That (and some of the other reprints to some degree) are to give continuity. It gives a second chance for actually using the Conquistador for what they intended which was tutor up your handful of this guy and throw them out.
Problem is it's not a great card (even in multiples), the anthem is a rare, and the anthem Vampire is an uncommon. A few people will get vampire xmas land but not many.
Some of the other reprints have a purpose too but do strike me as pretty lazy. Remember small sets are on the way out so this is the last hurrah, I'm sure shortcuts were enabled.
Marketing need to beg people to play FNM. I honestly don't think they have a clue how badly off they are with LGS events not firing. Sending feedback to WotC feels like talking into an empty box.
That (and some of the other reprints to some degree) are to give continuity. It gives a second chance for actually using the Conquistador for what they intended which was tutor up your handful of this guy and throw them out.
Problem is it's not a great card (even in multiples), the anthem is a rare, and the anthem Vampire is an uncommon. A few people will get vampire xmas land but not many.
Some of the other reprints have a purpose too but do strike me as pretty lazy. Remember small sets are on the way out so this is the last hurrah, I'm sure shortcuts were enabled.
Marketing need to beg people to play FNM. I honestly don't think they have a clue how badly off they are with LGS events not firing. Sending feedback to WotC feels like talking into an empty box.
Now that the Holidays are over I will probably start going to FNM again, but mostly just to draft the new set.
I would be more likely to go if they gave out more promo type stuff. Even if it was just a cool die, or some trinket. I love trinkets.
The vampire that tutors for its name is a bad design anyway (it could just tutor for any vampire and put them on top of the library, would totally serve the purpose better and more flexible).
The irony is, they do exactly that for each tribe in a habringer cycle again.
----
In the end, they try it here and will continue to do it, if nobody screams at them NO WE HATE IT , thats the only way they understand, massive feedback so they cannot just ignore it with the "lalala i dont hear you" WotC ears.
They could easily made different slots for each card they "reprinted" to fit that slot, repeating cards just annoys anyone that looks at the cards, especially if not even the art changes at all (as it was barely acceptable the first time they did it, as they at least changed the art a tiny bit).
Magics growth isnt linear. There have been several hitsnto the player base in the past and will be more peroids of growth and decline in the future. Bannings and poor sets are a big cause but the game aint going anywhere.
Sure it's alive and well especially with Modern but Standard events aren't firing all over the place and the decline has lasted 2 years to the point that Standard is just about a ghost town.
Major events are showing the decline with smaller attendance but that translates to devastated numbers at the LGS level. They should be concerned.
If you can't go and play when you carve out the time to do so why buy any cards?
This decline isn't because of an industry trend or economy.
I guess the big question then is how to get the right information to WoTC? Personally I don't think that the sets are failing on the flavor when actually looked at via the lens of limited and casual cubes. If they had block constructed the format would probably be pretty decent as a matter of fact. I think a lot of us just want to have that old school feel again when Bill Rose, Don Fenice, and Skaff Elias were around.
Right now they are bringing back old timer Richard Garfield, but it wasn't just Richard that made the older sets what they are. He had other lesser known pen testers, designers, and developers that just aren't with the company anymore. Plus did they hire him as a consultant? If they did, he may have some say in the direction of Return to Dominaria, but the end result is still going to be in the hands of the current staff. Then again, the staff of the past produced such great hits as Helm of Chatzuk, Nether Shadow, and Sorceress Queen. I did like Power surge and Smoke, though.
True true but Richard also helped some of the most popular (although in some respects debatadly unfun and most fun) sets in exsistance, He did Mirridon and Urza's. While some may have decried the tournament play for these sets, the casual play was off the charts level of fun. For every Helm of Chatzuk their is also a priest of titana, a bone spliter or a luxadon war hammer
The reason Urza's Saga was great for players is the sense of play the set gave. The problem with MtG is that it drifted far too much into being competitive, which presents a lot of problems for a game that is supposed to have fun cards in it that are supposed to satisfy the people buying into the game. The competitive mind set is always about optimizing time, efficiency, and getting the highest win ratio possible. There's no room for cute combos or timmy creatures because they don't advance the game plan or make the best use of time. It also presents the mind set that all other players are adversaries, obstacles, and the measure by which one judges ones success.
