesn't care about X? Yes Wizards has a bottomline. Yes they make money on sealed products. Someone wrote a post the other day about how Wizards hates Modern. Now Wizards hates constructed? Come on. I suppose Wizards hates competitive magic too. Maybe it hates the Secondary Market.
NO.... Wizards needs all of these things. It's part of a system. Without a secondary market their cards aren't worth anything. There is no value. It's the same reason that wizards does not hate eternal formats. How much does it affect your purchasing that your cards have innate value that is retained. They don't want all cards to be unreachable but they want to keep value invested in their cards. It's good for them and good for the game. Vintage died out in paper because the cards were too hard to acquire and too expensive. That is the beauty of Modern and why Wizards is so heavy handed with it. They want to control the flow cards and the balance of their eternal format to keep it accessible. I gather they prefer rotating formats from a design standpoint but it should be obvious that to retain value in the cards they need eternal formats. Better the one they can control and reprint cards for.
Wizards wants long time players. They are generally less effort to sell products to and they fill out the base. Yes they work harder to get new players and casual players, but they don't want everyone just exiting. They are growing a business. The pro tour serves a purpose in all of that too. These are all user engagement strategies and mechanisms for marketting. The Pro Tour showcases the cards and products and the idea of being a pro. It all feeds the machine. As usually the Customer really doesn't know what they want because they don't see the full picture and only their small slice. There are a lot more benefits to the proposed changes than card sales. Standard is more accessible at all times of the year for new players. It feels much more constant.
3. Finally and most importantly. What's with this completely incorrect view of how card power level works. I love all these 'Nailed it' it comments when the premise is not only inaccurate but actually so completely removed from how things actually work that the opposite more likely to be true. I'm almost ashamed to say I'm a regular poster of this board. Let's go back to the basics.
Yes Wizards pushes certain cards, but it isn't as simple as saying they push 8-9 cards and call it a day. Power doesn't exist in a vaccuum. Powerful cards are those that interact the most favorably. Even though we can sort of do vaccuum measurements of a card's power level it is just our best approximation of how we see what a format should look like or a comparison to other similar cards. What tends to happen is powerful interactions tend to cause basically clusters attractive and repulsive space. As more cards join these clusters the stronger the pull gets. If you try to even the playing ground this will happen anyway. Picture iron filings in a uniform magnetic field. Of course in reality it isn't uniform and we aren't really sure what sort of pattern we are going to get. The main reason is with a smaller card pool the starting position of our filings is much more sparse. Now imagine a painter creating a masterpiece. There may be hard lines framing a section. There are uses of light to draw the viewer into certain areas. In the end though aesthetically we look for some sort of balance or continuity to deem it's value. Sometimes things are very much on surface and sometimes they are subtle and require a second look.
Ok. Good. Now either could be considered interesting in their own way. And the magic card pool really sort of works in both ways. It's often much easier to see what's going on with a recognizable painting than with iron filings and that might make it easier to sell because it's easier to understand. By showcasing certain mechanics and interactions we can push something designed rather than incidental. We have more power over how the cards fall. But it's more than that. By purposefully tinkering with the balance the game stays fresh. The idea we have of flat power is just one persons idea of what balance is. It might just only work for one set, but we want to paint not only a single exhibition but a lifetimes worth.
Power level isn't something that can be measured a long a single axis. The effects on tempo and the types of interactions largely govern what makes a card good. Notion Thief probably sees more Vintage play than Standard play proportionally and this isn't even a cheap card to cast. This is alongside the most powerful cards ever printed in magic. While it's easy to picture a card pool and determine that a card would be powerful there so much is context specific. Let's look closer to home. Pack Rat is generally not that strong of a card in Standard. It was good this Standard but usually it's below rate for Standard, but at a decent rate for some eternal formats. I'd go as far as saying 9/10 Standard formats Pack Rat wouldn't be good enough to see play. The card can be powerful but it's a very strong argument to context.
What this means is while Wizards were pushing those cards you are talking about it wasn't just them tweaking the cmc and the text. It was a process of looking at what is there and what is not there. Standard has huge sparse areas in the field of all imaginable card pools. As you add more cards to a card pool generally they tend to cluster more and the amount of playable cards proportionally actually decreases. Even if the cards seem level you create redundancies duplicates. Eventually you get 45 lightning bolts and 15 mountains. These sort of singularities are actually the most dangerous. Wizards like to control combo. The best way to do this is create checks and balances. The easiest way to do this is create extremely rarer powerful elements to balance out a larger number of redundant elements. That way you are recognizing the synergies and the redundancy and placing the counter in place. Ie.. introduce Leyline of Sanctity to our Lightning Bolt metagame. Once you start actively playing around with this balance it's a matter of balancing interactions between the few and the many.
