I'm all for modern, but I wouldn't call it a pinnacle format. It's miles closer to being a pinnacle format than standard ever will, though.
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!
Modern is only the pinnacle because people have been priced out of Legacy. WotC can fix that with new lands that simulate the ABU duals. Sure would drive up sales too!
Modern is only the pinnacle because people have been priced out of Legacy. WotC can fix that with new lands that simulate the ABU duals. Sure would drive up sales too!
I dont want to take it too far of (which I've already done) but yeah, the price of Legacy kills it around here, but we have a strong Modern scene. :]
Big LGS RIX pre-release saw much lower numbers. Midnight was fine but Saturday events didn't fill. Only 2H giant on Sat filled (limited to 16 teams) with Sunday events all barely signed up for.
You can talk reasons all day but the fact is LGS standard participation is barely existent in previously fertile ground and the disappointment is spreading to new product releases.
I dont want to take it too far of (which I've already done) but yeah, the price of Legacy kills it around here, but we have a strong Modern scene. :]
Didn't mean to start a pissing contest (my format is better than yours / my dad can beat up your dad). Only to say that Modern grew because WotC dropped the ball on
Legacy. When duals were priced in the double digits, Legacy was exploding in growth and the format everybody wanted to get into. Modern supplanted Legacy because WotC closed the RL loophole instead of exploiting it.
Modern has grown very popular, and WotC has raised a generation of players to hate combo, prison, and control, so they probably can't put the djinni back in that bottle. That said, Masters sets would fly off the shelves if more people could build a home for those cards. They took Sol Ring of the RL, so it's not exactly written in Stone. ABUR duals as expedions in Dominaria? Imagine the line-ups for that!
Big LGS RIX pre-release saw much lower numbers. Midnight was fine but Saturday events didn't fill. Only 2H giant on Sat filled (limited to 16 teams) with Sunday events all barely signed up for.
You can talk reasons all day but the fact is LGS standard participation is barely existent in previously fertile ground and the disappointment is spreading to new product releases.
Now I'm getting very interesting in seeing how prices go on the rivals cards. If pre-release was a desert and the orders on sealed product were low for stores, singles could actually become more expensive or just hang out at higher prices for this set than prior examples of the winter set. It also means mythics are going to be scarce unless there is enough demand to get singles sellers to open more boxes. I know for smaller TCGs the singles market is actually pretty shallow, so just a couple of guys coming back with about 200-300 usd saved up can end up buying out all copies of a single on TCG player, especially on rares. That's what happened to me with Force of Will: I had to go fishing around different versions of the same card just to get a playset and in doing so ended up buying out a ton of different staples. Heck, I bought out the last copy of Frayla that was at 13 dollars and now new listings are showing up at three times the price, mostly because that same seller also suddenly lost a huge stock of dark elf cards. (I guess I'm evil?)
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!
Big LGS RIX pre-release saw much lower numbers. Midnight was fine but Saturday events didn't fill. Only 2H giant on Sat filled (limited to 16 teams) with Sunday events all barely signed up for.
You can talk reasons all day but the fact is LGS standard participation is barely existent in previously fertile ground and the disappointment is spreading to new product releases.
I was only able to attend friday night's midnight event, and I have to say the Elder Dinos were certainly an advantage, my promo was Bishop of Binding and due to my horrid luck at pulls I didn't get enough vamps to use it and ended up going with RG Dinos. I was usually able to hold my own until my opponents dropped their Elder dino promo...then it was game over -_-; But I don't know how saturday ended up being. Unlike your event it wasn't due to a lack of interest more of a scheduling conflict as many of the players reported that they had to work during the scheduled event times on Saturday.
Big LGS RIX pre-release saw much lower numbers. Midnight was fine but Saturday events didn't fill. Only 2H giant on Sat filled (limited to 16 teams) with Sunday events all barely signed up for.
You can talk reasons all day but the fact is LGS standard participation is barely existent in previously fertile ground and the disappointment is spreading to new product releases.