The overly competitive nature that MtG has taken is exactly why we are in the mess we are in now. The trouble is that for a lot of people the LGS has become the only way they can play the game and the LGS is being pushed to run official magic events. These events attract all types, but the majority of events run across the year are competitive in focus with only two events being remotely casual, that being pre-release and open house. In addition, this bend towards competitive play is what has directed the course of the sets going forward from RtR to now and is the primary reason we don't see too many cards on the level of CounterSpell. While long term non-competitive players want to play with powerful cards, competitive players actually want to play with balanced sets of cards so they have multiple lines of play.
So where does kaladesh fit into this paradigm? Well, that's the thing: It doesn't fit anywhere. The reason Kaladesh is a bad set is that the cards aren't pushed enough to appeal to long term non-competitive players and was actually kind of complicated to pick up. At the same time the set was badly balanced so competitive players just took the path of least resistance, since their mind set is about efficiency. This lead to a format with very few lines of play and made the entire game more about the luck of the draw even when Aetherworks Marvel got banned. If the set was just bonkers broken like Urza's Saga they might have lost a lot of competitive players, but the set would still sell to the old vanguard modern / Legacy crowd as well as the EDH players.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Sadly it looks as though Masters 25 won't be a WPN exclusive and will be available at mass market retailers in similar fashion to Iconic Masters. Allocations for Masters 25 seem slightly lower than it was in Iconic Masters. Emphasis on SLIGHTLY:
I don't think LGS owners are going to make the same mistake they made with Iconic Masters by ordering tons of Masters 25 from their local distributors and expect it to sell. Rivals of Ixalan may be doing better in terms of expected value but that won't be a guarantee for Masters 25.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
If they are going to release masters 25 to big box stores they might as well drop the price on the set and increase the runs. The whole concept of luxury cardboard sets is just a money grab by the company at this point if it isn't even directly supporting the play locations.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
They tested if they can sell more expensive booster packs and the answer was "YES".
So they will ramp up the print numbers and do that till it crumbles.
And as we know WotC they will overdo it, back down and try something else.
----
They are consistently doing that, and its against every interest of Local Game Stores and just trying to milk the game for money, which hurts all the infrastructure of stores.
----
For the long run it could even be the plan to fully commit to digital product (that being Magic Arena) , which is quite bogus, but WotC might think that way , as for digital the production cost is even less and charging money for boosters is pretty much free money.
There's still a lot of stuff that needs reprinting though, and I personally have liked all the masters sets.
Kaladesh was really cool and and some of their recent sets weren't that bad.
I just wish standard were a little cheaper, as well as a few of the chase modern staples.
Also I wouldn't worry about print numbers. I recall reading an article (that was linked to reddit) that gave ballpark estimates on print runs, and even the stuff that was pre-return to ravnica was printed to oblivion as well. Innistrad was a pretty big print run yet unopened booster boxes command a hefty price. I don't think it's the rareness/collectibility that people are after but rather the mechanics, nostalgia, ect.
There still needs to be a balance between collectors and players of course. And by collectors I mean they could possibly go back to their old way of doing things in the near future.
I'm actually glad WotC are trying to milk older (pre-Modern) cards via Masters sets.
It brings down the price of EDH bombs
In order to get the most out of these, WotC are bound to realise they need to print fetchable dual lands with no meaningful drawback so that people actually have a practical use for the cards (EDH demand only goes so far). I'll be very surprised if nothing like this happens this year.
The era when Chronicles was released is different than it is now. There are now a lot more players, so an increased print run on products is generally needed.
A print run was also needed when when Chronicle was released - and players were overall very happy. The biggest difference is that at the time there was a higher ratio of non-plaher collectors; and WotC felt collectors were essential to their market.
Nowadays not only is the collector ratio way down, but collectors are arguable bad for MTG. I don't imagine collectors are primarily interested in newer cards (aka, creating demand for sealed product). WotC has a lot more incentive to cater to players over hoarders.
The only trouble legacy has is that the faster the format gets, the more it becomes about who fires first.
I don't think Legacy is getting faster.
We don't exactly get a lot of new cards for combo decks these days. Furthermore, if we ever do see a consistent turn 1 or 2 combo deck that is not a glass cannon, I figure we'll see a ban as well.
Fast aggro (like Zoo, Fish, and Burn) are a much smaller part of the meta than a few years ago. Funny what happens after years and years of WotC pushing midrange bombs.
Even Delver decks are slower. UR is the exception, but the once ubigutous Canadian Thresh has been supplanted by grindier DRS archetypes.
Control decks are slower too, with the rise of Lands to the top tier as well as Miracles slowing down considerably.
If anything, Legacy is slowing down recently.
