VERY interestingly there is a question about player interest in a product that would contain cards that would be legal only in modern and not standard. This is the first time I can recall them even floating around an idea like this and it's very exciting. I'd highly recommend taking this survey and leaving your feedback. This could be a *huge* thing for the format for both reprints and cards that would be perfect here but are way too strong or warping for standard.
Many of those new products seem interesting (brawl and horde magic getting new products excites me).
This particular idea, however, is huge! You could shove high value reprints along with interesting modern additions for a reasonable price (similar to Battlebond), effectively replacing the nightmare of $10 modern masters sets.
Has WOTC conducted public surveys with this format before? I remember maybe a year ago one that wasn't formatted this way. I'm approaching this with a healthy amount of skepticism. Obviously the opportunity to bring back older cards or, even better, combine reprints with new cards without the caveat of "must be safe for standard" helps the entire format. Modern is extremely popular, and it would behoove the mothership to look to maintain that excellence by virtually any means necessary instead of hamstringing it to another, entirely different format.
I'm just hoping they aren't just asking if people want modern masters back. I absolutely hope they never bring that back and stick to normal priced booster boxes. Those 240 msrp box sets were a bad plan from the start and they should have just put more value into the standard sets or done a spring set in lieu of conspiracy, battlebond, etc.
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!
I hope, if they do create modern legal standard skipping packs, they can drop the idea of limiting mechanics to a theme, it only serves to limit their ability to reprint things. If these are considered Master level sets or even beyond standard level sets, they need to treat them as such.
I am very glad to see them opening at a minimum some kind of dialogue with the community though.
Glad to see wizards paying attention to us modern players.
But I am skeptic as to which direction they are going into. Let's think for a sec, if they introduce such a booster set, it needs to differ from modern masters, which is modern legal reprints only. So there are two kind of cards it needs to introduce, in addition to modern legal reprints, those are 1. non-modern legal reprints, and 2. newly designed modern specific cards. If neither of those cards printed are more powerful than the current modern available card pool, the product simply won't move. However, if they start introducing increasingly powerful cards through modern legal booster sets that effectively power creep modern, it'll turn modern into a non-rotating standard, which is very very dangerous.
Glad to see wizards paying attention to us modern players.
But I am skeptic as to which direction they are going into. Let's think for a sec, if they introduce such a booster set, it needs to differ from modern masters, which is modern legal reprints only. So there are two kind of cards it needs to introduce, in addition to modern legal reprints, those are 1. non-modern legal reprints, and 2. newly designed modern specific cards. If neither of those cards printed are more powerful than the current modern available card pool, the product simply won't move. However, if they start introducing increasingly powerful cards through modern legal booster sets that effectively power creep modern, it'll turn modern into a non-rotating standard, which is very very dangerous.
If they go the route of creating modern only booster pack products I'm not sure what that will mean for modern in other respects, or if it will even be the same format the players envisioned. The thing is, with commander it is a casual format, so as long as all the cards fit into the design space and limitations they put on power for each point of the curve it can go in the set. That's why commander always seems to get really insanely powerful cards that often feed into infinite combo engines or do crazy things like blink your entire board out of existence. Modern can never be on such a loose leash.
If wizards starts making a modern specific product that implies much more scrutiny than they currently employ. I do think it would help a lot on accessibility, though. It took me close to four years to finally scrounge up enough money to afford an abzan fetchland mana-base and the inescapable fact of modern is that that people are limited by the bread and butter of the format as far as cost. Wizards made a horrible mistake making Noble Heirarch, Snapcaster Mage, Cavern of Souls, and other boring, but necessary cards mythic. They did it because it made stores confident in the boxes selling, but that confidence came from the wrong kinds of player needs and motivations.
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!
Depending on how they would want to approach this, I would either scream "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY" or just say meh.
There are many strategies out there, which would thrive in Modern (as being Tier 2/3, so "playable") but are absolutely useless everywhere else. Some examples? Goblins (Ringleader would make it viable but can close to never be printed in Standard), Astral Slide (creates a whole Archetype), Madness (the payoff cards are missing, that you can reasonable play it in Modern), non Dark Depths Loam (I know, that there is Aggro Loam in Legacy, but due to Mox and Exploration it will always be a completely different animal), BUG Midrange and Tezzerator (both are desperate for Baleful Strix) and so much more.
Also could Wizard reprint specific answers or cards, which could have a positive impact on the format (aka "shifting the metagame by reprints"). However, I want to add, that this is a VERY slippery road, since it can spiral out of control REALLY fast.
Greetings,
Kathal Warning issued for inappropriate content. Let's try to use other terms to convey excitement, please. --CavalryWolfPack
This scares me a bit... there must be a strict control on the power level of the cards if they would ever do this. This could ruin Modern if too many strong cards continously enter the format.
