MTG Salvation

Quote from Dontrike »

Quote from DJK3654 »

WotC changed standard because of their business interests in trying to get people to buy packs. They are trying to address their reluctance some people have to buy cards for standard because they will be spending all that money only for things to rotate. I think this is especially on their mind given the success of Commander, which I think has been in part driven by it being an eternal format where people feel safe investing a bunch into a deck.
EDIT: Goes hand in hand with ban announcements being less frequent too. They want players to feel safer buying cards knowing they will get good use out of them.

It also goes along with the lack of tournament support for Standard. They kept taking away from it and it's no wonder people don't want to play it when there's nothing to strive for with it or even decent rewards from FNM. I don't know why they're surprised people are going to Commander, they're making every set about Commander now and if that's what they will focus on then so will the players, among a myriad of other reasons.

Quote from Grixh »

Quote from Ryperior74 »

Now I’m curious beyond belief why this was added in the set

OK, I'll admit I only did a few CLB drafts and none of CMR, but a 7/7 for 8 that kills all other creatures seems more than playable to me.

Quote from Grixh »

Quote from Gizlivadi »

Don't get me wrong, if you actually like this or don't mind it, more power to you. I won't deny you the ability to enjoy something. There are certainly franchises that I don't care so much about (for example, Star Wars) where I wouldn't mind raceswaps because there is almost no historical inspiration for the character's culture. But the thing with Tolkien is that it's a particularly purist-populated fandom, and one in which the historical inspiration for the peoples and languages matters a huge deal, not just to fans but to Tolkien himself when he wrote it. The Rohirrim are analogous if not straight up Anglo-Saxons who speak Old English. Sindarin was modelled after Welsh and Quenya after Finnish, because this whole world was inspired by Norse, Germanic and Celtic myth and history. Just because it was the "first", that doesn't mean that Middle Earth is a "generic fantasy world", and thinking that is greatly ignoring the work and sources that went into Tolkien's work and whose fans greatly respect. As I've said elsewhere, Wizards knows exactly how this works, and they've done it numerous times. There is a reason Tetsuo Umezawa is not White or Black: Kamigawa is a Japanese inspired world. There is a reason why the people from Kaladesh look Indian, the people from Naya and native humans of Ixalan look Mesoamerican, and so on and so forth. Well, Middle Earth also falls under that category, and that makes me wonder: why are people from those planes kept fairly homogenous, but when it comes to only Northern European inspired worlds, like Kaldheim and Middle Earth, they feel the need to "diversify" them? Where are the Black people of Kamigawa and Tarkir? Where are the East Asian looking people of Ixalan? I'm not even trying to be sarcastic, I would actually love an honest answer.

You've got blinders on a bit here, Isshin, Two Heavens as One and Raiyuu, Storm's Edge are not particularly Japanese-looking, yet are residents of Kamigawa. They have been more conscious of diversity recently, but it is not solely focused on European-inspired planes.

Quote from ThyLordQ »

Quote from Caranthir »

And it is not like Tolkien's world did not have other skin colors in it...the Easterlings, the Umbar corsairs, the Haradrim...

The minions of Sauron, the pirates who tried to join Sauron, and the minions of Sauron?
You see the problem there, right?
EDIT: Also, I think you might to take another look at Boromir and Faramir.

Quote from Grixh »

Quote from Grixh »

As for LotR, I get that some people want a particular level of textual faithfulness, but people seem to be hyper focused on a specific type of change. There's an art where Anduril literally has flames spewing out of it and no one cares because the guy that's holding it had his opacity turned up a bit. Same thing with Eowyn having removed her helmet before the scene where she dramatically removes her helmet.
If someone was just going around demanding precise faithfulness to the text, I'd disagree (a different medium has different needs and a different artist their own vision), but I'd at least get where they're coming from. That is not what I see here.

Quote from soramaro »

Quote from Gizlivadi »

...

Ultimately, UB still sucks. I'm just looking at all the resources invested into this, and I'd rather have Wizards pour those into building and fleshing out their own LoTR-inspired world (or creative/storytelling for other planes). It started with one-off Un-Cards, now the game has full Non-Magic-IP sets. This set will obviously be successful, so I can only imagine it snowballing further from here. The Magic Super Smash Bros-Verse isn't far off.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

Hey WotC how about banning Fable of the Mirror Breaker now? So we don't have to suffer through it for a whole more year.

Quote from Card Slinger J »

What If the best way to save Paper Standard in Magic is through individual card rotation instead of set rotation like in Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Advanced Format? As far as I recall Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro have already been experimenting with this idea online If my knowledge serves me correctly. That way there's less feel bads whenever sets get rotated out as the only individual cards getting rotated out are problematic cards where as they can also rotate in specific cards that are no longer a problem within said metagame. Perhaps there won't be as much power creep by rotating out and rotating in individual cards within the metagame as opposed to rotating out entire sets that causes players to lose more money than the card singles they've purchased. It might not be a one-size fits all solution but it's a start. I know Yu-Gi-Oh! gets a bad rep from the Magic community but I honestly think that Konami has really been stepping up their game since 2011 where Yu-Gi-Oh! was at a real low point with Cardfight!! Vanguard and Kaijudo exploding onto the scene as an end result. Kaijudo got scrapped because Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's budget wasn't big enough to support it and Magic where as Cardfight!! Vanguard died because Bushiroad is too big of a company to even care.

Yu-Gi-Oh! now has their own online client with Master Duel that's very similar to Arena for Magic yet they don't know how to capitalize on it in a way that helps get more new players at Local Game Stores (LGSs) which you would think Konami would've done a much better job on since they're better at cross promotion, marketing, and advertising than Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro given that they're relying on other Intellectual Properties (IPs) to help prop up Magic through Universes Beyond because of how weak Magic is in terms of it's own story and lore. I was a former Yu-Gi-Oh! player at one point before I got into Magic 21 years ago and despite how more complex Yu-Gi-Oh! has gotten I do feel as though Konami has been making better business decisions than Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro, heck they didn't even charge an absurd fee for their 25th Anniversary Product compared to Magic 30 which is saying A LOT. I wish I could say the same for Pokémon TCG which is currently going through it's own struggles at this point. Their rules and protocol have gotten far too strict because of the pandemic and they only seem to be making things worse instead of better.