I was only able to attend friday night's midnight event, and I have to say the Elder Dinos were certainly an advantage, my promo was Bishop of Binding and due to my horrid luck at pulls I didn't get enough vamps to use it and ended up going with RG Dinos. I was usually able to hold my own until my opponents dropped their Elder dino promo...then it was game over -_-; But I don't know how saturday ended up being. Unlike your event it wasn't due to a lack of interest more of a scheduling conflict as many of the players reported that they had to work during the scheduled event times on Saturday.
Often the why gets lost behind the numbers with these things. The set seems to be selling well despite low prerelease attendance numbers so that has to account for something.
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!
Attendance is always lower for small set Prereleases. I did the marathon this weekend(5 events) and while attendance was down compared to Ixalan it was within the expected range for a small set. The packs have 4 Rivals and 2 Ixalan and that’s less value since at least personally I don’t need cards from Ixalan anymore.
It also hasn’t been mentioned yet in this thread but Energy and Ramunap Red both just got hit with the Ban Hammer today.
My guess is that with a weakened aggro deck and energy hit relatively hard, The Scarab God and Approach of the Second Sun decks are going to start popping up more. The approach decks were already pretty decent even before the bannings and given how crappy the manabase is for the tribes I'm really not sure where things are going to go from here.
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!
My guess is that with a weakened aggro deck and energy hit relatively hard, The Scarab God and Approach of the Second Sun decks are going to start popping up more. The approach decks were already pretty decent even before the bannings and given how crappy the manabase is for the tribes I'm really not sure where things are going to go from here.
Approach is still vulnerable to creature decks that run Negate and Duress. I’ve been playing Scarab God decks for some time, but people are running answers and while the card is incredibly strong it’s not very aggressive. The Scarab God can be run under and does little to stop combos from going off. I really don’t know how it’s going to shake out. The tribes don’t have great mana, but neither does anyone else for the most part. I think Vampires and Merfolk might be good enough now that they don’t have to deal with RR/Energy at their peak, and Dinos may work as well if they can find a way to beat Fumigate/Settle. I don’t know how it’s going to shake out, all I can say is that I’ll be sleeving up Mardu Vehicles for next weekend.
My guess is that with a weakened aggro deck and energy hit relatively hard, The Scarab God and Approach of the Second Sun decks are going to start popping up more. The approach decks were already pretty decent even before the bannings and given how crappy the manabase is for the tribes I'm really not sure where things are going to go from here.
Approach is still vulnerable to creature decks that run Negate and Duress. I’ve been playing Scarab God decks for some time, but people are running answers and while the card is incredibly strong it’s not very aggressive. The Scarab God can be run under and does little to stop combos from going off. I really don’t know how it’s going to shake out. The tribes don’t have great mana, but neither does anyone else for the most part. I think Vampires and Merfolk might be good enough now that they don’t have to deal with RR/Energy at their peak, and Dinos may work as well if they can find a way to beat Fumigate/Settle. I don’t know how it’s going to shake out, all I can say is that I’ll be sleeving up Mardu Vehicles for next weekend.
Right now in casual play I'm just running Hinterland Harbor and lumbering falls. Really, the tribes aren't that bad once the mana is actually resolved. Unfortunately, we're probably waiting for Return to Dominaria for a new land cycle to help deal with the fixing issues. Right now allied colors have far better mana and there are tons of better options in Amonkhet block. I'm pretty sure that Torrential Gearhulk is coming back. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if mardu vehicles comes back.
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!
That's why the Eldrazi crapped all over Modern and Standard, but are a perfect fit in Legacy - the format with powerful generic answers that can keep them in check.
Huh? "Crapped over Standard"? Siege Rhino Abzan was still the clear top dog when they got released in Oath of the Gatewatch, and after rotation it was Collected Company that took over the format. The Eldrazi cards really weren't much of a force in the format, unless you're referring to Ulamog and Emrakul, but the latter of which wasn't part of the original batch of Eldrazi, and Ulamog was a nonentity until Aetherworks Marvel came along.
