To be fair FNM is about as soft and low-risk a competitive environment as there is so it's not like you need to go test a deck for weeks in preparation. FNM IS the testing environment.
Though I can understand, with the cost of Magic, people not wanting to buy in to a deck that isn't proven. You can wax on about how great it is for people to brew or whatever but the fact is this game is freaking expensive and not everyone wants to drop hundreds of dollars on decks that may not even be good against a brand new metagame.
Sure FNM should be about trying out things and having fun... which is where WotC will make their money because people having fun spend money.
It is also correct to say that standard costs too much. New Gideon is $25 right now and isn't close to being as good as Gidigod Ally of OverpoweredMaroness.
$25 per copy for an unproven card that shows promise but isn't as good as the old version STILL good for a long while. That's broke.
The problem that irks people is the 1 or 2 that show up with CoCo week after week (or vehicles or copycat) and take all the credit or packs home each time because they netdecked. it is the nature of the beast but that's what you have to test against if you have time to test. And when the decks that win everything utterly demolish the field... you push everyone else out. It completely stifles creativity and complexity of the environment... which is bad for everyone.
Everyone is hating on WotC for screwing up in one way or another. Stop pointing the finger people. The problem is US. What could have a stopped copycat? A good control deck. Us," I hate control, its no fun to play against!". Okay, how about some better removal in general like bolts and doom blades? Us," then it just becomes modern and everyone has 4 bolts in every deck, and I hate having my bombs get hit by cheap removal!!". Okay, how about a fast aggro deck? "monastery swiftspear was broken, just like goblin guide!! I hate having to wrath the board, especially if I have to pay 5 for it!!. Okay, copycat is a 4 color deck, how about we attack their landbase to slow them down enough to survive? Us," Land destruction is the worst thing that ever existed in magic besides counterspell!! I hate LD, its not fun because I don't get to play my deck perfectly on curve and just net deck everything!!!". Fine!! Then what do you suggest? Us," Ban the DECK, but ban it on my terms when I want or I will tell you all about how incompetent you are!!". Maro was right about giving us exactly what we want; battle cruiser magic. We pretend we want something different, until we get it. And that's why copycat was able to flourish
It's not us, it's Rosewater's slavish devotion to focus testing for decision making. They don't trust the R&D team to make the game the best it can be, so they run endless focus groups and try to appeal to the broadest base possible. The problem is, people don't necessarily know what they like. To paraphrase Malcolm Gladwell, when people are asked what kind of coffee they like, they choose a rich dark roast. When you look at what kind of coffee people actually buy, it's milky and weak. Wizards needs to knock off the focus testing and start letting R&D do their jobs.
This. It's Maro thinking he's smart and going to make the company money and instead tanking everything.
If you don't like to brew and netdeck good for you. Yay, someone else thinks and you do. Yoda would be proud.
Don't judge people who do like to do some work themselves. I brew. If brewing is pointless (copycat legal) then I don't play. Copycat was not fun. It was not good for competitive or casual or FNM play. Just because you bought some Saheelis doesn't mean the whole of standard should continue to be a dumpsterfire and bleed players (oops I mean buyers).
Of course it's not easy to build competitive decks. If the game is designed properly there should be room for you to work within the meta of your area and finegal within the aggro-control-midrange formula to hit the sweet spot. I also don't have the time to play every week and know the meta but that's ok. What's not ok is knowing the copycat and vehicles ARE the meta and the guys who 'just bought the deck and aren't sure how to sideboard' are going to run the field because Maro and friends SCREWED EVERYTHING UP.
They should have banned dirtykitty before it was release when they got feedback it was broke and metawarping. They failed.
They should be concentrating on making a balanced fun game and not making 'cards people like to buy' as Maro put it.
They should STOP LISTENING to people and just make MTG:the Gathering as they have for MANY years and not MTG:the Creaturing as Maro and company think will make them more money because they have broken a perfectly good game.
If your local FNM is dead because copycat is gone it was sick and needed the surgery.
What else needs to go? Vehicles pushed too far are broken. Heart is just the wrong side of not ok but at least BG can make it sad.