It's nice to win the toss, but I have never felt like my results are particularly dependant on that. I'd like to see Legacy stats on this. I doubt that in the big picture going first is that much more an advantage than playing white in chess.
EDIT
Legacy is an interesting format because the pace is faster but the games themselves tend to go longer.
This means the early turns are vital. You need to be very good at recognising the opponents deck (and reacting properly), as well as demonstrating shrewd mulligan skills. Until you get a good handle on this, your opponents will run over you before you feel you had a chance to react. And of course this effect will be exacerbated when you are on the draw.
The only trouble legacy has is that the faster the format gets, the more it becomes about who fires first.
I don't think Legacy is getting faster.
We don't exactly get a lot of new cards for combo decks these days. Furthermore, if we ever do see a consistent turn 1 or 2 combo deck that is not a glass cannon, I figure we'll see a ban as well.
Fast aggro (like Zoo, Fish, and Burn) are a much smaller part of the meta than a few years ago. Funny what happens after years and years of WotC pushing midrange bombs.
Even Delver decks are slower. UR is the exception, but the once ubigutous Canadian Thresh has been supplanted by grindier DRS archetypes.
Control decks are slower too, with the rise of Lands to the top tier as well as Miracles slowing down considerably.
If anything, Legacy is slowing down recently.
It's nice to win the toss, but I have never felt like my results are particularly dependant on that. I'd like to see Legacy stats on this. I doubt that in the big picture going first is that much more an advantage than playing white in chess.
EDIT
Legacy is an interesting format because the pace is faster but the games themselves tend to go longer.
This means the early turns are vital. You need to be very good at recognising the opponents deck (and reacting properly), as well as demonstrating shrewd mulligan skills. Until you get a good handle on this, your opponents will run over you before you feel you had a chance to react. And of course this effect will be exacerbated when you are on the draw.
Yeah I was expecting this response, actually. What I meant by my statement is that the format is fast: You have to expect to answer things sooner because of the faster mana-base, availability of combo pieces that aren't around in modern, etc. The key difference between Legacy and modern is that it has those faster answers to play. Daze is one such answer along with things like swords to plowshares. It's not the coin flip that vintage is, but it's still a faster format and if it didn't have those answers it would turn into more about who fires first.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The problem with Wizard's "too strong for standard" strategy is twofold:
- people get bored over an overwhelmingly huge number of crap cards
- anytime a slightly better than usual card gets printed the format collapse
Do you think any banned card in standard would have been banned with Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, Force of Will, Liliana of The Veil, Thoughtseize, Abrupt Decay and so on in the format?
When WOTC designs a set, I guess they have a few things in mind. For example, in Ixalan, it seems like they tried to get the set to do 4 different things:
-Draft
-EDH
-Standard
-Tribal
Its hard to make a set that is exciting for Standard when you are trying to make it good at 4 different things, it seems like they put more effort into making a set for EDH/Tribal, and so the draft and standard focus ended up being underwhelming. I guess its hard to be good at 4 things, so they ended up being mediocre at 4 things.
The problem is how WoTC treats the market they created. The way the company built the game up to the staggering numbers it has is by pushing competitive play and this explosion threw off the balance between non-competitive and FNM play. Online deck listings became valuable assets to assess the usefulness and value of cards, driving prices up quickly on staples and dropping the value on anything not efficient enough, which suppressed the ability for non-competitive "throw stuff together" collector players to expand and explore the game. This suppression of one crowd and rapid expansion of the other caused a massive movement in the market towards spike card favoritism. Modern also contributed to this trend and probably was the bigger culprit on the abandonment of the game by a lot of casual folks, which is why they adopted commander to try and balance things out and grow the non-competitive scene.
Let me put it this way: I know of no other game where a card with no availability problems and has the promise of being reprinted has exceeded the cost of a booster box other than Magic the Gathering. It's created a toxic environment on multiple levels and often a sense of being cornered because of financial pay walls, especially for isolated returning players who only have so much money to spend and their only option to find players is FNM. No one wants to walk in with their inexperienced janky hell of draft cards and get obliterated by a finely tuned affinity list or whatever flavor of standard deck is dominating the standard tournament scene.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The problem is how WoTC treats the market they created. The way the company built the game up to the staggering numbers it has is by pushing competitive play and this explosion threw off the balance between non-competitive and FNM play. Online deck listings became valuable assets to assess the usefulness and value of cards, driving prices up quickly on staples and dropping the value on anything not efficient enough, which suppressed the ability for non-competitive "throw stuff together" collector players to expand and explore the game. This suppression of one crowd and rapid expansion of the other caused a massive movement in the market towards spike card favoritism. Modern also contributed to this trend and probably was the bigger culprit on the abandonment of the game by a lot of casual folks, which is why they adopted commander to try and balance things out and grow the non-competitive scene.
