All those "Spellbook" mechanic cards could have been perfectly made in Black Border. With a very little tweak instead of conjuring the cards, they could just create a token thats a copy of them exactly like Garth One-Eye and that would resolve all of issues. Then write the cards in a piece of paper and roll a D20 (reroll if exceed) to see what you were going to get.
Tibalt, Wicked Tormentor or the new Garruk seems very fun cards to use, and the idea of a pseudo-extra deck to use seems a very nice idea for casual play. What a pity
You just said for casual play, so why not just do what you're saying? Proxy up some of these with errata'd text and go nuts.
And no, it wouldn't really work outside of casual because (1) not everyone you play against is going to know what all those cards do, so you'd ultimately have to resort to outside information and (2) the process you describe would take serious time, especially for the spellbook cards that are repeatable. They also wouldn't function the same way, as conjuring produces a card, whereas tokens aren't cards and behave differently.
This whole conversation is cracking me up. Even if they someday make a platinum, gem-encrusted version of a real MtG card, it won't be legal for play. It will be nothing but a collectible some wealthy MtG fan will buy, to the detriment of absolutely no one.
Before I played Magic I was an AVID collector of basketball cards. Serialization, luxury products, autographs, game-used jerseys/patches, etc., have completely saved that hobby from oblivion. Cards from the late 80's and 90's lost significant value because it turns out even the rarer cards had tons of printings. Once the fad died down, there was nothing to support it because the collectibles weren't really all that collectible. An essential factor for a collectible is scarcity sure, but even more impressive is uniqueness. So while collecting sports cards isn't the fad it was in the 90's, it's still an industry exactly BECAUSE they moved to the lower-print specialty model.
I'm not saying this is good for MtG. MtG is a game, after all, not just a collectible. But if they primarily limit this stuff to special products, I don't see a problem.
My understanding is that each place can handle how the promos are disbursed. I don't think this "top spender" thing is the whole deal. Problem right now is lack of solid information.
Yeah, but even that last one is a little misleading. There were 3 and 3 like you said, but also Esper Control and Mono-Black Zombies, and Mono-Green Aggro was 9th, with two Jund Midrange decks coming in 13th and 16th. The most recent Arena open was admittedly a ton of Izzet, but also Mono-Black Zombies and Mono-Green Aggro.
Also, I'd have to see a full analysis to see what those results really mean. There's a lot of confirmation bias in MtG, so if everyone thinks the best deck is Izzet or Mono-White, those strategies will be overrepresented at the top tables even if the archetypes only performed okay on average.
That said, I won't say the format isn't a little Izzet/Mono-White heavy. But that's sort of the nature of Standard in my experience anyway--there's 2 or 3 Tier 1 decks and then (in a good format) a bunch of other decks that can do well in the hands of an experienced pilot or when the metagame shifts favorably.
Disclaimer: I haven't played as long as some of you, but I've still been playing around 12 years and will ALWAYS prefer to play in person over Arena or MtGO. That said, I cut WotC a lot of slack because, holy crap, I'm still playing this game 12 years later and have no desire to stop any time soon, despite a lot of the current problems. So I'm not a new player, I prefer paper, BUT...
Now that this has been out a bit and I've had a chance to think about stuff--I still think this is a great idea, but I do have a few issues with implementation. I love the new cards. I think the digital-only mechanics are awesome, and I think buffs/nerfs instead of outright bans is a great idea. I don't think the proliferation of online stuff will kill paper MtG because they make SO MUCH MONEY on the collectible aspects of the game, so I don't think the fact that they can now "fix it in post" means they'll devote less time to designing cards that will be printed (I think the design philosophy is the problem right now, not actually the designers or playtesters, and that's a whole other thing anyway).
I DO think purposefully handicapping the digital version of the game just so it can be identical to the paper version would be lighting money on fire. I DO give people more credit and believe they won't be hopelessly confused between two clearly marked products (same name/art be damned).
Where I see a problem is Historic. Most of the cards are fine as they are in Historic--they don't need to be altered. I also think having a separate Alchemy Historic would be too much. I think the new (not altered) cards should be available in Historic but for existing cards either the original printing should remain or the card should stay banned. But even then it's weird because certain cards could be altered while others couldn't, etc., etc., so I think the way they're doing it still makes the most sense even though I don't like it.
If this bothers you--just don't play Alchemy? Don't see how any of this is confusing. If you're playing in paper, the Alchemy cards don't matter. If you're playing anything in Arena other than Alchemy or Historic, the Alchemy cards don't matter.
I think this is awesome, and am excited to play with a lot of these cards in Historic especially. Honestly not super excited about "slightly different Standard," but don't mind that it's coming either.
I would have to agree; standard is pretty horrible and has been for a long time now. White weenie is probably the worst offender of the new generation. In years past you often had a few bombs in the format (think before rosewater took over) and now we are too a point where everything is undercosted, where nearly every card is a 2 for 1 (but not removal), where a single card can win you the game out of nowhere, and games are expected to last about 5-7 minutes.