Faster rotation was supposed to be in place right now so 2x OP Gideon was not the plan. At least the meta is opened up for a while though right?
WotC failed to see how on the edge of quitting Standard players are because of the cost of Standard. Since they have Invocations now as their pressure to buy product they should delete the mythic rarity. There are so many crap mythics lesser than rare and even the occasional uncommon it would just even out the numbers opened and help prices depress.
The Hasbro overlords want increased profits, faster rotation means people have to buy more (replace) cards. They can justify it with 'refresh the game' and other excuses but I'd bet dollars that poor choice was trickle down pressure.
I also don't think T Cruise or Dig were broken in standard. Those who note all the 'hate' for vehicles need to remember their new philosophy is to highlight each new set to the disadvantage of the previous. Thus all the artifact hate but do you notice there's barely any enchantment hate? How many enchantments are in Amonkhet? Another sign of pushed strategy with suppressed answers. They didn't know vehicles would dominate, they just wanted the new set to supercede it so people would buy more of the new set. Cash money decisions, not balance and good game environment decision.
When I personally throw words like incompetent around, it's not maliciousness or angry at everything WotC does. They have provided me with all the evidence I need in the past 2 years to make this statement. When mistakes are made, admitted, ignored, and then compounded/repeated, competence should come into question. We can use their own words from statements and interviews.
- When they introduced the new Standard bans they admitted they probably should 'have done something about CoCo'. This shows they let something get away from them and let it ride. They did this again with dirty kitty and they are doing it still with Heart/Gideon, Ally.
- The mere fact that they have to ban anything means they made mistakes. Multiple mistakes. They admitted that Emrakul was OP because they wanted 'story' to be felt in the game and they pushed her too far (and Aether Marvel was protected though degenerate).
They also admitted they wanted a new mechanic vehicles to have an impact so they pushed it too far. Smugglypants banned. But oh look here's not QUITE as broken Heart of King Gideon let's keep that one around some more.
They banned reflector mage (a not busted card) instead of banning CoCo which by the end of it's tenure was nearly completely dominant and NOT FUN to play against. It wasn't reflector mage, it was CoCo.
- They made the mistake of shortening the rotation cycle, then changed it back after consumer backlash, and now we get OP Gideon overlap still not being addressed. For their design team, Ally of Z would have rotated out of the current card pool they considered. Again dragging their feet for proactively fix it.
- After Felidar was spoiled a pro wrote an article just about the very next day outing the combo. They said they missed it. Instead of a pre-ban, they actually posted an article highlighting the combo as if it were something good for everyone to see. It's not just hindsight that shows they're wrong, pros have been telling them since discovery that combo was degenerate and going to warp the format. Did they not remember why they banned splinter twin?? Here we are now.
- Design and balance (Maro and others) have intentionally nerfed countermagic and kill spells to prop up midrange because 'that's what people like'. They've thrown out YEARS of how MTG has been designed intentionally and the current standard which has so many people angry (or have quit already) is the result. Mistake.
How else do you describe bad decision making and repeating the same mistakes?
Just last week Maro tweeted something about 'those are the kinds of cards people want to buy' as if it were a defense for degenerating standard into the current midrange mirrorfest.
I really want to play standard. I really really hope their "we've learned our lesson and will apply it to HoD" is going to work out, HOWEVER if they keep dropping the ball and repeating mistakes I don't have a lot of faith they'll get it right even when they try.
What do you mean you people? I never had a problem with them NOT banning that card. Wizards decision making is just inept; They could have banned the card on a scheduled day. They could have printed cards to answer the combo. They also could have chosen to not let the combo slip through the cracks.
All these alternatives and in the end THIS is how the chose to handle it.
That is why I stated I have lost confidence.
Obviously they're incapable of inserting a few Amonkhet cards into combo and testing it against... well anything.
I've also completely lost confidence in these guys and whoever is in charge of balance should get canned immediately.
Just look at the ineptitude of the statement! 'We used data to make the decision instead of common sense' and in the same statement, 'we never should have printed it in the first place'... but we tried really hard to not do anything in the face of public failure.
We are banning dirty kitty because of data...
but we shouldn't have printed it in the first place. (then why didn't you ban it at the 2 previous opportunities??????????)
