MTG Salvation

It's a start.

Man, playing Standard must suck, what with all the Gideon shenanigans for all eternity.

Holy butts, that is sweet.

Quote from Nightshade1233 »

I wonder if this story will be a "supposedly good characters screw up the place more than the supposedly evil character does, but it is for the greater good" kind of story and that if it is the case, they suffer the consequences of destroying the peace for probably millions of people just because Bolas is evil and they are good.

Quote from Firevine »

If we get SJW'ed in the face, I'm not going to spend a dime.

so you really must have hated the 3rd wave feminist + sjw set that was Kaladesh. Still, if you don't look at the political agenda they were trying to push with that block, it was ok as a setting (but less so as a story).
It is sad that they try to pander to a demographic that will not buy mtg products no matter what Wizards does.

Yup. I spent precisely $0.00 on Kaladesh. I did go to the Aether Revolt prerelease to support my tiny little comic book store since it was the first prerelease he ever did.

You're exactly right about the people they're pandering to not buying products. The same thing happened with Marvel and DC comics. They went full pozzed, and sales hit the floor. Massive drop-off, so bad that they've now finally backpedaled. I'm sure that pushed agendas are part of the drop-off in Magic too, along with simplification of the game. So now you're catering to cry-bullies who will never buy your product no matter what you do, and you're turning away your established base. Great business practices there, really.

I'm really hoping that they're not going down that path again, but let's face it...they are.

But hey, at least they finally realized that all creatures all the time was damaging. We've got that at least.

Nightshade1233 touched on something I've seen in comics a few times that I'm going to have to think about. In Miracleman and Squadron Supreme, there were themes of utopia via oppression. In MM it was due to MM being so powerful that people lived in fear, and in Squadron, it was due to a mind-wiping machine; basically brainwashing. Maybe this set will touch on some of those story beats. The people live "peacefully" due to the fear of Bolas. In both, there's a rebellion force that fights against these benevolent dictators even though there is peace and prosperity. While that exists, there's no free will in either story.

Interesting thought, Nightshade.

Quote from Xeruh »

Quote from Firevine »

Picture #4 goes from "Hey cool, more Mirage" to "THAT BETTER NOT BE ANOTHER ******* ELDRAZI" reeeaaaaallll fast.

I really just want more Mirage out of this. If we get SJW'ed in the face, I'm not going to spend a dime.

What do you mean by more Mirage?

Did you play back then? Mirage and Visions were flippin' rad. For as much supposed drama as there was over the art direction, I think that it portrayed the world very well. I really just love those sets, and some of these pictures remind me of Jamuraa. The animals at the oasis, the woman holding the bowl of fruit, and the snake dude with the animals all strongly remind me of Mirage.

If you're not an old geezer like me, here's the wiki on Jamuraa: http://mtg.gamepedia.com/Jamuraa

Just some noted thematic ties, and I like that, because those are two of my favorite sets ever.

Picture #4 goes from "Hey cool, more Mirage" to "THAT BETTER NOT BE ANOTHER ******* ELDRAZI" reeeaaaaallll fast.

I really just want more Mirage out of this. If we get SJW'ed in the face, I'm not going to spend a dime.

Sweet jumping jesus these are ******* hideous. Ancient Mew looking *****. Expeditions looked weird, Inventions looked gaudy, but these...hoy...these are just miserable.

They are truly awful. I guess they decided to double down on their tacky new card frame and silly hologram.

Comment Hidden

Are those rocks flipping us off?

Get your ***** together, Summer Wizards.

Months of tournament reports and player feedback isn't enough, but 2 days of Modo results gets you to act? please.

Told them that Modern is where it's at, we need Counterspell, and nobody cares about making it easier on new players who feel bad when their creatures die.

how many different ways can you phrase the same 10 questions? Ugh...

The constant art references were odd, it seemed to be assuming that "our art is great" and "is that important to you?". Good art is vaguely important to me, but I hate the generic approach to art that WOTC have, so I said it was unimportant.
I finished my comments with a polite suggestion that the game should be more than about planeswalkers and turning things sideways. Actually it was not that polite...)

Quote from jshrwd »

Among the questions is one that asks how important it is that "The game is very approachable for new players."

What's interesting here is that for the past decade or so WotC have taken it for granted that being "very approachable for new players" is of paramount importance.

Other questions are asking about our desires/tolerance for complicated card text and unexpected rules interactions, the extent to which we feel "encyclopedic" rules knowledge is important, if we like to learn by making mistakes, and if we enjoy strange and unusual decks.

It's looking an awful lot like WotC is at least open to a major design shift where new players are not the main focus. This makes sense - WotC have been wooing new players for years, and those new players are now experienced players (who generally want different things than new players).