At that point it only makes sense alongside the desire to keep things fresh to let it work both ways. Create powerful cards and interactions but create whole redundant sets of elements to combat them. That way you can really push something strong or exciting because you know it won't get out of hand. You can enter new space and create cards people are excited to play with because you know where to alleviate the pressure points. See if you were just try to not make anything more powerful or interesting not only would you not have certain cards to really draw people in,there is the potential that without the guidelines in the format it could develop in unintended ways. So you tend to play it safer and in so while things are potentially different it will feel largely the same. In fact I think this is why Theros was a bit of a failure. They tried to make things a bit more even to promote a diverse metagame and in so it felt too heavy handed where it needed to constrain RTR (although that was mostly Core Set's doing) and gave you endless ways to make large creatures on T4 in every color. When people complain about Power Level drop it's usually the as much of the lack of perceived power level differential in the current card pool than against everything ever printed. It's a lot worse for a lot of players when everything feels sluggish and awkward. This is usually a matter of things not functioning smoothly in it's own context rather than for all time. That's the challenge. Perhaps some players prefer that tempo and that is where Standard is heading for a while. But it is essential to understand ridiculous it is to basically point your finger at a few cards.
Do you guys really want a brewers paradise? Don't look for Wizards leveling the field. That's the worst and the exact opposite you want. It has the exact opposite effect to what you are expecting. Look for them setting hard contraints and more powerful yet outside contained interactions. While this can create a more rock paper scissors metagame it also increases the jump from Tier 2 to Tier 1. With a smaller target making up a larger part of the metagame you can start doing truly interesting things. The problem with this past year was not enough enticement and too many viable decks. While Tier 1 was limited somewhat it was still so inconsistent it could lose to Tier 1.5 regularly. With so many viable decks there is no real room to wedge your way in. You can create a deck that isn't bad, and since even the best decks are so bad you might get some wins but in the general scheme of things you lose and it might not even be clear why.
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It's a cash grab from hasbro for sure, but I would hope they would reprint cards more often like birds of paradise was for so long, thereby extending a card's legality.
This is not something that will effect WotC. They have absolutely NO control of the secondary market or it's prices. They can, however, influence them with products like Modern Masters. Instead of using that influence to actually reduce cost for players they just upped the price of the packs and no actual change to the price of cards happened. In fact they went up because more people entered the format. This is what creates a barrier of entry that will eventually choke the format to death. So instead of exploiting a cash grab through modern masters they could have priced the packs much lower and it would not have effected WotC at all.
Now this 18 month shelf life for standard playables. The secondary market is completely controlled by the vendors (mainly .com retailers). You think they are going to drop card prices just because it has a shorter life? Hell no. They are going to increase their prices to exploit the demand because the drop off will happen even faster and more sharply than before. No retailer is going to hurt their bottom line because a change comes. They will simply find a way of keeping or increasing their bottom line within the time frame given. If that time frame is shorter adjustments will be made at the same rate.
Here are the facts for new players or returning players when it comes to playing standard. Unless you want to drop a large sum of cash to buy singles and get a deck right off the bat it will take time. This means playing limited events to build up your collection to be able to play during the next rotation. So these players sit idly by for nearly a year or more so they can play standard. Now they get 6 months less life out of their cards why even join in the first place?
I have a feeling that modern will get even bigger due to this rotations because you don't need to invest so much so often.
I see the discussion appears to be really only over a couple points and I think they sort of miss the point. Atleast a few of the more recent posters get it, but the amount of misinformation on this thread is astounding.
1. Prices. Let's take a step back. The extra rotation isn't nearly as impactful as our current rotations. Each time, 2 sets are rotating out. Just 2 sets. So picturing how current rotation works and then comparing only works to a certain point. Right now rotation means dropping half the legal cards. This is much bigger. The cards leaving usually have a bigger immediate effect on the metagame than the cards coming in. With the new scheme the rotation will be much softer.