We will make excuses before the whole community tears us to pieces in the street...
We have no idea what we're doing...
The worst thing that can happen now is that Rx aggro dominates the pro tour. Because then WotC won't ban anything which would be a fatal mistake. Just because cat combo has a huge target on its head, just because every deck is forced to have 8-12 dedicated sideboard/mainboard cards against it, and just because aggro can sometimes get under Saheeli and take advantage of new hate cards vs Mardu doesn't mean the meta is healthy. Just because cat combo doesn't win/dominate the pro tour doesn't mean it's not oppressive anymore.
You are completely correct. They made the excuse in March to not ban because Temur was a blip on the screen and they won't tell us exactly what will make them understand the dumpster fire we are all sick of dealing with. Every single pro will either be playing copycat OR have main deck plan 1 vs copycat. It defies reason they don't understand that. If they don't get it now, they may never.
They have no clue how many people they are driving out of standard with every week copycat lives, and that's just sad. I'm just afraid that the people over the top of the design/balance team's head are suits that don't get the game at all and are shy of shaking things up with some firings and repositionings.
Copycat warps how you play (sub-optimal) and how you brew (you have to brew answers for every turn).
Gideon is a part of Vehicles which happens to be a confluence of cards that make a midrange strategy hit you as fast and hard as an aggro deck a high percentage of the time. Gideon has been oppressive for quite some time and the lack of good planeswalker hate does make him part of the problem.
The dumpster fire of standard is the distilled power of both these decks absolutely wipes out the competition, but quite frankly I'd rather deal with Gideon than being infinitely licked to death any time after turn 3. I blame felidar, heart of kiran, and the lack of Hero's Downfall.
I can't even bring myself to care to brew. New cards normally set me off on a week of cockatrice deck building/modifying and testing.
I don't want to even think about ****ing copycat for another moment. Let alone vehicles with glorybringer and more instant removal yet if you're going to play standard you have NO CHOICE at all but to brew based on instawin and ultra fast midrange beats.
They're worried about people feeling bad that they've lost value in the cards they've already bought, but they should be worried about all the people who aren't going to buy cards or play standard at all since they've teased us with bans to make things better, then didn't follow through.
They have no bloody clue how things are going to shake out, that should be obvious because they didn't see any of this coming with their horribe, awful, no-good, very bad design strategy.
Just look at MTGO results for the past 2 months. Vehicles and Saheeli dominate. There's barely 10% of anything else showing up.
Now look at the current set and where the 'good' cards fit. Both of those decks benefit from any 'answers' (more strong white cards <shocked face>) and an anemic little 2/2 that is an excellent target for shock.
The ridiculous excuse of needing 'more data' is code for 'we have no idea what we're doing and hope it all gets better without us'.
All the new cards do is slot into copycat and mardu.
I know people are interested in making drakes or filling their hand to force control through but jumping through hoops to make your deck work while the pure power does what it does seldom works out. Sales and attendance are the only thing that will show them the error of their ways.
They say they've learned their lessons but then Maro tweets about 'making cards people want to buy'.
Check out the MTG website there's a new questionnaire riddled with 'I like to dominate or trick my opponents' scaled answer questions which would justify making OP broken sets (their new direction). If the data comes in against that, they can say they've learned and are changing.
The whole wait and see thing is just clueless. Mistakes as big as this deserve firings and replacements. They need to rotate design teams and have some overlord whose sole responsibility is to ensure balance (aggro-control-midrange) is king.
Sure FNM should be about trying out things and having fun... which is where WotC will make their money because people having fun spend money.
It is also correct to say that standard costs too much. New Gideon is $25 right now and isn't close to being as good as Gidigod Ally of OverpoweredMaroness.
$25 per copy for an unproven card that shows promise but isn't as good as the old version STILL good for a long while. That's broke.
The problem that irks people is the 1 or 2 that show up with CoCo week after week (or vehicles or copycat) and take all the credit or packs home each time because they netdecked. it is the nature of the beast but that's what you have to test against if you have time to test. And when the decks that win everything utterly demolish the field... you push everyone else out. It completely stifles creativity and complexity of the environment... which is bad for everyone.
This. It's Maro thinking he's smart and going to make the company money and instead tanking everything.
If you don't like to brew and netdeck good for you. Yay, someone else thinks and you do. Yoda would be proud.
Don't judge people who do like to do some work themselves. I brew. If brewing is pointless (copycat legal) then I don't play. Copycat was not fun. It was not good for competitive or casual or FNM play. Just because you bought some Saheelis doesn't mean the whole of standard should continue to be a dumpsterfire and bleed players (oops I mean buyers).
Of course it's not easy to build competitive decks. If the game is designed properly there should be room for you to work within the meta of your area and finegal within the aggro-control-midrange formula to hit the sweet spot. I also don't have the time to play every week and know the meta but that's ok. What's not ok is knowing the copycat and vehicles ARE the meta and the guys who 'just bought the deck and aren't sure how to sideboard' are going to run the field because Maro and friends SCREWED EVERYTHING UP.
They should have banned dirtykitty before it was release when they got feedback it was broke and metawarping. They failed.
They should be concentrating on making a balanced fun game and not making 'cards people like to buy' as Maro put it.
They should STOP LISTENING to people and just make MTG:the Gathering as they have for MANY years and not MTG:the Creaturing as Maro and company think will make them more money because they have broken a perfectly good game.
If your local FNM is dead because copycat is gone it was sick and needed the surgery.
What else needs to go? Vehicles pushed too far are broken. Heart is just the wrong side of not ok but at least BG can make it sad.
Faster rotation was supposed to be in place right now so 2x OP Gideon was not the plan. At least the meta is opened up for a while though right?
The Hasbro overlords want increased profits, faster rotation means people have to buy more (replace) cards. They can justify it with 'refresh the game' and other excuses but I'd bet dollars that poor choice was trickle down pressure.
I also don't think T Cruise or Dig were broken in standard. Those who note all the 'hate' for vehicles need to remember their new philosophy is to highlight each new set to the disadvantage of the previous. Thus all the artifact hate but do you notice there's barely any enchantment hate? How many enchantments are in Amonkhet? Another sign of pushed strategy with suppressed answers. They didn't know vehicles would dominate, they just wanted the new set to supercede it so people would buy more of the new set. Cash money decisions, not balance and good game environment decision.
The March 13th ban (which they decided 3 WEEKS prior to printing).
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/march-13-2017-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2017-03-13
When I personally throw words like incompetent around, it's not maliciousness or angry at everything WotC does. They have provided me with all the evidence I need in the past 2 years to make this statement. When mistakes are made, admitted, ignored, and then compounded/repeated, competence should come into question. We can use their own words from statements and interviews.
- When they introduced the new Standard bans they admitted they probably should 'have done something about CoCo'. This shows they let something get away from them and let it ride. They did this again with dirty kitty and they are doing it still with Heart/Gideon, Ally.
- The mere fact that they have to ban anything means they made mistakes. Multiple mistakes. They admitted that Emrakul was OP because they wanted 'story' to be felt in the game and they pushed her too far (and Aether Marvel was protected though degenerate).
They also admitted they wanted a new mechanic vehicles to have an impact so they pushed it too far. Smugglypants banned. But oh look here's not QUITE as broken Heart of King Gideon let's keep that one around some more.
They banned reflector mage (a not busted card) instead of banning CoCo which by the end of it's tenure was nearly completely dominant and NOT FUN to play against. It wasn't reflector mage, it was CoCo.
- They made the mistake of shortening the rotation cycle, then changed it back after consumer backlash, and now we get OP Gideon overlap still not being addressed. For their design team, Ally of Z would have rotated out of the current card pool they considered. Again dragging their feet for proactively fix it.
- After Felidar was spoiled a pro wrote an article just about the very next day outing the combo. They said they missed it. Instead of a pre-ban, they actually posted an article highlighting the combo as if it were something good for everyone to see. It's not just hindsight that shows they're wrong, pros have been telling them since discovery that combo was degenerate and going to warp the format. Did they not remember why they banned splinter twin?? Here we are now.