Quote from bocephus »

Type 2 has always been Standard. Yes the number of sets has changed here and there, but type 2 has always been Standard. Where I played back then Portal was allowed in all formats. Maybe it was just the LGS I played at. I didnt chase the golden ring (play higher level events) I didnt think the division of type 1 and 2 had been made at Portal, but I could be wrong. But type 1 wasnt anything like it is now. Expense wise or depth.

Portal was never Standard Legal. It wasn't even legal for Vintage or Legacy till 2005.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/more-about-march-1st-2005-03-11

Type 2 was established in 1995.

http://mtg.gamepedia.com/Timeline_of_DCI_bans_and_restrictions

So yeah, their were three tiers of complexity - type 1, type 2, and ”starter level" products not legal in any tournaments.

Quote from bocephus »

comparing the game now to how the game was in the late 90s is like comparing apples and oranges. We had the apples, its time for the oranges, and cherries, and bananas... anything but apples.

Sorry dude, but no. Shifting more power to non-midrange archetypes like combo, control, aggro, and prison =/= a return to 1990s design! Just look Time Spiral Standard. It was nothing like 1990s magic, but still managed support for almost every style of play.
It's almost like the game can grow and evolve without stifling archetype diversity.


The whole point of the Portal analogy is that today's tournament level products do more to shield players from "bad feels" than yesterday's introductory level products. And not by a small margin!
The player base is growing weary of this nonsense, and increasingly want WotC to "move on" from their heavy handed midrange/fair/goodstuff pushing philosophy.
You are the only one who seems to want design philosophy to stagnate in this regard. NWO era can't and shouldn't last forever.

Homarids!

I remember playing during Kamigawa-Rav Standard, and there were all kinds of different strategies you could play. Aggro, control, combo, aggro-control, LD, etc. I would go to FNM and there would be 30 people there and probably at least 15-20 unique decks. I LOVE to play LD, and so I did. Nobody talked about it being "unfun" to play against, rather they tried extra hard to destroy me and were twice as happy when they did. I died to several Sacred Grounds being played against me, and I still had fun.

What is upsetting to me is that Wizards (and it seems like MaRo in particular) just takes things away that were a part of the game since before I started.

No more LD
No more Mana Leak
No more *** effects
No more core set

Everything is TOO POWERFUL!!!111!!! now. Seriously, read some of the stuff MaRo says. Pyroclasm is too strong, but getting over half my life total taken from Mardu Vehicles by t3 isn't? *** is too powerful, but vehicles-a subtype that literally hoses sweepers-are completely fine?!

Stop worrying about "unfun" and stop micromanaging for draft. If you have boosters with 15 cards in a pack, people are going to draft them. Forget "as-fan", forget micromanaging card designs for "limited".

And STOP telling me that things are "TOO POWERFUL!!!"

::Edit::

In response to SuperHans99

I agree completely. But MaRo and his "market research" has assured us several times that nothing like that will ever happen again. One of my favorite things in mtg ever, and he was just like "nope, newer players didn't like it".

Uhh....I started playing during Onslaught-Mirrodin standard, so I was still relatively new, and I LOVED getting to play with mechanics and cards that my cousin (who got me started in mtg) and all of our teammates talked about "back in the old days". I actually got to cast Akroma in standard, that was fantastic. But nope, MaRo says never again and so it will never be...

Quote from bocephus »

On a side note, people are comparing todays Standard to when Portal was legal. People just gloss over the fact there were no older sanctioned formats when Portal came out. Now there is a stepping stone of power level from format to format. Limited being the lowest in power, then Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. Huge difference in design and development between then and now. If Standard was as strong as it was when Portal was out, there would be no need for any of the other formats.

You are way off base here!
When Portal came out, there were 2 older formats sanctioned - Type 1 & Type 2. Portal was legal in neither. It was a "stepping stone" product made explicitly for new players and the cards were not legal in any sanctioned format.

That Standard is lower powered (midrange notwithstanding) than a 20 year old set designed for players who were not ready for tournament magic is obscene. I think WotC is starting to see this. Their customer motivation survey asked a lot of questions about how much we value rules complication. Such things as how important it is to us that we have an "encyclopedic" rules comprehension, that we can learn from our mistakes and become better players, and that there are interesting and unexpected rules interactions. They also asked if we like playing strange and unusual builds, and a number of questions about how important it is to us that the game is easy to learn.

It looks to me like WotC are entertaining a reset on their design philosophy of catering primarily to new players. This is sort of inevitable, as you can't sustain constant explosive growth, and at some point you have to look at what your more established players want.