Well where I live sales are probably dropping, since shops have been closing to a point that there isn't a shop to play MTG apart from the capital city.
I live in one of the biggest cities and there is no shop open.
So I guess sales must be dropping. Part of this due to the decline MTG has been lately.
OOTG did have several other problematic cards, the Eldrazi broke Modern in half, but were not the worst part of OOTG, in regards to Standard.
I think that was Gideon.
Gideon was in BFZ, not OGW. Even if that wasn't a serious comment, I feel I should point that out, especially since that set had little else going for it from a Constructed point of view.
So according to Rudy from Alpha Investments, Wizards of the Coast is being 'prepped' for a possible sale in the next 3 to 5 years meaning that Hasbro is looking to cut all ties with the company. This means one or two things, either Wizards of the Coast retains the creative license/control of MTG itself or MTG is officially discontinued due to Wizards of the Coast no longer being in charge of MTG design.
So wouldn't have Hasbro already sold Wizards of the Coast when the MTG playerbase was over 20 million worldwide? If I had to guess they were waiting for the ideal opportunity when profit margins were in a dramatic decline to the point where they could raise enough cash flow through oversaturating product until it was time to sell which would be right now.
"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
So according to Rudy from Alpha Investments, Wizards of the Coast is being 'prepped' for a possible sale in the next 3 to 5 years meaning that Hasbro is looking to cut all ties with the company. This means one or two things, either Wizards of the Coast retains the creative license/control of MTG itself or MTG is officially discontinued due to Wizards of the Coast no longer being in charge of MTG design.
So wouldn't have Hasbro already sold Wizards of the Coast when the MTG playerbase was over 20 million worldwide? If I had to guess they were waiting for the ideal opportunity when profit margins were in a dramatic decline to the point where they could raise enough cash flow through oversaturating product until it was time to sell which would be right now.
That's actually a bit off topic, but I can understand why someone would bring up hasbro selling Wizards of the Coast off in relation to the situation with standard. What he was saying in the video is that one of the things companies like to do when prepping a division for sale is to prop it up and make it look good. The best way to do that is to show big numbers so they make a ton of product and then pitch it at presentations.
If Hasbro sells WoTC it's mostly going to come down to who buys them up. If it's a company like Namco Bandai than we can all kiss affordable magic the gathering goodbye as they would find every way to nickel and dime the players, not to mention probably crush the secondary market and load all their stuff into big box retail. If it's someone like Square Enix that would be very interesting.
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!
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!
IMO, of course.
Spirits
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
I dont want to take it too far of (which I've already done) but yeah, the price of Legacy kills it around here, but we have a strong Modern scene. :]
Spirits
You can talk reasons all day but the fact is LGS standard participation is barely existent in previously fertile ground and the disappointment is spreading to new product releases.
Spirits
Legacy. When duals were priced in the double digits, Legacy was exploding in growth and the format everybody wanted to get into. Modern supplanted Legacy because WotC closed the RL loophole instead of exploiting it.
Modern has grown very popular, and WotC has raised a generation of players to hate combo, prison, and control, so they probably can't put the djinni back in that bottle. That said, Masters sets would fly off the shelves if more people could build a home for those cards. They took Sol Ring of the RL, so it's not exactly written in Stone. ABUR duals as expedions in Dominaria? Imagine the line-ups for that!
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
Now I'm getting very interesting in seeing how prices go on the rivals cards. If pre-release was a desert and the orders on sealed product were low for stores, singles could actually become more expensive or just hang out at higher prices for this set than prior examples of the winter set. It also means mythics are going to be scarce unless there is enough demand to get singles sellers to open more boxes. I know for smaller TCGs the singles market is actually pretty shallow, so just a couple of guys coming back with about 200-300 usd saved up can end up buying out all copies of a single on TCG player, especially on rares. That's what happened to me with Force of Will: I had to go fishing around different versions of the same card just to get a playset and in doing so ended up buying out a ton of different staples. Heck, I bought out the last copy of Frayla that was at 13 dollars and now new listings are showing up at three times the price, mostly because that same seller also suddenly lost a huge stock of dark elf cards. (I guess I'm evil?)