So yes a card is legal for 18 months. This will affect prices, but probably not as much as introducing Mythics did. All it does is slightly de-value Standard only staples. The problem of course as highlighted is must have cards used by multiple archetypes. Something like lands comes up a lot. Like Temples are a perfect example of lands that are pretty much Standard only. Rare land cycles generally sit around $6-8 if they aren't going to see much other play. Right now each block generally has a rare land cycle, and the Core Set has a Rare land cycle. About twice a year you have must have lands, and generally one of these 2 are reprints. Nothing in the new scheme prevents them from doing the same. The pre-rotation price dropping happening twice a year might cause some interesting side affects as people prematurely de-value archetypes that will get support in the next set making other legal cards cheaper. At best it means price expectations stabilize lower, at worst it means inflation across the board as people over value their cards because of the cost they acquired them at. We seen this happen already, where cards that see some play in Modern are very expensive even though the price is driven by Standard but no one is willing to sell for less. It will likely be a combination of both which means Standard remains largely unchanged and prices for eternal formats continue to climb.
The bigger question is how wizards handles the departure of the Core Set. I imagine there will still have to be a certain number of reprints. But at this point it is all speculation. I do think this does put the onus on Wizards to make better sets. This move generally gives them a lot more control so they have that much more room to fail in a different. Yes the impact of these failures are slightly shorter lived, but with less cards to work with your options are more limited. I am of the mind that we should trust Wizards. I'm not really sure where all the skepticism comes from but they print the cards so they can make these sets however they see fit. They could make them in a way that does cause you to pay more, or they could make them in a way that works almost how it does now. Completely depends on how they approach reprints. I'm not saying they won't make some mistakes. They made some early ones with Mythics, but they are much better now.
2. Wizards doesn't care about X? Yes Wizards has a bottomline. Yes they make money on sealed products. Someone wrote a post the other day about how Wizards hates Modern. Now Wizards hates constructed? Come on. I suppose Wizards hates competitive magic too. Maybe it hates the Secondary Market.
NO.... Wizards needs all of these things. It's part of a system. Without a secondary market their cards aren't worth anything. There is no value. It's the same reason that wizards does not hate eternal formats. How much does it affect your purchasing that your cards have innate value that is retained. They don't want all cards to be unreachable but they want to keep value invested in their cards. It's good for them and good for the game. Vintage died out in paper because the cards were too hard to acquire and too expensive. That is the beauty of Modern and why Wizards is so heavy handed with it. They want to control the flow cards and the balance of their eternal format to keep it accessible. I gather they prefer rotating formats from a design standpoint but it should be obvious that to retain value in the cards they need eternal formats. Better the one they can control and reprint cards for.
Wizards wants long time players. They are generally less effort to sell products to and they fill out the base. Yes they work harder to get new players and casual players, but they don't want everyone just exiting. They are growing a business. The pro tour serves a purpose in all of that too. These are all user engagement strategies and mechanisms for marketting. The Pro Tour showcases the cards and products and the idea of being a pro. It all feeds the machine. As usually the Customer really doesn't know what they want because they don't see the full picture and only their small slice. There are a lot more benefits to the proposed changes than card sales. Standard is more accessible at all times of the year for new players. It feels much more constant.
3. Finally and most importantly. What's with this completely incorrect view of how card power level works. I love all these 'Nailed it' it comments when the premise is not only inaccurate but actually so completely removed from how things actually work that the opposite more likely to be true. I'm almost ashamed to say I'm a regular poster of this board. Let's go back to the basics.
Yes Wizards pushes certain cards, but it isn't as simple as saying they push 8-9 cards and call it a day. Power doesn't exist in a vaccuum. Powerful cards are those that interact the most favorably. Even though we can sort of do vaccuum measurements of a card's power level it is just our best approximation of how we see what a format should look like or a comparison to other similar cards. What tends to happen is powerful interactions tend to cause basically clusters attractive and repulsive space. As more cards join these clusters the stronger the pull gets. If you try to even the playing ground this will happen anyway. Picture iron filings in a uniform magnetic field. Of course in reality it isn't uniform and we aren't really sure what sort of pattern we are going to get. The main reason is with a smaller card pool the starting position of our filings is much more sparse. Now imagine a painter creating a masterpiece. There may be hard lines framing a section. There are uses of light to draw the viewer into certain areas. In the end though aesthetically we look for some sort of balance or continuity to deem it's value. Sometimes things are very much on surface and sometimes they are subtle and require a second look.