- Design and balance (Maro and others) have intentionally nerfed countermagic and kill spells to prop up midrange because 'that's what people like'. They've thrown out YEARS of how MTG has been designed intentionally and the current standard which has so many people angry (or have quit already) is the result. Mistake.
How else do you describe bad decision making and repeating the same mistakes?
Just last week Maro tweeted something about 'those are the kinds of cards people want to buy' as if it were a defense for degenerating standard into the current midrange mirrorfest.
I really want to play standard. I really really hope their "we've learned our lesson and will apply it to HoD" is going to work out, HOWEVER if they keep dropping the ball and repeating mistakes I don't have a lot of faith they'll get it right even when they try.
Obviously they're incapable of inserting a few Amonkhet cards into combo and testing it against... well anything.
I've also completely lost confidence in these guys and whoever is in charge of balance should get canned immediately.
Just look at the ineptitude of the statement! 'We used data to make the decision instead of common sense' and in the same statement, 'we never should have printed it in the first place'... but we tried really hard to not do anything in the face of public failure.
In-
comp-
etence
So
completely
true
but we shouldn't have printed it in the first place. (then why didn't you ban it at the 2 previous opportunities??????????)
We will make excuses before the whole community tears us to pieces in the street...
We have no idea what we're doing...
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pro-tour-copycat/
Totally
accurate.
You are completely correct. They made the excuse in March to not ban because Temur was a blip on the screen and they won't tell us exactly what will make them understand the dumpster fire we are all sick of dealing with. Every single pro will either be playing copycat OR have main deck plan 1 vs copycat. It defies reason they don't understand that. If they don't get it now, they may never.
They have no clue how many people they are driving out of standard with every week copycat lives, and that's just sad. I'm just afraid that the people over the top of the design/balance team's head are suits that don't get the game at all and are shy of shaking things up with some firings and repositionings.
Here is why copycat will become worse explained by a pro...
Gideon is a part of Vehicles which happens to be a confluence of cards that make a midrange strategy hit you as fast and hard as an aggro deck a high percentage of the time. Gideon has been oppressive for quite some time and the lack of good planeswalker hate does make him part of the problem.
The dumpster fire of standard is the distilled power of both these decks absolutely wipes out the competition, but quite frankly I'd rather deal with Gideon than being infinitely licked to death any time after turn 3. I blame felidar, heart of kiran, and the lack of Hero's Downfall.
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pro-tour-copycat/
I don't want to even think about ****ing copycat for another moment. Let alone vehicles with glorybringer and more instant removal yet if you're going to play standard you have NO CHOICE at all but to brew based on instawin and ultra fast midrange beats.
They're worried about people feeling bad that they've lost value in the cards they've already bought, but they should be worried about all the people who aren't going to buy cards or play standard at all since they've teased us with bans to make things better, then didn't follow through.
They have no bloody clue how things are going to shake out, that should be obvious because they didn't see any of this coming with their horribe, awful, no-good, very bad design strategy.
This is awesome!
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pro-tour-copycat/
Also when talking about numbers just look at MTGO results for the past 2 months posted on TCG. It's almost all Vehicles and copycat.
Now look at the current set and where the 'good' cards fit. Both of those decks benefit from any 'answers' (more strong white cards <shocked face>) and an anemic little 2/2 that is an excellent target for shock.
The ridiculous excuse of needing 'more data' is code for 'we have no idea what we're doing and hope it all gets better without us'.
Here we are again... fire someone already.
All the new cards do is slot into copycat and mardu.
I know people are interested in making drakes or filling their hand to force control through but jumping through hoops to make your deck work while the pure power does what it does seldom works out. Sales and attendance are the only thing that will show them the error of their ways.
They say they've learned their lessons but then Maro tweets about 'making cards people want to buy'.
Check out the MTG website there's a new questionnaire riddled with 'I like to dominate or trick my opponents' scaled answer questions which would justify making OP broken sets (their new direction). If the data comes in against that, they can say they've learned and are changing.
The whole wait and see thing is just clueless. Mistakes as big as this deserve firings and replacements. They need to rotate design teams and have some overlord whose sole responsibility is to ensure balance (aggro-control-midrange) is king.