White weenie hits on all curves. 2/1 for 1 mana that make more creatues, cards that make your opponents stuff cost more which makes it hard to cast spells, removal on efficient creatures, evasion, creatures that are cheap and dont die to mass removal (lands), creatures that make other creatures. The deck is so cohesive and so cheap and there are so many cards in standard that have like effects right now that if there is a single banning or 2 that the deck probably wont be able to be fixed through due to like abilities on other cards.
A good way to explain it is decks use to be classified in different way... for example tempo or inevitability; however white winnie is kind of both as numerous cards have the ability to constantly gain value on their own. same with green aggro where a 2 mana 3/3 also draws cards or a 4/4 trample for 3 that comes back to ramp you AND become a 4/4 again. aggro decks no long say "i have to win by turn 6" they now just say "can you stop my relentless assault"
All you have to do is look at how many bannings we've had over the last 4 years to see how the game has changed. We had about 20 total cards banned, 75% of those being created enxclusively by mark rosewater, banned before 2017. Now since 2017 we've had 24 bans. I doubt we'll see any bans soon though, we also didn't get any bans when Black Devotion was a deck even though it was over 50% of the field; that doesn't make it right and that doesn't make the format or the direction good either.
I think there's two different arguments here. The first is with regard to balance. Standard is pretty balanced right now between the aggro decks, combo/control decks, and midrangey strategies like mono-black/Orzhov. There's a decent number of decks to choose from and they all have relatively decent chances of winning depending on card-selection and sideboard tech. I actually think Standard is in a good place and generally pretty fun to play right now.
Argument 2 is "do we like the current school of thought re: design?" I'm not thrilled with the power level of a lot of the cards. Every creature doesn't need to replace itself or generate insane value or have built-in recursion. That being said, they have been at least trying to tone the power down which I applaud. Also, they have been upping the power level of answers a bit in the last couple of sets, which is a welcome change from "no 4 mana wraths, no 2 cmc kill spells."
The problem is now there are newer players used to the current paradigm who throw fits because of how "bad" some of the new cards are.
Really seems like If you're wanting good reprints in Paper Magic nowadays then Secret Lairs are the only real way to go for now on which is unfortunate for those who want to support their own LGSs. Wouldn't be surprised If we got Shadowborn Apostle as a Secret Lair instead of a Masters set or supplementary set reprint given we now have Persistent Petitioners as a Secret Lair. The problem with these Masters or supplementary sets is that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro are only able to release them once a year but with Secret Lairs they can release them anytime they want without the cards affecting Standard while mostly being legal in all eternal formats.
Have they replaced other reprint sets with SLs? Seems to me SLs just inject MORE reprints into the market. And as I've mentioned before--every LGS I've been to in the last year is reselling SLs, so if you're down to pay a little more you can still support your LGS. Petitioners and Apostle are super niche, and are only worth what they are because the handful of people who want them want a ton, so I don't consider them necessary reprints.
Also not sure where you're getting that they only release masters/supplemental products once per year. In about the last year, we've had Commander Legends, the rerelease of the Mystery Boosters, Modern Horizons 2, Time Spiral Remastered, Commander Collection: Green, Signature Spellbook: Chandra, a ton of Commander decks, Pioneer and Standard Challenger decks, and it's not like there's NO reprints in Standard sets.
I'm still very much on Team Secret Lair. I just buy the ones I like and ignore the others.
Unstable was printed 4 times. That's pretty good sales.
Is it? I can't find any comparable information on other sets, so it's hard to know what that means. Also, how many cards were printed in each run? Also, was that because drafts and sealed events at stores were super popular, or were individuals buying lots of sealed product? Just a lot of info I don't know.
To be fair, my statement regarding sales is anecdotal--I worked at a LGS at the time and while the events were popular the product we had out for sale sat around forever.
It's honestly surprising they took this long to make the change. Un-sets, while cool, sell pretty poorly since most people don't really do anything with the cards in a meaningful way after doing the event or whatever. Personally, I've never bought a single pack from an Un-set, probably the only MtG product I can say that about. Depending on previews, this might change the game for me.
I don't think they can go back and errata the old silver-bordered cards to be legal now due to confusion, but we'll see. I'm definitely into the lands for sure, but not exceedingly so. My stupid land goal now is to get enough of the pixel SL lands to fully pixelate at least one or two of my EDH decks. Those lands hit me in the nostalgia too hard.
and btw... what is the deal with cards like path to exile or duress being named path to exile / duress and cards like rhystic study get the gozilla treatment. the mix feels weird
Thran and Rhystic are specifically from MtG, whereas Path and Duress are generic.
FWIW, Crimson Vow Collector and Set Boosters are currently #5 and #7 on best sellers, respectively. Also, it's not terribly surprising as people are JUST NOW starting to go back to large Standard events. We'll likely never see the same numbers we once did for Standard expansions because Arena cuts into that market. Also, nothing can be #1 forever. Does it matter if Pokemon is the bigger game, really?
Other than things attributable to pandemic and Arena, do we have any solid info showing MtG sales declining in general? My understanding is the property is as valuable as it's ever been, so it's hard to say it's in jeopardy.