Ok. Good. Now either could be considered interesting in their own way. And the magic card pool really sort of works in both ways. It's often much easier to see what's going on with a recognizable painting than with iron filings and that might make it easier to sell because it's easier to understand. By showcasing certain mechanics and interactions we can push something designed rather than incidental. We have more power over how the cards fall. But it's more than that. By purposefully tinkering with the balance the game stays fresh. The idea we have of flat power is just one persons idea of what balance is. It might just only work for one set, but we want to paint not only a single exhibition but a lifetimes worth.
Power level isn't something that can be measured a long a single axis. The effects on tempo and the types of interactions largely govern what makes a card good. Notion Thief probably sees more Vintage play than Standard play proportionally and this isn't even a cheap card to cast. This is alongside the most powerful cards ever printed in magic. While it's easy to picture a card pool and determine that a card would be powerful there so much is context specific. Let's look closer to home. Pack Rat is generally not that strong of a card in Standard. It was good this Standard but usually it's below rate for Standard, but at a decent rate for some eternal formats. I'd go as far as saying 9/10 Standard formats Pack Rat wouldn't be good enough to see play. The card can be powerful but it's a very strong argument to context.
What this means is while Wizards were pushing those cards you are talking about it wasn't just them tweaking the cmc and the text. It was a process of looking at what is there and what is not there. Standard has huge sparse areas in the field of all imaginable card pools. As you add more cards to a card pool generally they tend to cluster more and the amount of playable cards proportionally actually decreases. Even if the cards seem level you create redundancies duplicates. Eventually you get 45 lightning bolts and 15 mountains. These sort of singularities are actually the most dangerous. Wizards like to control combo. The best way to do this is create checks and balances. The easiest way to do this is create extremely rarer powerful elements to balance out a larger number of redundant elements. That way you are recognizing the synergies and the redundancy and placing the counter in place. Ie.. introduce Leyline of Sanctity to our Lightning Bolt metagame. Once you start actively playing around with this balance it's a matter of balancing interactions between the few and the many.
At that point it only makes sense alongside the desire to keep things fresh to let it work both ways. Create powerful cards and interactions but create whole redundant sets of elements to combat them. That way you can really push something strong or exciting because you know it won't get out of hand. You can enter new space and create cards people are excited to play with because you know where to alleviate the pressure points. See if you were just try to not make anything more powerful or interesting not only would you not have certain cards to really draw people in,there is the potential that without the guidelines in the format it could develop in unintended ways. So you tend to play it safer and in so while things are potentially different it will feel largely the same. In fact I think this is why Theros was a bit of a failure. They tried to make things a bit more even to promote a diverse metagame and in so it felt too heavy handed where it needed to constrain RTR (although that was mostly Core Set's doing) and gave you endless ways to make large creatures on T4 in every color. When people complain about Power Level drop it's usually the as much of the lack of perceived power level differential in the current card pool than against everything ever printed. It's a lot worse for a lot of players when everything feels sluggish and awkward. This is usually a matter of things not functioning smoothly in it's own context rather than for all time. That's the challenge. Perhaps some players prefer that tempo and that is where Standard is heading for a while. But it is essential to understand ridiculous it is to basically point your finger at a few cards.
Do you guys really want a brewers paradise? Don't look for Wizards leveling the field. That's the worst and the exact opposite you want. It has the exact opposite effect to what you are expecting. Look for them setting hard contraints and more powerful yet outside contained interactions. While this can create a more rock paper scissors metagame it also increases the jump from Tier 2 to Tier 1. With a smaller target making up a larger part of the metagame you can start doing truly interesting things. The problem with this past year was not enough enticement and too many viable decks. While Tier 1 was limited somewhat it was still so inconsistent it could lose to Tier 1.5 regularly. With so many viable decks there is no real room to wedge your way in. You can create a deck that isn't bad, and since even the best decks are so bad you might get some wins but in the general scheme of things you lose and it might not even be clear why.
How were there too many viable decks? The aggro decks (Mono-U, MBA, WB Humans, and Rabble Red) were basically the same deck in different colors (Humans less so than the others). There was only one draw-go control deck, and all the black-based midrange/devotion decks shared 45-50 maindeck cards. Monsters was the dominant creature-based midrange deck, and while Burn was an interesting RDW variant, it wasn't enough to save the format IMO. The fact that people were forced to play with crap like Judge's Familiar and Nightveil Specter compounded the problem.
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I am not concerned, panicked, or fretful about anything at all.
Just thought somebody should say it...