Let me put it this way: I know of no other game where a card with no availability problems and has the promise of being reprinted has exceeded the cost of a booster box other than Magic the Gathering. It's created a toxic environment on multiple levels and often a sense of being cornered because of financial pay walls, especially for isolated returning players who only have so much money to spend and their only option to find players is FNM. No one wants to walk in with their inexperienced janky hell of draft cards and get obliterated by a finely tuned affinity list or whatever flavor of standard deck is dominating the standard tournament scene.
The same thing is happening to EDH. Decklists and try-hards are doing the same thing to that format. Your Meta may be different...
People not showing up to play standard don't buy product... of any kind. Stores hurt first and hard and the trickle up to WotC is slower.
They already raised the prices to stores without raising the MSRP. Dirty deeds...
As far as standard is concerned... the last 2 years have been utter dumpster fire especially with Kaladesh. Design thought they could sell more cards with big fatty creatures and janky unbalanced mechanics that you weren't given the right tools to remove or counter. Control is just about dead because they want it that way by DESIGN.
Maro needs to realize that his plan doesn't work even a little and go back to balanced sets. Use RTR and Tarkir as templates to give us fun draft/standard environments.
People not showing up to play standard don't buy product... of any kind. Stores hurt first and hard and the trickle up to WotC is slower.
They already raised the prices to stores without raising the MSRP. Dirty deeds...
As far as standard is concerned... the last 2 years have been utter dumpster fire especially with Kaladesh. Design thought they could sell more cards with big fatty creatures and janky unbalanced mechanics that you weren't given the right tools to remove or counter. Control is just about dead because they want it that way by DESIGN.
Maro needs to realize that his plan doesn't work even a little and go back to balanced sets. Use RTR and Tarkir as templates to give us fun draft/standard environments.
I fully agree again...I'm a disagreeable guy so something must be wrong.
I wonder though if its about set design, or power level? I know Tarkir is seen as a 'power' set, was RTR (and Modern impact would say yes, even to this day) also a 'high power' set?
People not showing up to play standard don't buy product... of any kind. Stores hurt first and hard and the trickle up to WotC is slower.
They already raised the prices to stores without raising the MSRP. Dirty deeds...
As far as standard is concerned... the last 2 years have been utter dumpster fire especially with Kaladesh. Design thought they could sell more cards with big fatty creatures and janky unbalanced mechanics that you weren't given the right tools to remove or counter. Control is just about dead because they want it that way by DESIGN.
Maro needs to realize that his plan doesn't work even a little and go back to balanced sets. Use RTR and Tarkir as templates to give us fun draft/standard environments.
My problem with the attendance angle of this is that people are asking them to fix and bring the game back to the glory days of mass competitive play. If anything, the current situation shows how anemic the game is outside of that venue. What exactly has wizards done to support players that don't want to compete at FNM and just want to be able to afford good cards to build their deck building kits? They literally push the most powerful cards each set through their own promotional tools like the Pro Tour and then refuse to make those cards more affordable even after rotation hits. The cards that are cheap are ones that have no demand due to better / more efficient cards being present. Most people are not made of money: They can't just say "I'm going to put 150-300 dollars down to get a playset of X, Y, or Z staple card", and those that do always have to make sure that card has a home first or are willing to trade away something to get to that goal.
This isn't helped by watching youtube videos of WoTC representatives cluelessly milling about and saying how fun a six mana legendary dinosaur that marks things for death if it ever gets played is.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
People not showing up to play standard don't buy product... of any kind. Stores hurt first and hard and the trickle up to WotC is slower.
They already raised the prices to stores without raising the MSRP. Dirty deeds...
As far as standard is concerned... the last 2 years have been utter dumpster fire especially with Kaladesh. Design thought they could sell more cards with big fatty creatures and janky unbalanced mechanics that you weren't given the right tools to remove or counter. Control is just about dead because they want it that way by DESIGN.
Maro needs to realize that his plan doesn't work even a little and go back to balanced sets. Use RTR and Tarkir as templates to give us fun draft/standard environments.
