My thoughts on the direction of the game.

I was going to post this in magic general, but I decided the last thing people want to see is another 'complain about magic' thread, so I'm making this blog entry instead to vent.

I don't normally get upset with the choices of those who bring me things that I enjoy, but unfortunately, many of my hobbies that I once cherished and enjoyed, have changed for the worse in order to appeal to the masses. MTG is no exception.

After playing the halo series all the way through, I cringe at the fact that Halo 4 has succumbed to letting players use load outs like in the Call of Duty games in multiplayer. After playing super smash bros. and smash bros melee, I was very upset SSB-Brawl for intentionally making the mechanics of the game slower and adding mechanics that made the game more random and 'even'.

These aren't just things I "dislike", these are things that change the game in a negative way, most of which are usually implemented by the game developers to make the game more appealing to more people and therefore increase the profit gained.

Of course, appealing to more people is a good thing. Everybody wants more people to join them in whatever hobby they enjoy. But there are those of us that believe in order to preserve the true competitive nature of the game these gimmicks and newb-friendly ideas and designs cannot overcome the fundamentals of the game.

As I said before, this has happened to many of the games I once enjoyed. I have been playing magic for about 2 years, and have thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm afraid this game might also take a turn for the worse.

Even in the relatively short time I've been playing this game, the game is very clearly evolving into 'play more creatures, turn them sideways'. Funny how such a strategy coincidentally appeals to many new players, which would, in turn, likely result in more players joining the game and making more money. Of course, wizards isn't about the money though. Why would any company ruin their game to make money? Beats me.

Anyway, Magic used to have difficulties associated with different sets. Nowadays, no such thing exists, but you can still make out some sort of difficulty. For example, core sets these days would be labeled 'easy', expansion sets would be 'intermediate', and things like modern masters would be 'expert'. So great, they make stuff that appeals to all levels of players, right?

Honestly, wizards does a good job of trying to do that, actually, but all is not ideal as it could be. I like to look at our 3 main constructed formats: standard, modern, and legacy. Standard, everyone can get into. Doesn't matter if you've been playing since 1993, or just started yesterday. You can find a standard event like you could find fish in an ocean. Clearly, standard is all-inclusive. Yet I don't believe for a second, regardless of how popular the format may be, that the game play of this format tests the true skill of a player and the design of the game.

Modern, and legacy, definitely more so.

Unfortunately, the modern ban-list serves as a buffer to those who still don't understand the fundamentals of the game and it's design. So even modern is somewhat tainted by Wizards' intentions of appealing to more new players in order to make more money.

But hey, it's cool, we still have legacy. The format does have a banlist, but only for the sake of consistency in the format, which turns out is a good thing competitively. Imagine playing soccer with a football; no one would play the sport. Anyway, this format clearly separates those who know how to build good decks and play well from those who don't. Of course, this game has quite a bit of luck involved, and even the best of players don't always pull through, but it's safe to say, if you make a mistake here, whether it be a misplay or a deck design mistake, you're not going to get away with it like you would in the other two formats. But it's fine, whatever. We have a format where experts of the game can truly test their skills against each other.

Tragically, wizards does not even want to mention this format, let alone actually support it. This format is almost literally the boogeyman to both Wizards and the majority of magic players.


"You want to play a game of legacy?"

"No thanks. I heard in legacy I can lose on turn 1 if I'm not a good enough player to make good decisions in deck design and in my game play."

On top of the poor support wizards has for the format, they have the reserved list which keeps some of the format's most important cards from ever being reprinted and becoming more available to any players who'd like to join the format. Which makes for a much more reasonable excuse to not play legacy:


"You want to play in a sanctioned legacy event?"

"No thanks. There's a slight chance that if I don't eat something during the next month or two I could die, so I'll just have to play it safe and not spend my entire paycheck on cardboard."

And wait, it get's better. All the strategies that people once enjoyed in legacy are beginning to get hated out by newb-friendly cards.

Voice of Resurgence. Every time I see it, regardless of the situation, I just can't help but think this is the direction this game is headed in: whoever gets the most of out of their creatures wins the game. I know wizards is trying to nerf control and spells in general, but I think a card like this was just seriously unnecessary. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure this card seriously hates out a lot of strategies that many magic players like to play that don't involve playing more creatures. Again, I've already said this: there comes a point where gimmicks and newb-friendly ideas and designs cannot interfere with the fundamentals of the game. Clearly wizards is beginning to cross that line.

I've said this before also, but I think wizards design process behind a creature these days goes something along the lines of: take a vanilla creature, then add as many abilities to it as possible to make it suit it's rarity. Lastly, add some flavor text to make it appear as though the card was designed with some sort of theme in mind.

Just my 2 cents.

tl;dr - Wizards, please let the true competitive nature of the format thrive and promote legacy and modern more. kthxbai
5
Mastodon's avatar
Mastodon

Comments

  • To post a comment, please or register a new account.
Posts Quoted:
Reply
Clear All Quotes