There are already a lot of teir 1 decks. Many more than we've had been in the past. The problem with all of them is either you are playing control or you win by creatures. So no matter what color I pick or strategy I use we all win in the same fashion? What's the point?
This has actually been one of the most diverse standards we've had in a very long time.
I think this comment really cuts to the heart of the whole issue. A slight flattening of power levels would, in my opinion, go a long way toward keeping standard fresh AND keeping prices on the secondary market in check. This issue has actually come the forefront of my mind very recently, as I've been doing a bit of belated spring cleaning, and have begun to notice how many cards I own that are virtually worthless.
Keeping with your Sphinx's Revelation example, I, as, primarily, a control player, have felt limited by how absurdly powerful this card is. There have been plenty of instances in which I've wanted to experiment with control brews that don't include blue and white, but, in the end, I always have trouble justifying not including absurdly overpowered cards such as Sphinx's Revelation. Sure, I know that there's nothing keeping me from brewing without these two colors, but I'm sure that most everyone can understand what I'm trying to get at here.
In short, if Wizards wants to continue getting my money, they need to work on making more of what they print playable. If nothing else, it's just sort of wasteful to print so many cards that will never see the light of day.
echo chambercomment section is going strong.This is faulty logic though. Because no matter how big the card pool gets, there's always going to be the best cards in the format being played. You look over at Modern, a format in which you have like 10 years of blocks legal in... but at the end of the day the best cards for that format are going to get played. Sphinx's Rev, Pack Rat, Elspeth, Domri, Xenagos, Mutavault aren't even really played in Modern because there are cards that are far better.
I echo what a lot of people are on the board are saying about the lands and the price of standard in general. This was an issue before this change even. And that's just that it's hard to play at a semi-competitive level without being really committed to playing this game money-wise. I got to the point where I was comfortable spending probably 500 dollars a year between FNMs and singles playing Standard and would mostly play the same types of decks and it allowed me to get away with buying fewer staples to build some of these different decks. And it always bothered me that most of the cards I bought would be worth 10% of their current value in a year or two. So it feels like unless you are really into the competitive scene, this is always going to be an issue.
It's a legit complaint IMO. And the solution is to either invest in Modern (probably costs more money up front, but far less over 3-4 years) or play a format like EDH where you can get away with spending far less money and get potentially as much enjoyment out of it.
It isn't faulty logic though. Just because the best cards will always be chosen out of a pool, doesn't mean you can't have more cards that are at least playable.
Admittedly the poster using Sphinx's Revelation as an example isn't handling or understanding this well IMO, but my complaint is that there are large numbers of cards that are simply too over-costed in terms of mana to have a chance to see play in constructed formats. They don't need to design cards to be _pushed_ for constructed, or try to flatten out the power level impossibly much, because there will always be slightly better cards that players will pick out. What they need to do is print a lower ratio of limited jank. Less Godhunter Octopus power level stuff and more Wind Drake or Wind Drake+, no more stupid badly designed stuff like Emmara Tandris sneaking through at the last minute without proper playtesting. Less things like Culling Mark, Eternity Snare, Font of Vigor, Meditation Puzzle, Nimbus of the Isles, Statute of Denial, Tireless Missionaries, Tyrant's Machine, or Research Assistant and more stuff like Geist of the Moors, Hammerhand, Jace's Ingenuity, Krenko's Enforcer, Xathrid Slyblade, Archetype of Courage, Gods Willing, Impetuous Sunchaser, Kraken of the Straits, Reap What Is Sown, Vulpine Goliath, Act on Impulse, Ancient Silverback, Borderland Marauder or Centaur Courser.
Such good points. I did some tweetin this morning.
Actually, Mutavault, Revelation, Pack Rat, and Domri all see decent amounts of play in Modern.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I was going to point that out but you beat me to it
Here is the real issue for players and grinders. We will have to invest in decks more often than before. At least right now I can trade and speculate to keep the game basically free for me. Now this is going to be even harder to accomplish if not impossible. Big money is getting involved in the secondary market. There is evidence in the mass buy outs that have been happening. Right now most care predictable in price and generally follow the same trend down after release. It is a slow fall though. If that card has a shorter lifespan expect that fall to be off the end of a cliff. When a card is good expect it to see even worse spikes than you do now. Again all because of the lifespan of the card being shorter. There is no real competition online either. All the stores rise and lower their prices in collusion with each other. Competition doesn't actually exist to keep these cards from getting out of hand in their price. Demand is the only factor that can effect the price at this point. Again demand is going to see big spikes and falls because of the shorter lifespan.
