It's simple - they have set design down to a science. I bet these sets practically build themselves - let's throw the dragon package in there, let's use these mythics and the commons/uncommons build themselves. I bet R&D on these sets is a fraction of new sets.
These are fancier FTV's. It's a cheap way to leverage cards that are expensive on the secondary market while at the same time getting value for their limited game design and making people rip packs. This whole set made me yawn except for Mana Drain.
Finance has died quite a bit - the old days of standard cards spiking and holding are long gone. Same with modern cards popping up seemingly daily. Decreased attendance = decreased interest = lower finance interest.
Oh look, another solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
If you think that, you spent no time on Pucatrade when it was massively successful and no time on Pucatrade when it collapsed under a series of poor decisions. Something that can replace the effectiveness of Puca in its heyday is EXTREMELY welcome.
Card to Card
Card to Cash
Cash to Card
I fail to see why a points system has to insert itself to be a middleman to any of these transactions.
I honestly think there has been a shift in the perception of the playerbase and the newer players are treating Standard like a dirty pyramid scheme. Standard is designed to be an intentional rat race, where players are constantly treadmilling and forced to buy new cards every 3 months. Once you tell this to players, they are turned off by it immediately. Once they figure out out, they're tired of opening lower powered reprints of cards that already exist.
It doesn't help that online you read people telling new players over and over to skip Standard and save money by playing Modern or EDH. And Standard sucking is a self fulfilling prophecy at this point, because the player base that melted away over KLD-AER standard aren't coming back.
I've kind of hated standard since Elvish Mystic last rotated.
I will give you an example. I live on the border of Wisconsin and Illinois in the mid west of America.
10 years ago we had 4 maybe 5 LGS to choose from. These were the days of 40-70 player FNMs. Pre releases and release parties were huge. Depending on the set, 100+ players.
5 years ago we had around a dozen LGS. FNMs were around 30-50 players. This is about the time they went away from release events and only had pre release events. Still most LGS had 50+ per flight for pre release events.
1 year ago we had 18-20 LGS to choose from. To the credit of some of the LGS owners, they are working together and shifting 'FNM' to Saturdays or Mondays. LGS 1 runs Standard on Friday night, while LGS 2 runs Modern, and LGS 3 has EDH. ON Saturday they switch formats and then again on Mondays. I can play any format any day of the week. Which is cool for the player base.
With in the last year we have had 6-8 new LGS open. Some dont run scheduled events. Some run non conventional events. Some are competing with the 18-20 for players.
I have over 2 dozen LGS I can choose from all with in 60 minutes from my house. The game has done nothing but grow in my area. Every FNM there are new players getting a DCI number. I understand not every where is probably the same. I live in a highly populated area.
Am I the only person who read this and thinks your LGS are cannibalizing each other and not actually growing? They're fighting over the same local players? Local stores opening up isn't growth - if you said you go to GPs in town every year and every year there are more people, that would hold more weight.
I live in a mid-market city. We're growing, but we still pale in size to somewhere like Atlanta. I see the same players all over town - compared to 5 years ago, player turn out and player growth (increasing # of new faces at events) has been on the decline. A sunday standard tournament that has been firing reliably since I started back (AVR) has not fired in 2 of the last 3 weeks. New LGS pop up, but the old ones shut down as the players migrate to the store featuring the best payouts as a promo to get people in.
I am worried about Magic and I am especially worried about where it will be in 2 years. I see us going farther down the Yugioh rabbit hole.
I also feel like I'm no longer part of a community. I used to go out of my way to be friendly to new players, give them tips, let them borrow cards, etc. I don't do that anymore because of all of the steps over the years WOTC has taken to alienate me as a player and a customer. I'll be damned if I'll go out of my way to help a game that constantly belittles my opinions and treats me like an ******** rather than a loyal customer. Judge/Spoiler-gate was the tipping point for me, along with the moves to dumb down/weaken the game and treat collectors like idiots to milk rather than people who bought in early into the game. Nice gimmicks WOTC - when will you start focusing on the game again.
And the stories...don't get me started on those. Try-hard quotes are the worst. WOTC pays bottom of the barrel wages and it's showing in several aspects of their business.