Glad to see wizards paying attention to us modern players.
But I am skeptic as to which direction they are going into. Let's think for a sec, if they introduce such a booster set, it needs to differ from modern masters, which is modern legal reprints only. So there are two kind of cards it needs to introduce, in addition to modern legal reprints, those are 1. non-modern legal reprints, and 2. newly designed modern specific cards. If neither of those cards printed are more powerful than the current modern available card pool, the product simply won't move. However, if they start introducing increasingly powerful cards through modern legal booster sets that effectively power creep modern, it'll turn modern into a non-rotating standard, which is very very dangerous.
If they go the route of creating modern only booster pack products I'm not sure what that will mean for modern in other respects, or if it will even be the same format the players envisioned. The thing is, with commander it is a casual format, so as long as all the cards fit into the design space and limitations they put on power for each point of the curve it can go in the set. That's why commander always seems to get really insanely powerful cards that often feed into infinite combo engines or do crazy things like blink your entire board out of existence. Modern can never be on such a loose leash.
If wizards starts making a modern specific product that implies much more scrutiny than they currently employ. I do think it would help a lot on accessibility, though. It took me close to four years to finally scrounge up enough money to afford an abzan fetchland mana-base and the inescapable fact of modern is that that people are limited by the bread and butter of the format as far as cost. Wizards made a horrible mistake making Noble Heirarch, Snapcaster Mage, Cavern of Souls, and other boring, but necessary cards mythic. They did it because it made stores confident in the boxes selling, but that confidence came from the wrong kinds of player needs and motivations.
I'm afraid accessibility isn't fully in WOTC's hands, and maybe not even in their interest. Their target is to make profit, profit comes from revenue which is always a function of price and quantity. It's not always the best for WOTC to increase accessibility, aka quantity. They printed noble heirarch and snapcaster on mythic not because of flavor, but because of secondary market interests. In fact, introducing mythic rarity basically meant that they sided with secondary market players, such as SCG, CFB and other big card stores. In economics, that's text book price discrimination, and as a for profit company, they should by all means do so. By siding with the secondary players though, WOTC relinquishes control of the secondary market price to an extend, in exchange of liquidity, or volume. That's what made the game prosperous for the players, and lucrative for WOTC. TBH it worked, at least on the financial statements. But short term monetary gain could come at a long term cost, i.e. their printing quality sucked for the past few years, their questionable arrangements of product line also kinda hurted.
Following that logic, even if they introduce a modern specific booster product, what they really wanted to do is to milk cash out of modern players' pockets, which is perfectly reasonable. What's WOTC's most lucrative product line? Booster boxes, always. Everyone knows that the best way to sell packs is through limited, but the dilemma is that constructed has been the primary selling point of MTG for at least the first 20 years (correct me if I'm wrong), and will continue to remain that way. Out of all constructed formats, which one is the most lucrative? Standard, because cards become obsolete every 2 years. Non rotating formats are nice to keep players happy with the game, but what happens when more and more players start sitting on their "modern staple" cards and don't buy booster packs? What's the best way to get these modern players to buy packs? If you ask me, I'd say shake up the format, make it "rotate" through power level shifts. from Jund to Twin to Pod to Scapeshift to Tron etc. If these metagame shifts are due to new prints, the new boosters will be highly sought after, just imagine modern specific booster set #1 prints baleful strixengineered plaguecounterspell, boosting the power lvl of UB color combination. Then set #2 prints swords to plowsharesastral slide etc. intentionally shifting power lvls across different colors/archetypes and increasing the power level of modern. Eventually one day you'll be sitting there with a bunch of tarmogoyfsdark confidant worth $20, because the new prints are so powerful that these don't even see play anymore, and you'll have to keep buy new booster packs to keep up.
I think there could alternatively be a set that comes out right before the scheduled rotation of standard with cards of the modern power level. I say this because the powerlevel of modern came from standards of old, so I think it would make standard a bit more interesting to multi-format players. You give players a chance to get that old standard card excitement again, as well as give brewers a bit of efficiency, with a small enough timeframe that it doesnt ruin the standard format. It would be like a "core set" that was for advanced players and rotates with the next coming ""block"" set. Or how they did the coldsnap set and added it to standard for a short period of time. This also keeps design in check with cards that are too powerful, because it would have to spike the power level in standard only slightly
Though if that cant work I'm all for a modern supplemental set.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW 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!
Getting cards like Baleful Strix is a great idea, but if you get an upgrade of baleful strix every year and your new toy sits there useless after 6 months, it defeats the purpose of a non rotating format. Another channel of introducing cards into the format is absolutely wonderful, as long as they get the balance right, and don't take it too far.