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!
I was only able to attend friday night's midnight event, and I have to say the Elder Dinos were certainly an advantage, my promo was Bishop of Binding and due to my horrid luck at pulls I didn't get enough vamps to use it and ended up going with RG Dinos. I was usually able to hold my own until my opponents dropped their Elder dino promo...then it was game over -_-; But I don't know how saturday ended up being. Unlike your event it wasn't due to a lack of interest more of a scheduling conflict as many of the players reported that they had to work during the scheduled event times on Saturday.
Often the why gets lost behind the numbers with these things. The set seems to be selling well despite low prerelease attendance numbers so that has to account for something.
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
It also hasn’t been mentioned yet in this thread but Energy and Ramunap Red both just got hit with the Ban Hammer today.
It was nice to be back in the saddle and I was able to prize out each prerelease I did despite cards.
I will probably start to play standard again too, mostly to see what impact these bans had on the game.
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!
Approach is still vulnerable to creature decks that run Negate and Duress. I’ve been playing Scarab God decks for some time, but people are running answers and while the card is incredibly strong it’s not very aggressive. The Scarab God can be run under and does little to stop combos from going off. I really don’t know how it’s going to shake out. The tribes don’t have great mana, but neither does anyone else for the most part. I think Vampires and Merfolk might be good enough now that they don’t have to deal with RR/Energy at their peak, and Dinos may work as well if they can find a way to beat Fumigate/Settle. I don’t know how it’s going to shake out, all I can say is that I’ll be sleeving up Mardu Vehicles for next weekend.
Right now in casual play I'm just running Hinterland Harbor and lumbering falls. Really, the tribes aren't that bad once the mana is actually resolved. Unfortunately, we're probably waiting for Return to Dominaria for a new land cycle to help deal with the fixing issues. Right now allied colors have far better mana and there are tons of better options in Amonkhet block. I'm pretty sure that Torrential Gearhulk is coming back. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if mardu vehicles comes back.
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!
Edit - I think you might be the first person ever to tell me OotG didn't ruin Standard.
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
I think that was Gideon.
Spirits
I live in one of the biggest cities and there is no shop open.
So I guess sales must be dropping. Part of this due to the decline MTG has been lately.
Gideon was in BFZ, not OGW. Even if that wasn't a serious comment, I feel I should point that out, especially since that set had little else going for it from a Constructed point of view.
So according to Rudy from Alpha Investments, Wizards of the Coast is being 'prepped' for a possible sale in the next 3 to 5 years meaning that Hasbro is looking to cut all ties with the company. This means one or two things, either Wizards of the Coast retains the creative license/control of MTG itself or MTG is officially discontinued due to Wizards of the Coast no longer being in charge of MTG design.
So wouldn't have Hasbro already sold Wizards of the Coast when the MTG playerbase was over 20 million worldwide? If I had to guess they were waiting for the ideal opportunity when profit margins were in a dramatic decline to the point where they could raise enough cash flow through oversaturating product until it was time to sell which would be right now.
"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
That's actually a bit off topic, but I can understand why someone would bring up hasbro selling Wizards of the Coast off in relation to the situation with standard. What he was saying in the video is that one of the things companies like to do when prepping a division for sale is to prop it up and make it look good. The best way to do that is to show big numbers so they make a ton of product and then pitch it at presentations.
If Hasbro sells WoTC it's mostly going to come down to who buys them up. If it's a company like Namco Bandai than we can all kiss affordable magic the gathering goodbye as they would find every way to nickel and dime the players, not to mention probably crush the secondary market and load all their stuff into big box retail. If it's someone like Square Enix that would be very interesting.
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!
Half way through the vid, does he have any idea's on who may purchase?
Spirits