You just said for casual play, so why not just do what you're saying? Proxy up some of these with errata'd text and go nuts.
And no, it wouldn't really work outside of casual because (1) not everyone you play against is going to know what all those cards do, so you'd ultimately have to resort to outside information and (2) the process you describe would take serious time, especially for the spellbook cards that are repeatable. They also wouldn't function the same way, as conjuring produces a card, whereas tokens aren't cards and behave differently.
I'm not saying this is good for MtG. MtG is a game, after all, not just a collectible. But if they primarily limit this stuff to special products, I don't see a problem.
Also, I'd have to see a full analysis to see what those results really mean. There's a lot of confirmation bias in MtG, so if everyone thinks the best deck is Izzet or Mono-White, those strategies will be overrepresented at the top tables even if the archetypes only performed okay on average.
That said, I won't say the format isn't a little Izzet/Mono-White heavy. But that's sort of the nature of Standard in my experience anyway--there's 2 or 3 Tier 1 decks and then (in a good format) a bunch of other decks that can do well in the hands of an experienced pilot or when the metagame shifts favorably.
I'm just bummed I can't get one unless someone in the APAC region wants to sell it for a million dollars lol.
Now that this has been out a bit and I've had a chance to think about stuff--I still think this is a great idea, but I do have a few issues with implementation. I love the new cards. I think the digital-only mechanics are awesome, and I think buffs/nerfs instead of outright bans is a great idea. I don't think the proliferation of online stuff will kill paper MtG because they make SO MUCH MONEY on the collectible aspects of the game, so I don't think the fact that they can now "fix it in post" means they'll devote less time to designing cards that will be printed (I think the design philosophy is the problem right now, not actually the designers or playtesters, and that's a whole other thing anyway).
I DO think purposefully handicapping the digital version of the game just so it can be identical to the paper version would be lighting money on fire. I DO give people more credit and believe they won't be hopelessly confused between two clearly marked products (same name/art be damned).
Where I see a problem is Historic. Most of the cards are fine as they are in Historic--they don't need to be altered. I also think having a separate Alchemy Historic would be too much. I think the new (not altered) cards should be available in Historic but for existing cards either the original printing should remain or the card should stay banned. But even then it's weird because certain cards could be altered while others couldn't, etc., etc., so I think the way they're doing it still makes the most sense even though I don't like it.
I think this is awesome, and am excited to play with a lot of these cards in Historic especially. Honestly not super excited about "slightly different Standard," but don't mind that it's coming either.
I think there's two different arguments here. The first is with regard to balance. Standard is pretty balanced right now between the aggro decks, combo/control decks, and midrangey strategies like mono-black/Orzhov. There's a decent number of decks to choose from and they all have relatively decent chances of winning depending on card-selection and sideboard tech. I actually think Standard is in a good place and generally pretty fun to play right now.
Argument 2 is "do we like the current school of thought re: design?" I'm not thrilled with the power level of a lot of the cards. Every creature doesn't need to replace itself or generate insane value or have built-in recursion. That being said, they have been at least trying to tone the power down which I applaud. Also, they have been upping the power level of answers a bit in the last couple of sets, which is a welcome change from "no 4 mana wraths, no 2 cmc kill spells."
The problem is now there are newer players used to the current paradigm who throw fits because of how "bad" some of the new cards are.
Have they replaced other reprint sets with SLs? Seems to me SLs just inject MORE reprints into the market. And as I've mentioned before--every LGS I've been to in the last year is reselling SLs, so if you're down to pay a little more you can still support your LGS. Petitioners and Apostle are super niche, and are only worth what they are because the handful of people who want them want a ton, so I don't consider them necessary reprints.
Also not sure where you're getting that they only release masters/supplemental products once per year. In about the last year, we've had Commander Legends, the rerelease of the Mystery Boosters, Modern Horizons 2, Time Spiral Remastered, Commander Collection: Green, Signature Spellbook: Chandra, a ton of Commander decks, Pioneer and Standard Challenger decks, and it's not like there's NO reprints in Standard sets.
I'm still very much on Team Secret Lair. I just buy the ones I like and ignore the others.
Is it? I can't find any comparable information on other sets, so it's hard to know what that means. Also, how many cards were printed in each run? Also, was that because drafts and sealed events at stores were super popular, or were individuals buying lots of sealed product? Just a lot of info I don't know.
To be fair, my statement regarding sales is anecdotal--I worked at a LGS at the time and while the events were popular the product we had out for sale sat around forever.
I don't think they can go back and errata the old silver-bordered cards to be legal now due to confusion, but we'll see. I'm definitely into the lands for sure, but not exceedingly so. My stupid land goal now is to get enough of the pixel SL lands to fully pixelate at least one or two of my EDH decks. Those lands hit me in the nostalgia too hard.
Thran and Rhystic are specifically from MtG, whereas Path and Duress are generic.
Other than things attributable to pandemic and Arena, do we have any solid info showing MtG sales declining in general? My understanding is the property is as valuable as it's ever been, so it's hard to say it's in jeopardy.
I think a lot of golfers would actually love this.