My problem with the attendance angle of this is that people are asking them to fix and bring the game back to the glory days of mass competitive play. If anything, the current situation shows how anemic the game is outside of that venue. What exactly has wizards done to support players that don't want to compete at FNM and just want to be able to afford good cards to build their deck building kits? They literally push the most powerful cards each set through their own promotional tools like the Pro Tour and then refuse to make those cards more affordable even after rotation hits. The cards that are cheap are ones that have no demand due to better / more efficient cards being present. Most people are not made of money: They can't just say "I'm going to put 150-300 dollars down to get a playset of X, Y, or Z staple card", and those that do always have to make sure that card has a home first or are willing to trade away something to get to that goal.
This isn't helped by watching youtube videos of WoTC representatives cluelessly milling about and saying how fun a six mana legendary dinosaur that marks things for death if it ever gets played is.
Problem is it's not a great card (even in multiples), the anthem is a rare, and the anthem Vampire is an uncommon. A few people will get vampire xmas land but not many.
Some of the other reprints have a purpose too but do strike me as pretty lazy. Remember small sets are on the way out so this is the last hurrah, I'm sure shortcuts were enabled.
Marketing need to beg people to play FNM. I honestly don't think they have a clue how badly off they are with LGS events not firing. Sending feedback to WotC feels like talking into an empty box.
Now that the Holidays are over I will probably start going to FNM again, but mostly just to draft the new set.
I would be more likely to go if they gave out more promo type stuff. Even if it was just a cool die, or some trinket. I love trinkets.
The vampire that tutors for its name is a bad design anyway (it could just tutor for any vampire and put them on top of the library, would totally serve the purpose better and more flexible).
The irony is, they do exactly that for each tribe in a habringer cycle again.
----
In the end, they try it here and will continue to do it, if nobody screams at them NO WE HATE IT , thats the only way they understand, massive feedback so they cannot just ignore it with the "lalala i dont hear you" WotC ears.
They could easily made different slots for each card they "reprinted" to fit that slot, repeating cards just annoys anyone that looks at the cards, especially if not even the art changes at all (as it was barely acceptable the first time they did it, as they at least changed the art a tiny bit).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
Major events are showing the decline with smaller attendance but that translates to devastated numbers at the LGS level. They should be concerned.
If you can't go and play when you carve out the time to do so why buy any cards?
This decline isn't because of an industry trend or economy.
They've literally done this to themselves.
Yes I too long for a return of Balance
True true but Richard also helped some of the most popular (although in some respects debatadly unfun and most fun) sets in exsistance, He did Mirridon and Urza's. While some may have decried the tournament play for these sets, the casual play was off the charts level of fun. For every Helm of Chatzuk their is also a priest of titana, a bone spliter or a luxadon war hammer
The overly competitive nature that MtG has taken is exactly why we are in the mess we are in now. The trouble is that for a lot of people the LGS has become the only way they can play the game and the LGS is being pushed to run official magic events. These events attract all types, but the majority of events run across the year are competitive in focus with only two events being remotely casual, that being pre-release and open house. In addition, this bend towards competitive play is what has directed the course of the sets going forward from RtR to now and is the primary reason we don't see too many cards on the level of CounterSpell. While long term non-competitive players want to play with powerful cards, competitive players actually want to play with balanced sets of cards so they have multiple lines of play.
So where does kaladesh fit into this paradigm? Well, that's the thing: It doesn't fit anywhere. The reason Kaladesh is a bad set is that the cards aren't pushed enough to appeal to long term non-competitive players and was actually kind of complicated to pick up. At the same time the set was badly balanced so competitive players just took the path of least resistance, since their mind set is about efficiency. This lead to a format with very few lines of play and made the entire game more about the luck of the draw even when Aetherworks Marvel got banned. If the set was just bonkers broken like Urza's Saga they might have lost a lot of competitive players, but the set would still sell to the old vanguard modern / Legacy crowd as well as the EDH players.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
https://wpn.wizards.com/en/event/masters-25
I don't think LGS owners are going to make the same mistake they made with Iconic Masters by ordering tons of Masters 25 from their local distributors and expect it to sell. Rivals of Ixalan may be doing better in terms of expected value but that won't be a guarantee for Masters 25.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
So they will ramp up the print numbers and do that till it crumbles.
And as we know WotC they will overdo it, back down and try something else.
----
They are consistently doing that, and its against every interest of Local Game Stores and just trying to milk the game for money, which hurts all the infrastructure of stores.
