The MTGO clock and speed of execution is why I gave up on Knightfall
It's a real issue, even for UWR and I assume UW on MTGO.
It's a massive issue and not only for modern decks (enchantress comes to mind). I remember with twin, wise players would force you to do the entire combo until you either won or did a misclick. It was worthwhile because a misclick is dead easy and in either case the clock was ticking against the twin player.
Also, anyone who played blue stew in legacy can tell you guys that unbanning preordain will not do an iota to help blue control.
Is Preordain simply not a slightly better Serum?
Also your Pod vs SFM comparison is off. Better creatures will always be printed. Wizards have said the Swords are likely the best they will ever realistically print again.
There are many playable creatures.
There are few playable equipment.
Swords are almost irrelevant for SFM. Batterskull and Jitte are not. But Jitte is not around here.
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Decks like rug delver in legacy are a lot of fun to play, but there isn't really anything in modern that plays the same way.
They are, but without wasteland and free counters, not happening.
Free counter would be far more important than wasteland. A fixed force of will (that could counter for free only spell cast "cheating on mana" for example) would really helps a lot.
Kind of. Without wasteland, daze becomes pretty crap, so wasteland is a need for legacy rug delver, but if you get a free counter that does not allow the opponent to pay mana as a get-out-of-jail clause, then wasteland becomes less required.
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I think everyone (or mostly everyone) is on the SFM unban train. It's just such a well-supported unban idea at this point that I feel like posters aren't bothering to actively argue for it, cobsidering it a mostly foregone conclusion. As you said, the urban should have happened at least 1-2 years ago, and its banlist status is even more ridiculous now than it was back then. I also don't think Wizards unbans anything in 2018 unless the GP Vegas scene is packed with diverse aggro decks with little in the way of slower options. If that happens, we could see a mid-year unban. If not, it looks like a 2019 target.
Agree with the reasoning, but cannot help to find funny that an artifact that would only get better with each creature printed (hence placing a constraint on creature design) was not ok, but a creature that only gets better with each equipment printed (hence placing a constraint on equipment design) is ok.
It's up there with 'unban a red sorcery to help blue' is terrible, but 'unban a white tutor to help blue' is ok.
Also, anyone who played blue stew in legacy can tell you guys that unbanning preordain will not do an iota to help blue control.
My guess? Everyone with an mtgo collection will receive a code or serial number which is essentially a big ol' list of what you own. You'll be able to redeem it in the new engine. Just a guess but seems like the easiest and most likely option.
That would make a mockery of the economical system they are implementing in the game... Not to mention it would create an interesting second-hand market for collections...
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I think the long term picture is when will paper magic die? Isn't the notion of playing paper cards archaic now? This is further pointed out with all these standard bannings. The physical medium aspect is such a huge limitation. In hearthstone or dota 2 (very popular digital games), they just patch stuff that's overpowered, they don't have to ban anything they just tweak the code to fix it. ...
Yes, that is already a major tension that will only get worse the further WotC pursues turning magic into an eSports. For that, they will require the ability to quickly balance the online game and you risk either a disconnect between online and paper, or one of them suffering heavily for the other's evil deeds...
Depressing conversation on here. Is the MTGO revenue from league fees, ticket purchases, etc. really so marginal compared to the cost to support?
It's not that simple. You have also to take into account that MTGO has been built on what now is an obsolete platform and does not even provide support for mobile gaming. When people compare arena to duels they are ignoring WotC's mission statement for arena that is vastly different from duels. They want arena to be THE platform for standard. They never envisaged duels assuming that role.
Because it's pretty stupid ******* I have to use my wife's window laptop to play. And no, I'm not going through loopholes to make mtgo playable on a mac.
Maybe arena will eventually have a store available for singles that leave the secondary market out.
It's based on unity, so it should be playable in any digital platform (For ex. Heartsone is also based on unity)
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This would be really bad news for Modern. Just as bad as it is for MTGO; anyone who thinks Wizards will support two systems that do essentially the same thing is lying to themselves. ...
I'm obviously a minority but I do agree that MTGO will suffer heavily from arena. To start with, if arena provides standard play and drafts on (essentially) FTP mode, then, if you are not interested in things like MOCS, why would you pay top dollar for the privilege of playing standard in MTGO? Couple that with the fact that standard is the main driver of people into MTGO and you remove a steady stream of players. How many people will be left to play things like commander or legacy leagues? With the inevitable removal of further modes of play due to the absence of players, begins a progressive emptying of MTGO that will drive more people to arena, hence perpetuating the process. Having seen the arena economy article I honestly fail to see how it will not impact big time on MTGO. I also wonder for how long will WotC be willing to run two internally competing products when they both will struggle heavily to compete with the other digital offerings. I think we have not been told yet, but I do think MTGO already has an expiry date for WotC. Maybe I'm seeing the glass half-empty but I see no arguments to convince me otherwise.
... If this platform can't support Modern, no one will bother. You can't once again, bring Modern back to the Pro Tour, and have no support for an online platform to playtest the format.
I think you overestimate the importance of modern, but I think your point is actually what will people do with all the cards once a rotation hits standard. If so, the obvious answer is a new format that will grow with every new set added to arena, Maro's dream of a modern without fetches...
