Where did you find this number? I'm genuinely curious.
Last time I tried to look up revenue from Hasbro, all of their MTG revenues were reported under their games division, which also include the Monopoly brand. Making any revenue attributed specifically WOTC hard to calculate. Monopoly may not be big around here, but I guarantee its in every casual game store and is a significant money maker for Hasbro. I'm not doubting your $120m number I would like to see the source of it.
* * *
Also revenue != Profit. I would look at profit before determining if $250k, is a small number or not. I would guess that MTG is a high margin product, but without looking at a WOTC income statement, I can't make that conclusion.
I sided out 2x CoCo vs Poison, which in retrospect feels like a mistake. I just figure a 4cc spell is too slow. But I recognize that elves can also cast it on turn 3, which helps.
The poison matchup is one of those match ups where the die roll (going first), which is always important, feels extra important.
I think that if the dust settles after this, an unban on Stoneforge Mystic, Splinter Twin (although it has just been banned, I still think it was undeserved) and Birthing Podat the same time would create a healthy, diverse metagame.
- There would be UWx control decks with the recently unbanned Visions and Sword combo plus Stoneforge to fetch it and other equipment, a la Caw Blade
- There would be Jund decks that crap all over it with Abrupt Decay for Thopter Foundry and other individual cards and Kolaghan's Command for SFM + Batterskull or Foundry + get back a guy, you name it. Plus they have Bolts and Terminate too.
- There would be Abzan decks that give up on Kommand, Bolt and Terminate in favor of a Stoneforge package of their own + Lingering Souls to give swords to, plus Path to Exile and Siege Rhino.
- Twin decks would be back, and GBx will have the edge over them. Not sure about UWx though. There's no risk involved about them abusing Sword or SFM because they have other things to focus on, and if they do adopt Visions, it will take a long time for them to abuse the CA so it's fair.
- Pod decks would also be back, and althoug it has the Melira combo, it has always been a fair deck. I never thought the deck was overly oppressive or anything of the sorts. I think it would do fine against the decks above.
- Affinity and Burn would probably stay on top as always, and maybe also Infect could keep a Tier 1 status.
What do you think about it?
I personally hate bathing pod (I own 4x copies; so its not helping me financially that its banned).
Pod is the worst. Because there is no variability in the game. It just executes the chain of creatures X, Y, Z. Almost every deck has to deal with randomness. Pod, once online, has very little randomness to it. And I find it incredibly tedious to play against. The phyrexian mana, along with all phyrexian mana, is pretty problematic too.
Twin, is a little more fun but not much.
Put another way I'm support Wizards banning both of those cards.
As for what wizards usually does, I find that to be immaterial to a discussion as to what they should do. In an ideal world wizards would manage the game properly and make minimalist bans but sadly like most things this is not the case.
Its material in the sense that we are all speculating what wizards will do come April. I think they make a decision, based on past behavior, and aggressively strip Eldrazi of its power.
Just like when you look at how courts will decide a case you look at past precedent or past cases. That's all I'm doing here. So in my opinion it is material. If you want to ignore past behavior and past history, be my guest. But I think its telling to look at bans from the past (even if they're from Standard).
When over 70% of the population are asking for unbans of some variety.
Where does this number come from?
I haven't followed the WotC handling of Modern, other than to know that people are unhappy with it. I've heard it stated that WotC develops and tests for Standard only and does zero modern testing.
If that is the case:
1. Ban list updates will be a permanent fixture. You can't release hundreds of cards per year, and not expect broken combos and broken aggro decks. Without testing or attention to format its going to happen. So ban list updates will occur to keep oppressive strategies in check.
2. Part and parcel with this decision is cards will lose value pretty quickly when banned. I actually don't mind this if it curbs overall modern prices. Gets speculators out of the game.
But you can't have a balanced modern tournament with zero effort put into the format. Either its part of testing or its not. And if its not; frequent ban list and card value fluctuations should be the expectation from players.
Also from Magic history, when wizards decides to curb the power of an oppressive deck they do so fairly aggressively.
When Affinity was a problem --> disciple of the vault and artifact lands were banned.
When Caw/Blade was a problem --> Jace and Stoneforge Mystic were banned.
I would place Eldrazi on the level of those decks in its metagame impact. Thus I suspect Eye is candidate #1 for banning. I expect Temple or Mimic to join it.
When wizards curbs power of oppressive decks, they don't want to revisit the issue a couple months down the line.
I'm not a WotC expert. But I've heard it stated that they don't test for Modern and Legacy in development.