For WotC nothing will change the 2nd market doesn't really effect them. If you are not doing limited tournaments they make no money at all. Constructed is not the format they get paid from so they don't care. They only thing they care about is reprinting cards for Modern Masters type of product. Other than that WotC could care less about constructed.
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Oh, I certainly understand that there will always be cards that stand out as better than the rest, and that those cards will see the most play. I was tired when I typed that last night, and I fear that I didn't make my point quite as clear as I could have. There was a reason that I described what I would like to see as a slight flattening of power levels. I would like to see some of the most powerful cards within a given set perhaps taken down a notch, and, similarly, I would like to see some of the weakest, most pointless cards within a set made more playable. Hopefully, that would result in a greater number of cards, perhaps at the uncommon level, become more viable deck inclusions. I think that AvalonAurora vocalized that idea quite well, and I don't think I can really add anything that hasn't been said.
If a situation such as this were to occur, I could imagine that, while not necessarily format defining, a greater number of playable cards at the rare level and, in particular, below, could create a much more diverse standard environment. Sure, the very best cards in the pool would, most likely, find their way into many of the decks seeing play, but I would imagine that it could contribute to a greater diversity in the other cards that comprise the decks. Furthermore, I believe that a greater number of playable cards at lower rarity levels could contribute to a great deal of diversity in the tier two decks that see play. While I understand that many people wouldn't be terribly interested in playing a deck that is tier two, I think that it would make the game much more enjoyable for those of us who are more in the direction of being casual players.
Standard will end up having a smaller card pool (5-6 sets instead of 5-8.) That, the core set being gone, and way it affects limited are really the only significant changes here. It's not that big a deal, so stop acting like it's going to be that much more expensive. It's not.
Everybody always knew that when buying the fall block the cards would be legal for a full 24 months.
Now you don't get that security.
Card prices have to take a hit to adjust in my opinion. An 18 month legal card isn't worth as much as a 24 month legal card.
That does actually nail the point. However, getting rid of the Core sets might help towards that goal. It's the Core sets that are riddled with unplayable junk. Reprints of reprints going back years, most of them so underpowered you'd be embarrassed to run them in a kitchen table deck.
I'm also determinedly optimistic about the new block pattern. 2x sets per block means there should be less room for padded filler. I'm predicting the average quality per card might go up.
I think it'll make STD a little more interested and give it more cards to play with, but the biggest issue I see with this is how there turning the game even more of a money pit than ever before and this is going to push a lot of folks away from the competitive game that simply cannot afford it Personally I do not like this move and I don't even play anymore. I had actually thought of coming back to the competitive side of MtG but after seeing this ...... think I am gonna stay away.
1. Prices. Let's take a step back. The extra rotation isn't nearly as impactful as our current rotations. Each time, 2 sets are rotating out. Just 2 sets. So picturing how current rotation works and then comparing only works to a certain point. Right now rotation means dropping half the legal cards. This is much bigger. The cards leaving usually have a bigger immediate effect on the metagame than the cards coming in. With the new scheme the rotation will be much softer.
So yes a card is legal for 18 months. This will affect prices, but probably not as much as introducing Mythics did. All it does is slightly de-value Standard only staples. The problem of course as highlighted is must have cards used by multiple archetypes. Something like lands comes up a lot. Like Temples are a perfect example of lands that are pretty much Standard only. Rare land cycles generally sit around $6-8 if they aren't going to see much other play. Right now each block generally has a rare land cycle, and the Core Set has a Rare land cycle. About twice a year you have must have lands, and generally one of these 2 are reprints. Nothing in the new scheme prevents them from doing the same. The pre-rotation price dropping happening twice a year might cause some interesting side affects as people prematurely de-value archetypes that will get support in the next set making other legal cards cheaper. At best it means price expectations stabilize lower, at worst it means inflation across the board as people over value their cards because of the cost they acquired them at. We seen this happen already, where cards that see some play in Modern are very expensive even though the price is driven by Standard but no one is willing to sell for less. It will likely be a combination of both which means Standard remains largely unchanged and prices for eternal formats continue to climb.