Getting cards like Baleful Strix is a great idea, but if you get an upgrade of baleful strix every year and your new toy sits there useless after 6 months, it defeats the purpose of a non rotating format. Another channel of introducing cards into the format is absolutely wonderful, as long as they get the balance right, and don't take it too far.
Card selection and deck choices already shift and change with time and there is a limit to the power level they print at each CMC. The chances of a truly "better" Baleful Strix is basically nil, because that card is the apex of power for that kind of ability, to the point that they have never printed it in a standard legal set. A common strategy for designing a long running game is to make cards that feel fair, and once you've zoned in on the point where things feel like they might be bordering on being too good and too weak, you back down and start designing between the two. That's why there are so many variations of 2 and 3 damage burn spells, yet none are truly at Lightning Bolt power level.
Modern is a format dominated by the apex of each tier, so if they do print a better version of something, it will eventually cap out and the format becomes stable. Worrying about power creep is kind of silly in this regard for modern. Plus, if they did print something truly grotesque like another Deathrite Shaman it would be banned pretty fast.
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 could take the approach of having this released only once a year. It would give the community time to get all the cards but also time to mess around with all of them. If you release multiple modern sets in a single year, you risk fatigue (I can't imagine having these packs cost 4$) in multiple ways. Modern is more popular than standard in my opinion and maybe wizards should be eliminating standard entirely and just run with modern
I'm hoping to see some of the NOT insane commander and supplemental product cards. Stuff like containment priest or Kaya, Ghost Assassin. Modern day cards, perfectly reasonable, but not currently legal in modern.
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VERY interestingly there is a question about player interest in a product that would contain cards that would be legal only in modern and not standard. This is the first time I can recall them even floating around an idea like this and it's very exciting. I'd highly recommend taking this survey and leaving your feedback. This could be a *huge* thing for the format for both reprints and cards that would be perfect here but are way too strong or warping for standard.
Spirits
gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme
This particular idea, however, is huge! You could shove high value reprints along with interesting modern additions for a reasonable price (similar to Battlebond), effectively replacing the nightmare of $10 modern masters sets.
Has WOTC conducted public surveys with this format before? I remember maybe a year ago one that wasn't formatted this way. I'm approaching this with a healthy amount of skepticism. Obviously the opportunity to bring back older cards or, even better, combine reprints with new cards without the caveat of "must be safe for standard" helps the entire format. Modern is extremely popular, and it would behoove the mothership to look to maintain that excellence by virtually any means necessary instead of hamstringing it to another, entirely different format.
Here's hoping we see
Counterspell, Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole legal packs.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
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 am very glad to see them opening at a minimum some kind of dialogue with the community though.
"Reveal a Dragon"
But I am skeptic as to which direction they are going into. Let's think for a sec, if they introduce such a booster set, it needs to differ from modern masters, which is modern legal reprints only. So there are two kind of cards it needs to introduce, in addition to modern legal reprints, those are 1. non-modern legal reprints, and 2. newly designed modern specific cards. If neither of those cards printed are more powerful than the current modern available card pool, the product simply won't move. However, if they start introducing increasingly powerful cards through modern legal booster sets that effectively power creep modern, it'll turn modern into a non-rotating standard, which is very very dangerous.
UBRGrixis ControlUBR | URPhoenixUR | UWMiraclesUW |GBRJundGBR | UBFaeriesUB | UBWAd NauseumUBW |GBRWBlueless ShadowGBRW |
MTGA
UBRGrixis ControlUBR | UTempoU
If they go the route of creating modern only booster pack products I'm not sure what that will mean for modern in other respects, or if it will even be the same format the players envisioned. The thing is, with commander it is a casual format, so as long as all the cards fit into the design space and limitations they put on power for each point of the curve it can go in the set. That's why commander always seems to get really insanely powerful cards that often feed into infinite combo engines or do crazy things like blink your entire board out of existence. Modern can never be on such a loose leash.
If wizards starts making a modern specific product that implies much more scrutiny than they currently employ. I do think it would help a lot on accessibility, though. It took me close to four years to finally scrounge up enough money to afford an abzan fetchland mana-base and the inescapable fact of modern is that that people are limited by the bread and butter of the format as far as cost. Wizards made a horrible mistake making Noble Heirarch, Snapcaster Mage, Cavern of Souls, and other boring, but necessary cards mythic. They did it because it made stores confident in the boxes selling, but that confidence came from the wrong kinds of player needs and motivations.
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!
There are many strategies out there, which would thrive in Modern (as being Tier 2/3, so "playable") but are absolutely useless everywhere else. Some examples? Goblins (Ringleader would make it viable but can close to never be printed in Standard), Astral Slide (creates a whole Archetype), Madness (the payoff cards are missing, that you can reasonable play it in Modern), non Dark Depths Loam (I know, that there is Aggro Loam in Legacy, but due to Mox and Exploration it will always be a completely different animal), BUG Midrange and Tezzerator (both are desperate for Baleful Strix) and so much more.