Which I guess is fine. But the community should then accept frequent ban list updates, and card value fluctuations. If the format literally has no R&D testing, then ban list updates are going to be a regular part of the game.
I'm wondering if the lack of commentary coming out of WotC on Eldrazi is due to the fact that they're measuring Affinity for action also and trying to figure out if Modern and the PT can handle 4 list bans in a 3-6 month period.
Why is WotC silent on this?
My personal guess is to minimize the adverse impact of sales on Gatewatch. Once Innistrad is out, its the new thing to push, and the old set can be more safely banned. Eldrazi investors got to play with their broken deck for X amount of months.
A secondary consideration is bans look really bad for WotC. It essentially means that they don't know how to design fair cards for their own game.
I think WotC is silent, and hoping for a community answer to this deck. When none appears, due to a land that make between 2-6 mana per turn, they will be forced to take action. But I personally believe their silence is due to the fact that right now a ban looks warranted and they have zero intention of banning anything until April. So rather than say anything right now, they are going to keep quiet and hope the vocal minority is just the vocal minority and not the buying public. That the modern community can suffer a month of a terrible format, for the sake of sales, and the faintest glimmer of hope that a community answer can correct this monstrosity. I personally don't see it happening.
I've literally never seen such a warped Modern field, and yet I'm not sure what I'm more excited for. The warpage at the GPs, or the counterarguments the Eldrazi defenders are going to muster to somehow explain this.
Its clear to me that Eldrazi defenders come in two forms:
1. They dislike reactionary bans. They want more time or more evidence to delay or confirm a ban. I don't know how one can watch various forms of Eldrazi bashing against each other round after round and call the format healthy. But if you really want more Eldrazi v. Eldrazi till you feel comfortable with a ban. I guess that is your choice.
2. Players spent cash on Eldrazi and want to play with cards. They know its broken and don't care. Maybe a subset of this group, just likes playing broken decks. Which is fine in a vacuum, but less fine for tournaments.
I'm personally done with modern till the Eldrazi gets fixed. I'm voting with my dollars and sitting on the sidelines till something happens with this deck.
Anyone who thinks affinity will routinely beat W/U eldrazi or R/G eldrazi is deceiving themselves.
Those numbers are both unprecedented and ridiculously stupid, and why I'm not worried about "adaptation". You can't just tweak some slots and sideboard cards to fix a 30-70 matchup, so the adaptation is going to look like most of the current meta being unplayable, which will lead to a ban anyway. I don't think Wizards will emergency ban now, but after this and Cruise I think they'll want a better way to deal with eternal "oopsies", like moving the B&R announcement to ~1 month after the set release.
I agree with everything your saying.
However. If I had to guess, sales numbers for Magic sets are probably like sales for movies and music. They are high the first couple of weeks and drop off precipitously after that. So there is a strong business case for why there is not immediate / emergency ban options. That needs to be weighed against health of the eternal formats. I would guess no action on this for 3 months minimum (or whenever ban updates usually take place).
As a merfolk player, who basically gives up on the affinity matchup, those Eldrazi vs. field numbers are sobering.
Make sure you use your loaded dice for the die roll. That extra turn really matters.
Melira and Spellskite. Even with the hate sometimes Infect just wins.
Infect will bring in removal for the hate. Infect is used to dealing with Spellskite and Melira.
Where did you find this number? I'm genuinely curious.
Last time I tried to look up revenue from Hasbro, all of their MTG revenues were reported under their games division, which also include the Monopoly brand. Making any revenue attributed specifically WOTC hard to calculate. Monopoly may not be big around here, but I guarantee its in every casual game store and is a significant money maker for Hasbro. I'm not doubting your $120m number I would like to see the source of it.
* * *
Also revenue != Profit. I would look at profit before determining if $250k, is a small number or not. I would guess that MTG is a high margin product, but without looking at a WOTC income statement, I can't make that conclusion.
I sided out 2x CoCo vs Poison, which in retrospect feels like a mistake. I just figure a 4cc spell is too slow. But I recognize that elves can also cast it on turn 3, which helps.
The poison matchup is one of those match ups where the die roll (going first), which is always important, feels extra important.
W 2-0 Jund
W 2-0 Mono U Extra Turns
L 2-1 GB Poison
How is the poison matchup?
I sided in six cards:
+2 Spellskite
+2 Pithing Needle (For the nexus)
+1 Melira
+1 Recsage (Rancor)
I lost pretty handily both games I went second. Poison is much faster than elves.
The matchup, from my limited experience feels really bad. What do you bring in for the poison matchup?
At least around me poison players are fairly well represented.
I personally hate bathing pod (I own 4x copies; so its not helping me financially that its banned).
Pod is the worst. Because there is no variability in the game. It just executes the chain of creatures X, Y, Z. Almost every deck has to deal with randomness. Pod, once online, has very little randomness to it. And I find it incredibly tedious to play against. The phyrexian mana, along with all phyrexian mana, is pretty problematic too.
Twin, is a little more fun but not much.
Put another way I'm support Wizards banning both of those cards.
5-6 of 8 Eldrazi in Top 8 Detroit
What a joke.
Its material in the sense that we are all speculating what wizards will do come April. I think they make a decision, based on past behavior, and aggressively strip Eldrazi of its power.
Just like when you look at how courts will decide a case you look at past precedent or past cases. That's all I'm doing here. So in my opinion it is material. If you want to ignore past behavior and past history, be my guest. But I think its telling to look at bans from the past (even if they're from Standard).
Where does this number come from?
I haven't followed the WotC handling of Modern, other than to know that people are unhappy with it. I've heard it stated that WotC develops and tests for Standard only and does zero modern testing.
If that is the case:
1. Ban list updates will be a permanent fixture. You can't release hundreds of cards per year, and not expect broken combos and broken aggro decks. Without testing or attention to format its going to happen. So ban list updates will occur to keep oppressive strategies in check.
2. Part and parcel with this decision is cards will lose value pretty quickly when banned. I actually don't mind this if it curbs overall modern prices. Gets speculators out of the game.
But you can't have a balanced modern tournament with zero effort put into the format. Either its part of testing or its not. And if its not; frequent ban list and card value fluctuations should be the expectation from players.
When Affinity was a problem --> disciple of the vault and artifact lands were banned.
When Caw/Blade was a problem --> Jace and Stoneforge Mystic were banned.
I would place Eldrazi on the level of those decks in its metagame impact. Thus I suspect Eye is candidate #1 for banning. I expect Temple or Mimic to join it.
When wizards curbs power of oppressive decks, they don't want to revisit the issue a couple months down the line.
Which I guess is fine. But the community should then accept frequent ban list updates, and card value fluctuations. If the format literally has no R&D testing, then ban list updates are going to be a regular part of the game.
Why is WotC silent on this?
My personal guess is to minimize the adverse impact of sales on Gatewatch. Once Innistrad is out, its the new thing to push, and the old set can be more safely banned. Eldrazi investors got to play with their broken deck for X amount of months.
A secondary consideration is bans look really bad for WotC. It essentially means that they don't know how to design fair cards for their own game.
I think WotC is silent, and hoping for a community answer to this deck. When none appears, due to a land that make between 2-6 mana per turn, they will be forced to take action. But I personally believe their silence is due to the fact that right now a ban looks warranted and they have zero intention of banning anything until April. So rather than say anything right now, they are going to keep quiet and hope the vocal minority is just the vocal minority and not the buying public. That the modern community can suffer a month of a terrible format, for the sake of sales, and the faintest glimmer of hope that a community answer can correct this monstrosity. I personally don't see it happening.
Its clear to me that Eldrazi defenders come in two forms:
1. They dislike reactionary bans. They want more time or more evidence to delay or confirm a ban. I don't know how one can watch various forms of Eldrazi bashing against each other round after round and call the format healthy. But if you really want more Eldrazi v. Eldrazi till you feel comfortable with a ban. I guess that is your choice.
2. Players spent cash on Eldrazi and want to play with cards. They know its broken and don't care. Maybe a subset of this group, just likes playing broken decks. Which is fine in a vacuum, but less fine for tournaments.
I'm personally done with modern till the Eldrazi gets fixed. I'm voting with my dollars and sitting on the sidelines till something happens with this deck.
Anyone who thinks affinity will routinely beat W/U eldrazi or R/G eldrazi is deceiving themselves.
When does the ban list get updated in April? This will be a terrible format until Eldrazi loses Eye.
I agree with everything your saying.
However. If I had to guess, sales numbers for Magic sets are probably like sales for movies and music. They are high the first couple of weeks and drop off precipitously after that. So there is a strong business case for why there is not immediate / emergency ban options. That needs to be weighed against health of the eternal formats. I would guess no action on this for 3 months minimum (or whenever ban updates usually take place).
As a merfolk player, who basically gives up on the affinity matchup, those Eldrazi vs. field numbers are sobering.