The bigger question is how wizards handles the departure of the Core Set. I imagine there will still have to be a certain number of reprints. But at this point it is all speculation. I do think this does put the onus on Wizards to make better sets. This move generally gives them a lot more control so they have that much more room to fail in a different. Yes the impact of these failures are slightly shorter lived, but with less cards to work with your options are more limited. I am of the mind that we should trust Wizards. I'm not really sure where all the skepticism comes from but they print the cards so they can make these sets however they see fit. They could make them in a way that does cause you to pay more, or they could make them in a way that works almost how it does now. Completely depends on how they approach reprints. I'm not saying they won't make some mistakes. They made some early ones with Mythics, but they are much better now.
2. Wizards doesn't care about X? Yes Wizards has a bottomline. Yes they make money on sealed products. Someone wrote a post the other day about how Wizards hates Modern. Now Wizards hates constructed? Come on. I suppose Wizards hates competitive magic too. Maybe it hates the Secondary Market.
NO.... Wizards needs all of these things. It's part of a system. Without a secondary market their cards aren't worth anything. There is no value. It's the same reason that wizards does not hate eternal formats. How much does it affect your purchasing that your cards have innate value that is retained. They don't want all cards to be unreachable but they want to keep value invested in their cards. It's good for them and good for the game. Vintage died out in paper because the cards were too hard to acquire and too expensive. That is the beauty of Modern and why Wizards is so heavy handed with it. They want to control the flow cards and the balance of their eternal format to keep it accessible. I gather they prefer rotating formats from a design standpoint but it should be obvious that to retain value in the cards they need eternal formats. Better the one they can control and reprint cards for.
Wizards wants long time players. They are generally less effort to sell products to and they fill out the base. Yes they work harder to get new players and casual players, but they don't want everyone just exiting. They are growing a business. The pro tour serves a purpose in all of that too. These are all user engagement strategies and mechanisms for marketting. The Pro Tour showcases the cards and products and the idea of being a pro. It all feeds the machine. As usually the Customer really doesn't know what they want because they don't see the full picture and only their small slice. There are a lot more benefits to the proposed changes than card sales. Standard is more accessible at all times of the year for new players. It feels much more constant.
3. Finally and most importantly. What's with this completely incorrect view of how card power level works. I love all these 'Nailed it' it comments when the premise is not only inaccurate but actually so completely removed from how things actually work that the opposite more likely to be true. I'm almost ashamed to say I'm a regular poster of this board. Let's go back to the basics.
Yes Wizards pushes certain cards, but it isn't as simple as saying they push 8-9 cards and call it a day. Power doesn't exist in a vaccuum. Powerful cards are those that interact the most favorably. Even though we can sort of do vaccuum measurements of a card's power level it is just our best approximation of how we see what a format should look like or a comparison to other similar cards. What tends to happen is powerful interactions tend to cause basically clusters attractive and repulsive space. As more cards join these clusters the stronger the pull gets. If you try to even the playing ground this will happen anyway. Picture iron filings in a uniform magnetic field. Of course in reality it isn't uniform and we aren't really sure what sort of pattern we are going to get. The main reason is with a smaller card pool the starting position of our filings is much more sparse. Now imagine a painter creating a masterpiece. There may be hard lines framing a section. There are uses of light to draw the viewer into certain areas. In the end though aesthetically we look for some sort of balance or continuity to deem it's value. Sometimes things are very much on surface and sometimes they are subtle and require a second look.
Ok. Good. Now either could be considered interesting in their own way. And the magic card pool really sort of works in both ways. It's often much easier to see what's going on with a recognizable painting than with iron filings and that might make it easier to sell because it's easier to understand. By showcasing certain mechanics and interactions we can push something designed rather than incidental. We have more power over how the cards fall. But it's more than that. By purposefully tinkering with the balance the game stays fresh. The idea we have of flat power is just one persons idea of what balance is. It might just only work for one set, but we want to paint not only a single exhibition but a lifetimes worth.
Power level isn't something that can be measured a long a single axis. The effects on tempo and the types of interactions largely govern what makes a card good. Notion Thief probably sees more Vintage play than Standard play proportionally and this isn't even a cheap card to cast. This is alongside the most powerful cards ever printed in magic. While it's easy to picture a card pool and determine that a card would be powerful there so much is context specific. Let's look closer to home. Pack Rat is generally not that strong of a card in Standard. It was good this Standard but usually it's below rate for Standard, but at a decent rate for some eternal formats. I'd go as far as saying 9/10 Standard formats Pack Rat wouldn't be good enough to see play. The card can be powerful but it's a very strong argument to context.
What this means is while Wizards were pushing those cards you are talking about it wasn't just them tweaking the cmc and the text. It was a process of looking at what is there and what is not there. Standard has huge sparse areas in the field of all imaginable card pools. As you add more cards to a card pool generally they tend to cluster more and the amount of playable cards proportionally actually decreases. Even if the cards seem level you create redundancies duplicates. Eventually you get 45 lightning bolts and 15 mountains. These sort of singularities are actually the most dangerous. Wizards like to control combo. The best way to do this is create checks and balances. The easiest way to do this is create extremely rarer powerful elements to balance out a larger number of redundant elements. That way you are recognizing the synergies and the redundancy and placing the counter in place. Ie.. introduce Leyline of Sanctity to our Lightning Bolt metagame. Once you start actively playing around with this balance it's a matter of balancing interactions between the few and the many.
At that point it only makes sense alongside the desire to keep things fresh to let it work both ways. Create powerful cards and interactions but create whole redundant sets of elements to combat them. That way you can really push something strong or exciting because you know it won't get out of hand. You can enter new space and create cards people are excited to play with because you know where to alleviate the pressure points. See if you were just try to not make anything more powerful or interesting not only would you not have certain cards to really draw people in,there is the potential that without the guidelines in the format it could develop in unintended ways. So you tend to play it safer and in so while things are potentially different it will feel largely the same. In fact I think this is why Theros was a bit of a failure. They tried to make things a bit more even to promote a diverse metagame and in so it felt too heavy handed where it needed to constrain RTR (although that was mostly Core Set's doing) and gave you endless ways to make large creatures on T4 in every color. When people complain about Power Level drop it's usually the as much of the lack of perceived power level differential in the current card pool than against everything ever printed. It's a lot worse for a lot of players when everything feels sluggish and awkward. This is usually a matter of things not functioning smoothly in it's own context rather than for all time. That's the challenge. Perhaps some players prefer that tempo and that is where Standard is heading for a while. But it is essential to understand ridiculous it is to basically point your finger at a few cards.
Do you guys really want a brewers paradise? Don't look for Wizards leveling the field. That's the worst and the exact opposite you want. It has the exact opposite effect to what you are expecting. Look for them setting hard contraints and more powerful yet outside contained interactions. While this can create a more rock paper scissors metagame it also increases the jump from Tier 2 to Tier 1. With a smaller target making up a larger part of the metagame you can start doing truly interesting things. The problem with this past year was not enough enticement and too many viable decks. While Tier 1 was limited somewhat it was still so inconsistent it could lose to Tier 1.5 regularly. With so many viable decks there is no real room to wedge your way in. You can create a deck that isn't bad, and since even the best decks are so bad you might get some wins but in the general scheme of things you lose and it might not even be clear why.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
This is not something that will effect WotC. They have absolutely NO control of the secondary market or it's prices. They can, however, influence them with products like Modern Masters. Instead of using that influence to actually reduce cost for players they just upped the price of the packs and no actual change to the price of cards happened. In fact they went up because more people entered the format. This is what creates a barrier of entry that will eventually choke the format to death. So instead of exploiting a cash grab through modern masters they could have priced the packs much lower and it would not have effected WotC at all.
Now this 18 month shelf life for standard playables. The secondary market is completely controlled by the vendors (mainly .com retailers). You think they are going to drop card prices just because it has a shorter life? Hell no. They are going to increase their prices to exploit the demand because the drop off will happen even faster and more sharply than before. No retailer is going to hurt their bottom line because a change comes. They will simply find a way of keeping or increasing their bottom line within the time frame given. If that time frame is shorter adjustments will be made at the same rate.
Here are the facts for new players or returning players when it comes to playing standard. Unless you want to drop a large sum of cash to buy singles and get a deck right off the bat it will take time. This means playing limited events to build up your collection to be able to play during the next rotation. So these players sit idly by for nearly a year or more so they can play standard. Now they get 6 months less life out of their cards why even join in the first place?
I have a feeling that modern will get even bigger due to this rotations because you don't need to invest so much so often.
How were there too many viable decks? The aggro decks (Mono-U, MBA, WB Humans, and Rabble Red) were basically the same deck in different colors (Humans less so than the others). There was only one draw-go control deck, and all the black-based midrange/devotion decks shared 45-50 maindeck cards. Monsters was the dominant creature-based midrange deck, and while Burn was an interesting RDW variant, it wasn't enough to save the format IMO. The fact that people were forced to play with crap like Judge's Familiar and Nightveil Specter compounded the problem.