I'll toss this out there - Magic isn't a speedboat, it's a supertanker. And the reversal in the trend of growth to stagnation (maybe even decline) should be worrisome to everyone. As that trend will not reverse overnight.
I'll still play but I'm not going to invest much on this release. The new set is the same old bull***** - why do you think they had to toss Invocations *and* full art lands at higher rarity in there?
I like how the hivemind has caught up to what I've been saying since BFZ released. Lazy ******* designers.
I find myself wondering if Wizards did any kind of market testing at all with these. Like if they showed them to any players and just asked "what do you think of these designs?" I find one of 3 likely possibilities regarding this. #1...they just didn't do it at all. #2...they did ask people and for reasons that will forever baffle the finest minds on this planet the people they showed them to gave positive reactions. or #3...they did ask people, the people told them what a steaming pile of stomped dog **** these cards were and Wizards said "well...we like em so we're just gonna go ahead and print them anyway cuz who cares what you think you're a dumb dumb poopy head."
Which of these scenarios is most likely? I'll leave it up to you guys to decide. One thing I know for sure...I hate these damn cards. I hate every single solitary gosh dang thing about them except for the art which looks awesome, but they couldn't even get THAT right because they made the damn art window so small you can't even properly appreciate it!
Well done Wizards...crikey...
I think the most they tested this on was close friends and family of developers at Wizards. There is *no way* they asked random Players because random Players would run out and tell everyone what they were just asked by WOTC. Can't have spoilers!
Something is ****ed at Wizards right now - see you all in 2 years when they get their heads out of their asses or they fully devolve into becoming a reprint company.
Smells like Digiridoo around Theros block but worse. Might drive up the price for a bit, but they're probably not going to print anything that is broken by Fluctuator.
Death Shadow esper build has been putting up results and Orzhov Charm is the special sauce. 2 modes are killer in the deck and synergize with Delver and Deaths Shadow very well.
These are fancier FTV's. It's a cheap way to leverage cards that are expensive on the secondary market while at the same time getting value for their limited game design and making people rip packs. This whole set made me yawn except for Mana Drain.
Card to Card
Card to Cash
Cash to Card
I fail to see why a points system has to insert itself to be a middleman to any of these transactions.
It doesn't help that online you read people telling new players over and over to skip Standard and save money by playing Modern or EDH. And Standard sucking is a self fulfilling prophecy at this point, because the player base that melted away over KLD-AER standard aren't coming back.
I've kind of hated standard since Elvish Mystic last rotated.
Am I the only person who read this and thinks your LGS are cannibalizing each other and not actually growing? They're fighting over the same local players? Local stores opening up isn't growth - if you said you go to GPs in town every year and every year there are more people, that would hold more weight.
I live in a mid-market city. We're growing, but we still pale in size to somewhere like Atlanta. I see the same players all over town - compared to 5 years ago, player turn out and player growth (increasing # of new faces at events) has been on the decline. A sunday standard tournament that has been firing reliably since I started back (AVR) has not fired in 2 of the last 3 weeks. New LGS pop up, but the old ones shut down as the players migrate to the store featuring the best payouts as a promo to get people in.
I am worried about Magic and I am especially worried about where it will be in 2 years. I see us going farther down the Yugioh rabbit hole.
And the stories...don't get me started on those. Try-hard quotes are the worst. WOTC pays bottom of the barrel wages and it's showing in several aspects of their business.
Winter is coming.
I like how the hivemind has caught up to what I've been saying since BFZ released. Lazy ******* designers.
I think the most they tested this on was close friends and family of developers at Wizards. There is *no way* they asked random Players because random Players would run out and tell everyone what they were just asked by WOTC. Can't have spoilers!
Something is ****ed at Wizards right now - see you all in 2 years when they get their heads out of their asses or they fully devolve into becoming a reprint company.
Player 1:
Nice bird - card I wanted was 4th from the top.
Death Shadow esper build has been putting up results and Orzhov Charm is the special sauce. 2 modes are killer in the deck and synergize with Delver and Deaths Shadow very well.