----
For the long run it could even be the plan to fully commit to digital product (that being Magic Arena) , which is quite bogus, but WotC might think that way , as for digital the production cost is even less and charging money for boosters is pretty much free money.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Kaladesh was really cool and and some of their recent sets weren't that bad.
I just wish standard were a little cheaper, as well as a few of the chase modern staples.
A print run was also needed when when Chronicle was released - and players were overall very happy. The biggest difference is that at the time there was a higher ratio of non-plaher collectors; and WotC felt collectors were essential to their market.
Nowadays not only is the collector ratio way down, but collectors are arguable bad for MTG. I don't imagine collectors are primarily interested in newer cards (aka, creating demand for sealed product). WotC has a lot more incentive to cater to players over hoarders.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
It's nice to win the toss, but I have never felt like my results are particularly dependant on that. I'd like to see Legacy stats on this. I doubt that in the big picture going first is that much more an advantage than playing white in chess.
EDIT
Legacy is an interesting format because the pace is faster but the games themselves tend to go longer.
This means the early turns are vital. You need to be very good at recognising the opponents deck (and reacting properly), as well as demonstrating shrewd mulligan skills. Until you get a good handle on this, your opponents will run over you before you feel you had a chance to react. And of course this effect will be exacerbated when you are on the draw.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
Yeah I was expecting this response, actually. What I meant by my statement is that the format is fast: You have to expect to answer things sooner because of the faster mana-base, availability of combo pieces that aren't around in modern, etc. The key difference between Legacy and modern is that it has those faster answers to play. Daze is one such answer along with things like swords to plowshares. It's not the coin flip that vintage is, but it's still a faster format and if it didn't have those answers it would turn into more about who fires first.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
- people get bored over an overwhelmingly huge number of crap cards
- anytime a slightly better than usual card gets printed the format collapse
Do you think any banned card in standard would have been banned with Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, Force of Will, Liliana of The Veil, Thoughtseize, Abrupt Decay and so on in the format?
-Draft
-EDH
-Standard
-Tribal
Its hard to make a set that is exciting for Standard when you are trying to make it good at 4 different things, it seems like they put more effort into making a set for EDH/Tribal, and so the draft and standard focus ended up being underwhelming. I guess its hard to be good at 4 things, so they ended up being mediocre at 4 things.
Let me put it this way: I know of no other game where a card with no availability problems and has the promise of being reprinted has exceeded the cost of a booster box other than Magic the Gathering. It's created a toxic environment on multiple levels and often a sense of being cornered because of financial pay walls, especially for isolated returning players who only have so much money to spend and their only option to find players is FNM. No one wants to walk in with their inexperienced janky hell of draft cards and get obliterated by a finely tuned affinity list or whatever flavor of standard deck is dominating the standard tournament scene.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The same thing is happening to EDH. Decklists and try-hards are doing the same thing to that format. Your Meta may be different...
People not showing up to play standard don't buy product... of any kind. Stores hurt first and hard and the trickle up to WotC is slower.
They already raised the prices to stores without raising the MSRP. Dirty deeds...
As far as standard is concerned... the last 2 years have been utter dumpster fire especially with Kaladesh. Design thought they could sell more cards with big fatty creatures and janky unbalanced mechanics that you weren't given the right tools to remove or counter. Control is just about dead because they want it that way by DESIGN.
Maro needs to realize that his plan doesn't work even a little and go back to balanced sets. Use RTR and Tarkir as templates to give us fun draft/standard environments.
I fully agree again...I'm a disagreeable guy so something must be wrong.
I wonder though if its about set design, or power level? I know Tarkir is seen as a 'power' set, was RTR (and Modern impact would say yes, even to this day) also a 'high power' set?
Spirits
My problem with the attendance angle of this is that people are asking them to fix and bring the game back to the glory days of mass competitive play. If anything, the current situation shows how anemic the game is outside of that venue. What exactly has wizards done to support players that don't want to compete at FNM and just want to be able to afford good cards to build their deck building kits? They literally push the most powerful cards each set through their own promotional tools like the Pro Tour and then refuse to make those cards more affordable even after rotation hits. The cards that are cheap are ones that have no demand due to better / more efficient cards being present. Most people are not made of money: They can't just say "I'm going to put 150-300 dollars down to get a playset of X, Y, or Z staple card", and those that do always have to make sure that card has a home first or are willing to trade away something to get to that goal.
This isn't helped by watching youtube videos of WoTC representatives cluelessly milling about and saying how fun a six mana legendary dinosaur that marks things for death if it ever gets played is.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Spirits