Also could Wizard reprint specific answers or cards, which could have a positive impact on the format (aka "shifting the metagame by reprints"). However, I want to add, that this is a VERY slippery road, since it can spiral out of control REALLY fast.
Greetings,
Kathal
Warning issued for inappropriate content. Let's try to use other terms to convey excitement, please. --CavalryWolfPack
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I'm afraid accessibility isn't fully in WOTC's hands, and maybe not even in their interest. Their target is to make profit, profit comes from revenue which is always a function of price and quantity. It's not always the best for WOTC to increase accessibility, aka quantity. They printed noble heirarch and snapcaster on mythic not because of flavor, but because of secondary market interests. In fact, introducing mythic rarity basically meant that they sided with secondary market players, such as SCG, CFB and other big card stores. In economics, that's text book price discrimination, and as a for profit company, they should by all means do so. By siding with the secondary players though, WOTC relinquishes control of the secondary market price to an extend, in exchange of liquidity, or volume. That's what made the game prosperous for the players, and lucrative for WOTC. TBH it worked, at least on the financial statements. But short term monetary gain could come at a long term cost, i.e. their printing quality sucked for the past few years, their questionable arrangements of product line also kinda hurted.
Following that logic, even if they introduce a modern specific booster product, what they really wanted to do is to milk cash out of modern players' pockets, which is perfectly reasonable. What's WOTC's most lucrative product line? Booster boxes, always. Everyone knows that the best way to sell packs is through limited, but the dilemma is that constructed has been the primary selling point of MTG for at least the first 20 years (correct me if I'm wrong), and will continue to remain that way. Out of all constructed formats, which one is the most lucrative? Standard, because cards become obsolete every 2 years. Non rotating formats are nice to keep players happy with the game, but what happens when more and more players start sitting on their "modern staple" cards and don't buy booster packs? What's the best way to get these modern players to buy packs? If you ask me, I'd say shake up the format, make it "rotate" through power level shifts. from Jund to Twin to Pod to Scapeshift to Tron etc. If these metagame shifts are due to new prints, the new boosters will be highly sought after, just imagine modern specific booster set #1 prints baleful strix engineered plague counterspell, boosting the power lvl of UB color combination. Then set #2 prints swords to plowshares astral slide etc. intentionally shifting power lvls across different colors/archetypes and increasing the power level of modern. Eventually one day you'll be sitting there with a bunch of tarmogoyfs dark confidant worth $20, because the new prints are so powerful that these don't even see play anymore, and you'll have to keep buy new booster packs to keep up.
UBRGrixis ControlUBR | URPhoenixUR | UWMiraclesUW |GBRJundGBR | UBFaeriesUB | UBWAd NauseumUBW |GBRWBlueless ShadowGBRW |
MTGA
UBRGrixis ControlUBR | UTempoU
Though if that cant work I'm all for a modern supplemental set.
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Agreed 100%. Having a price decrease doesn't mean the card got Obsoleted as much as there is an actual viable alternative that works. Also, I love the idea of modern only sets since it means we finally could get things like Counter Spell, Baleful Strix, Sanctum Prelate, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Shardless Agent, etc.
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!
Getting cards like Baleful Strix is a great idea, but if you get an upgrade of baleful strix every year and your new toy sits there useless after 6 months, it defeats the purpose of a non rotating format. Another channel of introducing cards into the format is absolutely wonderful, as long as they get the balance right, and don't take it too far.
UBRGrixis ControlUBR | URPhoenixUR | UWMiraclesUW |GBRJundGBR | UBFaeriesUB | UBWAd NauseumUBW |GBRWBlueless ShadowGBRW |
MTGA
UBRGrixis ControlUBR | UTempoU
Card selection and deck choices already shift and change with time and there is a limit to the power level they print at each CMC. The chances of a truly "better" Baleful Strix is basically nil, because that card is the apex of power for that kind of ability, to the point that they have never printed it in a standard legal set. A common strategy for designing a long running game is to make cards that feel fair, and once you've zoned in on the point where things feel like they might be bordering on being too good and too weak, you back down and start designing between the two. That's why there are so many variations of 2 and 3 damage burn spells, yet none are truly at Lightning Bolt power level.
Modern is a format dominated by the apex of each tier, so if they do print a better version of something, it will eventually cap out and the format becomes stable. Worrying about power creep is kind of silly in this regard for modern. Plus, if they did print something truly grotesque like another Deathrite Shaman it would be banned pretty fast.
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!
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread