@ haloreaper117- Your uninformed. Standard has only ever had fetches in them three times in M:tG’s history. The only time they caused a problem was when WotC, after saying for years fetches are fine in Standard without fetchable dual lands, included them in a Standard with fetchable duals.
And the shuffling taking up to much streaming time is a hollow excuse because not enough people watch streams of players playing games with real cards because there boring to watch. The heavy stream watchings are from Arena where shuffling time isn’t an issue.
I'm not uninformed, I played through all of those standard formats. I strongly believe they are too strong for standard legal sets for the reasons I mentioned above, only one of which you barely attempted to despute. Increased shuffling is the worst argument, I'll give you that. My other arguments are well informed and have experience behind them. Even in Zendikar block people were running 4 and 5 color decks then also. Landfall caused some power level issues as well. They reduce variance in game play and thinned decks or filled graveyards too quickly. Odyssey/Onslaught format ring a ball? I'd say it's been a developmental nightmare since they first printed them. By the way, you can't call someone uninformed and launch a super lame uninformed argument. At least articulate yourself and pose an actual debate! Regardless of my opinion I would say this banning indicates strongly that they won't be printing the fetch lands in a standard legal expansion again. I also believe if they do for some reason do decide to reprint them at some point they will then ban them in Pioneer as well. It is a smart move on WOTC part too! They can't really print more efficient lands, the shocks and fetches already come really close to breaking the basic land supremacy rule for starters. So in an effort to make more land cycles (and other cards that can't compete in other non- rotating formats too but that is a separate related topic) actually have value they would need a format that supplies demand for lands that aren't fetch lands.
I think we are all really stuck on fetch lands and have put too much stock in always having access to them in non rotating formats. Banning of the allied fetch lands in Pioneer all but confirms we are done getting true fetch lands (land types not basics) in standard ever. Not a bad decision on their part. They have always been problematic there. Not just shuffling times but they also homogenize deck diversity and also thin decks too efficiently in the numbers cycled fetches are played in. Fabled Passage as a standard playable Evolving Wilds is not problematic for standard because it only finds basics and has a real cost in a technical way and not just a managing resources way like Prismatic Vista. It's not a really good land in the pioneer format for 3 color + decks though. It pulls lands tapped early on and doesn't line up well with decks with heavy color requirements. In Modern fetch lands can pull multiple colors out of your deck to diversify your Mana base extremely quickly. They allow you to pull heavy color requirements. You can for example pull GGB, UUU, UUB, and UBG in just 3 fetches in Modern. Fabled Passage and Prismatic Vista both don't do anything close to this powerful. There are exceptions to this. Prismatic Vista would help DRS if it found a way into pioneer. Fabled Passage won't help Deathrite Shaman accelerate early but it can help enable revolt and shuffle an unwanted card away from say Courser of Crufix. Which is I believe the idea in a non rotating format without true fetches (land types not just basics.) You should play Fabled Passage when your build dictates it and not just an obligatory include. There are some other good lands throughout this era of cards beyond just Fabled Passage and Shocks to take advantage of. Cycling lands can be powerful in control decks to help mitigate higher land counts. Cards like Courser of Crufix would be able to take advantage of scry lands. Obviously the Fast land cycle and Pain lands will fair well in Aggro decks. The dual Man lands will probably find niche rolls in many types of decks also. In fact this format could make the lesser land cycles more relevant and give them a source of value when they literally can't compete at all with Modern/Legacy Mana bases.
Additional note, anyone who is complaining about price hikes for Pioneer really have things pretty good. The price hikes on Modern were waaaaay worse for a long time. $50 moderately played shock lands, $10 Remand, $50 Cryptic Command, $10 spell Snare $80 Noble Hierarch and $200 Tarmogyfes were rampant, just to name a few. Heck the most expensive card in the format is only about $50 a couple weeks in! Formats create a supply and demand economy, nothing can change that. Looking to do MTG on the cheap? MTGA is the only realistic option. I am now really loving my decision not to sell off all my stuff post rotating. And people called me crazy!
(Pioneer and Modern are Non-rotating formats, not eternal ones. There is a difference!)
they have fetches in the form of Fabled passage, but yeah, good point on that. I think you are right that DRS is safe.
Fabled Passage isn't an enabler for Deathrite Shaman. It will bring lands into play tapped early. Deathrite needs support to accelerate early. Also Fabled passage is only good in 2 color decks honestly. Things like Satyr Wayfinder will be enabling DRS abilities.
I think many will be surprised at what ultimately does get banned honestly. A lot of the more problematic cards from certain areas bcoming in have some amount of answers in sets outside of the standard they belong. Thoughtseize is a good deterrent to the more expensive combos and field of ruin will punish greedy mana bases. White has a couple of flash O-ring effects that seem suitable in addition to the black removal sweets. Red seems underpowered in the burn department though. It's hard to tell where things will wind up as we have never had a format this wide without fetch/shock mana base. That dynamic is what I am interested in. The biggest factor is that decks won't concentrate themselves as games go long. In modern and legacy the more you fetch typically the more relevant your draw step becomes. Your land count in Pioneer is a real factor. One too many you flood more often, one too little you starve! 5 and 6 drops that outright win games will be more valuable, at least in small quantities. All this to say anything broken will rise to the top early and get banned soon enough. Once the format firms up it will be a decent format for players in between formats!
Rotating formats are a hard sell outside of standard honestly. A lot of players make it to there first set rotation and then they are like "so I can't play with my cards anymore? That sucks!". For a while they had Legacy turn to. Then they Modern. Now they will have Pioneer. Regardless, whichever format they make will incur a secondary market for that format and drive card values up. It creates supply and demand. If they had made Pioneer a rotating format people would have the exact same complaints anyway!
Modern is a Non-Rotating format, not an Eternal format. The difference is inclusiveness. Eternal formats include all suplementary products. Pauper and Legacy are Eternal formats because things like Conspiracy and yearly Commander Deck Series are legal in those formats
I don't see Modern, Legacy, and Vintage going anywhere, ever! The reason Legacy and Vintage are having trouble with hosted events has absolutely nothing to do with lack of support. The support is lacking because the patrons of those formats are declining and new blood is not really replacing them. It's getting harder and harder to justify regular and frequent large events because the turn out is dwindling. It's not hard to understand, these formats are rediculasly expensive! Modern is the new legacy only in that it is an expensive format with a high amount of long time players. Modern decks today are comparable in price now to roughly what legacy decks were when Modern was a new format that was never going catch on. (ABUR lands were about $50-$100 and a lot of the important Staples were $50-$200). Pioneer is a stepping stone for new players (last 6 years) looking to go beyond standard but not quite ready for Modern. Much like Modern is a great stepping stone for players looking to go beyond where Pioneer is now but not quite ready for Legacy. I don't see this as a conspiracy sized excuse for a "cash grab" or pandering to those of us on a budget. I also don't see it as a way to avoid reprinting to demand either. Cards like Tarmogyfe were reprinted into oblivion in the Masters series and the only thing that really put a dent in it's price tag was simply WOTC printing better threats. Tarmogyfe is a lot cheaper now because it's just not clearly the best creature anymore, simple as that. Will they be making another non rotating format 10 years from now? Possibly, probably. Will this format succeed? With the support they plan on putting into it, you bet ya! It's just another format where different cards get a chance to shine.
There are definitely some take aways I took from the announcement that I found interesting though!
- Fetch lands will NOT be returning to standard any time soon. By banning the allied ones it would seem silly to print the enemy ones I'm standard without also banning them as well. "No fetch lands" appear to be a defining feature of pioneer.
- Obviously bannings will happen when apparent need arises. They seem to have learned their lesson when they created Modern. They want to make sure only problematic are removed.
- They didn't put any restrictions yet on what will define the format. Modern was billed as a turn 4 format and WOTC has been dancing that devil ever since! This statement has made quite a few headaches for them over the years. Hopefully they will be leaving this criteria up to the players. We have proven to be a quiet a vocal constiuancy!
- They have also not set any expectations of reprints as well. By billing Modern as a "reprint friendly" format it has given the modern player base a unrealistic expectation of card availability ever since it's inception. Often times we forget Magic is a rare card game that has been able to develop a SUCCESSFUL secondary market mostly because WOTC learned vary early on conservative reprint policies are healthy on some level.
- Hopefully these previous 2 statements remain unchanged. Like it or not both of those policies have hampered modern in general as a format!
All in all, this news is really exciting to me. I have been holding on to my standard staples for a while as they were perfectly reasonable cards with nowhere to be relevant. Hopefully many will find a home I'm this exciting new format!
I'm not uninformed, I played through all of those standard formats. I strongly believe they are too strong for standard legal sets for the reasons I mentioned above, only one of which you barely attempted to despute. Increased shuffling is the worst argument, I'll give you that. My other arguments are well informed and have experience behind them. Even in Zendikar block people were running 4 and 5 color decks then also. Landfall caused some power level issues as well. They reduce variance in game play and thinned decks or filled graveyards too quickly. Odyssey/Onslaught format ring a ball? I'd say it's been a developmental nightmare since they first printed them. By the way, you can't call someone uninformed and launch a super lame uninformed argument. At least articulate yourself and pose an actual debate! Regardless of my opinion I would say this banning indicates strongly that they won't be printing the fetch lands in a standard legal expansion again. I also believe if they do for some reason do decide to reprint them at some point they will then ban them in Pioneer as well. It is a smart move on WOTC part too! They can't really print more efficient lands, the shocks and fetches already come really close to breaking the basic land supremacy rule for starters. So in an effort to make more land cycles (and other cards that can't compete in other non- rotating formats too but that is a separate related topic) actually have value they would need a format that supplies demand for lands that aren't fetch lands.
Additional note, anyone who is complaining about price hikes for Pioneer really have things pretty good. The price hikes on Modern were waaaaay worse for a long time. $50 moderately played shock lands, $10 Remand, $50 Cryptic Command, $10 spell Snare $80 Noble Hierarch and $200 Tarmogyfes were rampant, just to name a few. Heck the most expensive card in the format is only about $50 a couple weeks in! Formats create a supply and demand economy, nothing can change that. Looking to do MTG on the cheap? MTGA is the only realistic option. I am now really loving my decision not to sell off all my stuff post rotating. And people called me crazy!
(Pioneer and Modern are Non-rotating formats, not eternal ones. There is a difference!)
Fabled Passage isn't an enabler for Deathrite Shaman. It will bring lands into play tapped early. Deathrite needs support to accelerate early. Also Fabled passage is only good in 2 color decks honestly. Things like Satyr Wayfinder will be enabling DRS abilities.
Modern is a Non-Rotating format, not an Eternal format. The difference is inclusiveness. Eternal formats include all suplementary products. Pauper and Legacy are Eternal formats because things like Conspiracy and yearly Commander Deck Series are legal in those formats
There are definitely some take aways I took from the announcement that I found interesting though!
- Fetch lands will NOT be returning to standard any time soon. By banning the allied ones it would seem silly to print the enemy ones I'm standard without also banning them as well. "No fetch lands" appear to be a defining feature of pioneer.
- Obviously bannings will happen when apparent need arises. They seem to have learned their lesson when they created Modern. They want to make sure only problematic are removed.
- They didn't put any restrictions yet on what will define the format. Modern was billed as a turn 4 format and WOTC has been dancing that devil ever since! This statement has made quite a few headaches for them over the years. Hopefully they will be leaving this criteria up to the players. We have proven to be a quiet a vocal constiuancy!
- They have also not set any expectations of reprints as well. By billing Modern as a "reprint friendly" format it has given the modern player base a unrealistic expectation of card availability ever since it's inception. Often times we forget Magic is a rare card game that has been able to develop a SUCCESSFUL secondary market mostly because WOTC learned vary early on conservative reprint policies are healthy on some level.
- Hopefully these previous 2 statements remain unchanged. Like it or not both of those policies have hampered modern in general as a format!
All in all, this news is really exciting to me. I have been holding on to my standard staples for a while as they were perfectly reasonable cards with nowhere to be relevant. Hopefully many will find a home I'm this exciting new format!