MTG Salvation

That step is that we're going to extend the lifecycle of all cards in Standard by one year: starting with the current Standard environment, sets will rotate out every three years rather than every two years.

This means that with the release of Wilds of Eldraine, there will be no Standard rotation for this year only. The following year in 2024, Innistrad: Crimson Vow, Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and Streets of New Capenna will rotate out of Standard.

so when wilds of eldraine hits theres no rotation now its the next summer set were getting 3 years worth of sets for standard now

source: Mothership

Extandard.

Standarded.

Seriously though. I actually kind of like this? I mean most of us barely play paper standard these days (thanks Arena!) but in the event that we are imposed playing more often (especially at RCQs), I guess that's fine? Cards already have longevity now because of Pioneer so I'm not super sure that this is the solution. But hey, Dr. Hewey told me first, and I'll give this guy a shot.

The way they've been designing sets lately, almost makes you think that they should just scrap standard anyways and convert the showcase format to Commander anyways.

Don't know If this actually fixes the problem plaguing Paper Standard as of late. Maybe If sets rotate out every four or five years instead of three probably would've sufficed. Given how Commander has disrupted game design it seems as though Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has no real intention of going back to how set rotations used to work pre-Kaladesh / Aether Revolt. Have they finally found a solution to prevent emergency bans without losing players to Commander? Would they be better off trying to run more Commander events at Local Game Stores (LGSs) and just ditch Friday Night Magic (FNM) entirely? Will Friday Night Commander (FNC) be a thing?

My LGS runs Commander Nights on Tuesdays but imagine If Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro were more engaged in pushing for Commander events with the most foot traffic of customers being on Friday nights and Saturdays at Local Game Stores (LGSs) instead of regulating it at the convention level with CommandFest once a year. Oh right, Standard is more important than Commander. Never mind. Certain aspects of Commander don't really fit in a format like Standard such as Combo and deck customization which is always absent due to the restraints on set rotation at least until now and the more we try to make Combo work in Standard it ALWAYS leads to more emergency bans or it used to anyway.

Standard was always about forcing players to keep purchasing new sets so they can play in tournaments. Secondarily it was to make the new cards relevant to competitive play where otherwise the cards wouldn't be on the level to use in older formats. To that effect it was the most supported competitive format historically. But now we have modern-legal new sets such as the LotR set coming up, as well as the horizon sets, so pushing standard so much loses some of it's purpose. With all that said, Commander has for years now taken the throne as the most played format, because simply there are a lot more casual players than competitive players. Competitive Commander (CEDH) on the other hand is a tiny fraction of the Commander playerbase, and I'm not sure WotC knows how to pivot into CEDH, especially when casual Commander keeps products selling so well.

Quote from MoonliteKnight »

Standard was always about forcing players to keep purchasing new sets so they can play in tournaments. Secondarily it was to make the new cards relevant to competitive play where otherwise the cards wouldn't be on the level to use in older formats. To that effect it was the most supported competitive format historically. But now we have modern-legal new sets such as the LotR set coming up, as well as the horizon sets, so pushing standard so much loses some of it's purpose. With all that said, Commander has for years now taken the throne as the most played format, because simply there are a lot more casual players than competitive players. Competitive Commander (CEDH) on the other hand is a tiny fraction of the Commander playerbase, and I'm not sure WotC knows how to pivot into CEDH, especially when casual Commander keeps products selling so well.

I think Wizards should just ignore CEDH because commander is fundamentally not a competitive format. Way way way too much "politics" in who to attack and who not to attack etc.

i don't think this will fix anything at all.

its not that sets rotate too quickly, its that there isn't an emphasis on standard any more and there are just too many damn products competing for the same time and money.

i also think that its going to make for an exceptionally stagnant environment because sets are so formulaic now. every set has a 4-5 mana white board wipe, every set has a 3 mana cancel, every set gets a shock, an edict, etc

if they really wanted to solve the problem they'd re-emphasize standard by supporting competitive high level play accessible to all not just pros. they should also eliminate all supplemental products except for collectors boosters and commander precons as these all compete for your money. do one major reprint set per year thats standard legal. bake reprints into standard level sets. bake meaningful nonstandard reprints into the commander precons and especially collectors boosters, as well as new commander cards. eliminate set boosters, jumpstart, commander specific sets, even the masters sets really should be standard support that has reprints that filter into other formats.

we need the flow of product to diminish and we need actual support for the format. no one has been complaining it rotates too fast for the past few years because we get a new set/product every single month so why even bother with standard.

So are they going to ban Fable or is there a more busted 2R card in Wilds that they just think will supplant it?

Quote from Simto »

I think Wizards should just ignore CEDH because commander is fundamentally not a competitive format. Way way way too much "politics" in who to attack and who not to attack etc.

By ignoring cEDH you effectively make it harder for new players to get into the game as easily as Paper Standard once did with Local Game Stores (LGSs) being the central hub for players to gather and play in-person. cEDH compared to Casual EDH definitely has A LOT of flaws going for it, including an expensive paywall and the need to proxy expensive staple cards just to keep up with similar with other eternal formats. Casual EDH sort of has those problems as well but it feels as though it's actually gatekeeping newer players from entering the game where If you haven't played Magic for a long period of time or If you're new to the game then you'll be left behind even with a Commander Pre-Con.

Quote from lookingupanddown »

While this does address the oldest complaint about Standard, it's not a complete solution. I'd keep watch on whatever the next step is. In my opinion though, Standard will not be played in paper in the same level as years ago without the conditions of the time. That is, the best thing to do is to roll back all the FNM support for non-Standard formats. If FNM and most tournaments are locked to Standard, people will play Standard.

That's because Arena pushed all the Paper Standard players out of the Local Game Store (LGS) which was exacerbated due to the pandemic so it will be difficult to get the same players that were lost because of it. Players played Paper Standard for the FNM Promos but now they got replaced with Secret Lairs where there's no sense of reward for them other than being there to undermine the Local Game Store (LGS) which Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro apparently hates. They've been holding a grudge against LGS owners running Paper Standard tournaments JUST to flip FNM Promos for money online when they mainly did it just so that they could break even to keep their business open. These shop owners and employees HAVE to pay rent in order to provide a place to play.

Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro also avoids banning problematic cards in Paper Standard because they don't want to lose their Secondary Market value when it comes to selling boxes. Look at The Meathook Massacre, Oko, Thief of Crowns, and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath for example. All problematic cards in Paper Standard that they refused to ban just so that they could milk more money off of their Secondary Market value and by the time they were done making money off of these boxes that these cards influenced in price THEN that's when they decide to ban them. It didn't matter If it resulted in losing players for Paper Standard when it was short-term gains for long-term losses because they know they can still make money off of Commander but not promoting it in a way that's Pro-LGS.

Core Sets were discontinued due to adding unnecessary power creep to Standard which mainly fueled Commander and other eternal formats while at the same time you have a few reprints in recent Standard sets that doesn't necessarily break the format for the sake of Commander like with Monastery Mentor in March of the Machine. Not an inherently busted card but good enough to at least see competitive play minus the combo pieces that are normally seen with it. I'm perfectly fine with reprints as long as it doesn't end up affecting Standard which Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has actually done a good job doing as of late. Could they do better? Absolutely. Scrap Secret Lairs because they do nothing to help the LGS or have LGSs give Secret Lairs out as rewards for winners at these In-Person Tournaments.

Quote from Card Slinger J »

Quote from Simto »

I think Wizards should just ignore CEDH because commander is fundamentally not a competitive format. Way way way too much "politics" in who to attack and who not to attack etc.

By ignoring cEDH you effectively make it harder for new players to get into the game as easily as Paper Standard once did with Local Game Stores (LGSs) being the central hub for players to gather and play in-person. cEDH compared to Casual EDH definitely has A LOT of flaws going for it, including an expensive paywall and the need to proxy expensive staple cards just to keep up with similar with other eternal formats. Casual EDH sort of has those problems as well but it feels as though it's actually gatekeeping newer players from entering the game where If you haven't played Magic for a long period of time or If you're new to the game then you'll be left behind even with a Commander Pre-Con.
.

Magic isn't really a friendly game towards beginners anyway. You'd have that problem in any format. For a starting playing, keeping up with a 4 player game is very difficult. Much easier to learn how to play in 1vs1 games before jumping into commander. At that point you should be more aware of what you need for a deck, but ideally just have a group of people who play with decks at the same level. That's the absolute most important part of commander for me at least. Find some friends who are all on the same page power level wise or at least just play with decks of roughly equal power when you play.
The only "gatekeeping" magic has is actually learning to play it. If you want to play more competitively you gotta' pay up, but that goes for pretty much anything. Like a beginner guitar vs a "pro level" guitar. They just cost more, but you're not going to start off on a pro level instrument unless your parents are insanely rich. You're not being "gatekept" from playing guitar because you can't afford the $9k Custom shop '59 relic Les Paul replica, you can still have fun and play music with a budget guitar. Same with magic. You can still have fun with a precon commander deck. It's more the complexity that comes up with having to keep track in a 4 player game compared to 1vs1 games that's hard for beginners.

That was a whole lot of words I just wrote about nothing much really... my bad.

It is harder to keep up with 4 players than 1v1 for sure but I think the commander precons do a really good job for keeping the power level similar. We mostly play with them out of the box without changes. Sure you are more limited in style/strategy/themes/mechanics but I think that they keep the complexity of a game low while restricting the game to a limited amount of mechanics. Specially the commander starter decks. Nonetheless you have more interactions and combinations in 4 player games and those can be overwhelming for beginners (responding to other spells, using the stack and so on, remember static abilities on the field). I don't believe that a newcomer to magic should buy a expensive deck by buying single cards. Just buy a precons with your friend or maybe you have some precons available and your friend can borrow one from you.

Yeah, the precons do a good job at staying at roughly the same level. I think it was more in terms of playing it at a local game store if the commander players are sore loser basement dwellers who can't tone it down a bit for new players who are coming in with a vastly under powered deck. It reminds me of the first time I was playing commander at my store. Everybody was so passive aggressive and laughing loudly in a passive aggressive way. And I always remember this one dude who was playing the ninja deck when Yuriko just came out and he was like "Oh this is pretty underpowered, just using it for more casual games" (said unironically) and then he slams a scroll rack and jace the mind sculptor... I don't care about losing at all, I just don't like those attitudes and if anything I think that could be a deal breaker for younger kids or new players trying to get into the game. It's more a people problem. There's just something about magic that draws those types in compared to something like Warhammer. I started doing warhammer stuff in '94 and for many many years you'd basically only encounter those types like... in 1 out 10 people. With magic it's the opposite I find it and I don't know why.
Sorry for ranting. I have no life.

Shakes head in disbelief.

How about a more aggressive banning and restriction of overplayed problematic cards? Or anything Xcric mentioned above in his post.

I haven't played competitive Magic in quite some time, but this sounds rather dubious that this will fix Standard and/or bring players back to it, much like how their last "fix" to rotation went the complete opposite of what they thought would happen. They need to create more incentives to draw people in to Standard, what's the reason to play Standard again in paper right now?

This is all about selling more product. Keeping the window open for reprinting Standard sets for a whole extra year.

With that said this could be the precursor to a new rotating extended format. Standard would go back to a 2 year rotation and the new extended format would be either a 3 year or 4 year rotation. With that said they just could have created this new Extended format instead of bastardizing Standard. Which makes me think this is nothing more than a money making scheme for WotC/Hasbro.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

This is all about selling more product. Keeping the window open for reprinting Standard sets for a whole extra year.

With that said this could be the precursor to a new rotating extended format. Standard would go back to a 2 year rotation and the new extended format would be either a 3 year or 4 year rotation. With that said they just could have created this new Extended format instead of bastardizing Standard. Which makes me think this is nothing more than a money making scheme for WotC/Hasbro.

But don't most paper standard players buy most of the initial good stuff right around release? That's what I did myself and a lot of other players around the Copenhagen game stores who had fnm did too. This was around 2017-2018 though, so really pre arena and covid taking a lot out of paper standard. I don't know, I just don't see much profit in keeping a set around for that long in hopes of getting more sales when the hardcore standard players most likely have everything they need around release and the following month or two.

So back on topic, I had to really rethink why longer Standard was a bad idea and IT IS especially with how tone deaf of a decision it is. Aaron Forsythe awhile back posted a poll exclusively on Twitter for people who follow him about what they want to see change in Standard when he could've asked the people who quit the format in the last three years and ask them about why they quit. They're the reason why Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is losing money and are the people he's needing back. Unfortunately there's pushed garbage, too many sets, and too much complexity that makes it almost impossible to play Paper Standard outside of Arena because you can't even tell what's really going on. There's too many complexive rules, too many words on the cards, and too many products per year. There's too long of a rotation cycle, too high of a power level, and too much, "I won because of what I net decked at my locals" which completely suppresses any kind of creativity for deck building compared to how easy it is in Commander. Hmm, I wonder why?

Aaron Forsythe only listened to the FNM Standard players who don't care about fun, they don't care about enjoyment, they are not there to anything other than to WIN. They don't care who they piss off or drive away, who doesn't like their deck unless the store owner bans them, they don't give a crap. They usually give the store owner the most money so even If they resent them they aren't getting rid of them. So unless your store has a spine it doesn't want FNM to shrink by two people every week until it's just the toxic players left. You know someone who knows business and knows what they're doing. Those are the type of people who follow Aaron Forsythe one of the least liked employees at Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro which is a well-known fact. So here's how you REALLY fix Standard: Lower the complexity, lower the power level, ban more cards when they IMMEDIATELY become problematic (don't take so long to ban it), and most importantly have it be a fun approachable entry-level thing for new players just getting into Magic for the first time.

Arena is really where all the money that used to come from Paper Standard is nowadays. So here's a question, how many players leave Arena every time a Standard set rotation happens? Every time an overpowered set full of garbage, broken cards, and toxic archetypes comes out the number dips and every time there's a rotation the number immensely dips. It's basically like MTGO where they just take all your cards at the end. With Standard now being a three year rotation you now have more complexity, more interactions, a higher power level, and more cards you have to wait longer for toxic cards to cycle out because you know they're not going to ban anything If it's making Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro money on their sealed product. They don't want to admit fault by posting an article by saying they screwed up the design of a specific card and ACTUALLY do something about it because then they'll piss off the netdeckers who are just getting free wins because THAT's who they're catering toward!

That's who follows Aaron Forsythe and that's what he thinks the community is. They hang out with Pro players and they hang out on Twitter. That is the LAST demographic they should be listening to. Netdeckers in Standard copy the single most powerful decks on the internet which drives up card single prices, they show up with their $500 decks to FNM, and beat actual children so that they can win a couple of packs and win some of their money back. They also get their little Pro wannabe fantasy at the local level, "Wow... what great work for you designing that deck. Oh wait you didn't. Shut up." So they want Standard to be cheaper because they're dropping hundreds of dollars per month on this but they want to keep winning because they're very shallow that props up their ENTIRE ego. It's about getting the same win rate while putting in zero effort with a bunch of overpowered garbage and copying other people's work but at half the price. So free wins and no bans? Stop netdecking in Standard which is a bit harder to do in Commander but is still viable.

If you see a Standard deck on the internet first of all STOP. But If you insist on doing that in a deck building game, "Oh this looks WAY overpowered and people are talking about this combo and everybody's pissed and they want it out of their game, you build it, purchase it, and then you lose with it because you lost money? First of all you built the deck that beats it and second of all you REALLY should've seen it coming and that's why Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has been so soft on banning problematic cards in Standard lately aside from just being temporary cash grabs. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro really needs to do an online survey for people who used to play Magic but don't anymore and then explain why when they don't even realize how much effort goes into acquiring a new customer for their game. Given the current state of Standard right now would you teach a new person how to play Magic in Standard? You would more than likely have them learn how to play Commander instead right?

It's too unapproachable, too annoying, too toxic, the deck archetypes are annoying to play against, they're not fun. NOBODY would pick up this game from scratch right now and to pick up Arena would cost you about $300. So the amount of new people coming into Magic is zero and Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro needs to focus on why players are leaving the game. Cards that are too fast, too early, too good is now Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's basis for designing new Magic cards because nothing else will compete. They tried to design a low powered set with Streets of New Capenna and that flopped SO HARD. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro doesn't understand how math, business, or marketing of their own game with Magic works or their community. It's clear. And even If they did Hasbro Corporate wouldn't let them. If they lowered the power level of Standard where they're now rotating out 15 cards where we've gotten to a place that we don't like and we're fixing it, whine and complain about it, pretend to leave the game, and show up the next day, that's what these net decking addicts live for.

The rest of us can come play a nice comfortable low-powered format with Standard and after you get sick of it you play Modern. You play EDH. You get into the complex stuff. You start playing with older cards. You start getting into Draft. You elevate. Or at the bare minimum they have you as a customer at least you're a person at a seat at an FNM telling your friends about it. You're keeping the store open. So If Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro ACTUALLY decides to fix Standard and they released four low-powered sets in a row once and then rotated again which is what it would take mathematically then their sales would be so trash for a year as people would be like, "Well why would I want these cards? The Expected Value (EV) of these boxes are $50 and none of them are competitive." Why? Because they would be resetting the power level of Standard. Everything that came before is what you want to play with. To fix Standard even further would've also been to limit Legendary cards to 2 per deck, lower the Mythic numbers, and reclassify Control cards as Control cards.

Quote from Simto »

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

This is all about selling more product. Keeping the window open for reprinting Standard sets for a whole extra year.

With that said this could be the precursor to a new rotating extended format. Standard would go back to a 2 year rotation and the new extended format would be either a 3 year or 4 year rotation. With that said they just could have created this new Extended format instead of bastardizing Standard. Which makes me think this is nothing more than a money making scheme for WotC/Hasbro.

But don't most paper standard players buy most of the initial good stuff right around release? That's what I did myself and a lot of other players around the Copenhagen game stores who had fnm did too. This was around 2017-2018 though, so really pre arena and covid taking a lot out of paper standard. I don't know, I just don't see much profit in keeping a set around for that long in hopes of getting more sales when the hardcore standard players most likely have everything they need around release and the following month or two.

Maybe. But keeping the window open longer for second and third waves of product potentially makes them more money. Key word there is potentially because as you suspect Standard players have bought in when the sets release not 2 years down the road. My guess is that they are hoping to unload overproduction of Midnight Hunt, Crimson Vow, Kamigawa ND and New Capenna that they probably have sitting around in warehouses so they don't have to send it off to landfills as no one will buy it after rotation. (I bet I am close on this last guess.)

Another thing that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro could do to help fix Standard instead of just extending the rotation period is by completely scrapping Collector's Edition Boosters for Standard legal sets and regulate ALL Standard set releases to ONLY Set and Draft Boosters. They can still release Collector's Edition Boosters but regulate their releases solely on Supplementary products such as Masters set releases, Jumpstart, and Commander releases. That way there would be less variants in Standard legal sets that are shrinking the price and causing sealed product to be more easy to flip and sell which is actually better for Local Game Stores (LGSs) so that they won't be forced to break even to keep their businesses open.

Quote from Card Slinger J »

Another thing that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro could do to help fix Standard instead of just extending the rotation period is by completely scrapping Collector's Edition Boosters for Standard legal sets and regulate ALL Standard set releases to ONLY Set and Draft Boosters. They can still release Collector's Edition Boosters but regulate their releases solely on Supplementary products such as Masters set releases, Jumpstart, and Commander releases. That way there would be less variants in Standard legal sets that are shrinking the price and causing sealed product to be more easy to flip and sell which is actually better for Local Game Stores (LGSs) so that they won't be forced to break even to keep their businesses open.

don't even bother with set. just bake all the collectors pack good stuff into draft packs but reduce the frequency of appearance

Basically "Ignore all the market research they've been doing, ignore their sales numbers, and go back to being a niche game for a handful of nerds."

If 3 year standard doesn't work they'll go back to 2 year standards, but at the end of the day they're a business selling products and their concern is selling more products because that's how they stay in business. If that means ditching standard altogether they'd do it in a heartbeat.

Really wild to read this stuff in defense of a format that was deeply unpopular when it launched because it was an obvious cashgrab attempt to get players to keep buying more cards instead of sitting on their moxen channel fireball decks forever.

Quote from buffntuff »

Basically "Ignore all the market research they've been doing, ignore their sales numbers, and go back to being a niche game for a handful of nerds."

If 3 year standard doesn't work they'll go back to 2 year standards, but at the end of the day they're a business selling products and their concern is selling more products because that's how they stay in business. If that means ditching standard altogether they'd do it in a heartbeat.

Really wild to read this stuff in defense of a format that was deeply unpopular when it launched because it was an obvious cashgrab attempt to get players to keep buying more cards instead of sitting on their moxen channel fireball decks forever.

The ONLY real good thing that came out of Standard was that it made people actually give a damn about supporting their Local Game Store (LGS) and help grow the game to where it is today. Supporting your LGS isn't just an obligation of having a fun experience with your local community, it's a passion that sadly costs WAY too much to keep up with mentally and financially especially when you take into account the cost of running a small business, paying rent, and overhead to provide such an experience. At least it's something different from sitting at home playing video games which is basically what online clients are yet players like to pretend that it isn't. Unfortunately Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro refuses to use Commander as a tool to draw new people at Local Game Stores (LGSs) like Standard once did. Why is that? They make it more complicated than it should be.

Quote from Card Slinger J »

Unfortunately Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro refuses to use Commander as a tool to draw new people at Local Game Stores (LGSs) like Standard once did. Why is that? They make it more complicated than it should be.

Cuz the majority of their sales come from big box stores or amazon and commander doesn't rotate. Commander as a format creates its own problem where people lean heavily on buying on the secondary market, which despite conspiracy theories wotc does not directly make money from. That's why secret lairs exist and keep coming out, so that wizards themselves can actually charge $30 for a card that people are buying one-offs of for their pet commander decks rather than the $2 per pack they's selling to TCGplayer vendors.

I think it's great to have a local gaming store and etc but this is a capitalist country and if you can't run a business profitably then you should not be in business. LGS's need to offer a value proposition to its customers, the customers don't need to be guilted into virtue signaling their money to a business. Wizards of the coast shouldn't be guilted into virtue signal supporting game stores. That's woke antifa thinking. Profits don't care about your feelings.