No surprises for me, it's a pretty grim format to play, specially if you are expecting some kind of high variance game. The decks you meet are fully optimized killing machines, in fact, much more efficient than some legacy decks you see in the leagues. I'm not sure who are the targets for this format, but it certainly does not fit into any description of EDH that you can read.
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Play the deck you love to play and that you know you can win with and also accept that you have no idea what you are going to face in such a diverse and competitively flat meta.
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If it was that simple, it would be great, but this (since it has bugger all to do with Modern and everything to do with Standard) plays into the hand of the pro-teams which will be able to create and even larger gap between their available data and the rest of the field.
Look back at Eldrazi. Who broke the deck first, MTGO results or pro's testing and breaking it? The hole will now be even bigger.
Columbus claimed that people were wrong about the size of the Earth, and that it was actually much smaller, so the distance (sailing westward) from Europe to Asia was actually possible to travel by boat. The thing is, Columbus was actually dead wrong. The world was too big for his voyage to work. ...
Actually, the interest, when he tried to pitch his idea to Portugal and then to Spain, was to avoid the extremely hazardous overland routes, irrespective of sea distances. He pitched a monopoly on the route to India, going by sea. You're right about the misconception of America's nonexistence. Later on, Vasco da Gama did open the way to this monopoly by going around South Africa. Warning issued for spam. --CavalryWolfPack
It's a massive issue and not only for modern decks (enchantress comes to mind). I remember with twin, wise players would force you to do the entire combo until you either won or did a misclick. It was worthwhile because a misclick is dead easy and in either case the clock was ticking against the twin player.
Swords are almost irrelevant for SFM. Batterskull and Jitte are not. But Jitte is not around here.
Kind of. Without wasteland, daze becomes pretty crap, so wasteland is a need for legacy rug delver, but if you get a free counter that does not allow the opponent to pay mana as a get-out-of-jail clause, then wasteland becomes less required.
They are, but without wasteland and free counters, not happening.
Agree with the reasoning, but cannot help to find funny that an artifact that would only get better with each creature printed (hence placing a constraint on creature design) was not ok, but a creature that only gets better with each equipment printed (hence placing a constraint on equipment design) is ok.
It's up there with 'unban a red sorcery to help blue' is terrible, but 'unban a white tutor to help blue' is ok.
Also, anyone who played blue stew in legacy can tell you guys that unbanning preordain will not do an iota to help blue control.
That would make a mockery of the economical system they are implementing in the game... Not to mention it would create an interesting second-hand market for collections...
Yes, that is already a major tension that will only get worse the further WotC pursues turning magic into an eSports. For that, they will require the ability to quickly balance the online game and you risk either a disconnect between online and paper, or one of them suffering heavily for the other's evil deeds...
It's not that simple. You have also to take into account that MTGO has been built on what now is an obsolete platform and does not even provide support for mobile gaming. When people compare arena to duels they are ignoring WotC's mission statement for arena that is vastly different from duels. They want arena to be THE platform for standard. They never envisaged duels assuming that role.
It's based on unity, so it should be playable in any digital platform (For ex. Heartsone is also based on unity)
I'm obviously a minority but I do agree that MTGO will suffer heavily from arena. To start with, if arena provides standard play and drafts on (essentially) FTP mode, then, if you are not interested in things like MOCS, why would you pay top dollar for the privilege of playing standard in MTGO? Couple that with the fact that standard is the main driver of people into MTGO and you remove a steady stream of players. How many people will be left to play things like commander or legacy leagues? With the inevitable removal of further modes of play due to the absence of players, begins a progressive emptying of MTGO that will drive more people to arena, hence perpetuating the process. Having seen the arena economy article I honestly fail to see how it will not impact big time on MTGO. I also wonder for how long will WotC be willing to run two internally competing products when they both will struggle heavily to compete with the other digital offerings. I think we have not been told yet, but I do think MTGO already has an expiry date for WotC. Maybe I'm seeing the glass half-empty but I see no arguments to convince me otherwise.
I think you overestimate the importance of modern, but I think your point is actually what will people do with all the cards once a rotation hits standard. If so, the obvious answer is a new format that will grow with every new set added to arena, Maro's dream of a modern without fetches...
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/commander-1-v-1-challenge-10757687#paper
At the point of writing, it is 95.
No surprises for me, it's a pretty grim format to play, specially if you are expecting some kind of high variance game. The decks you meet are fully optimized killing machines, in fact, much more efficient than some legacy decks you see in the leagues. I'm not sure who are the targets for this format, but it certainly does not fit into any description of EDH that you can read.
If it was that simple, it would be great, but this (since it has bugger all to do with Modern and everything to do with Standard) plays into the hand of the pro-teams which will be able to create and even larger gap between their available data and the rest of the field.
Look back at Eldrazi. Who broke the deck first, MTGO results or pro's testing and breaking it? The hole will now be even bigger.
Actually, the interest, when he tried to pitch his idea to Portugal and then to Spain, was to avoid the extremely hazardous overland routes, irrespective of sea distances. He pitched a monopoly on the route to India, going by sea. You're right about the misconception of America's nonexistence. Later on, Vasco da Gama did open the way to this monopoly by going around South Africa.
Warning issued for spam. --CavalryWolfPack