Not much to report here. I 2-0 ever round and it wasn't even close. I only had befuddle and gideon's reproch for removal. The deck plays 13 historic cards so Urza's Ruinous Blast blew out my opponents. In 3 games I kicked Josu Vess. Rona pulled some double duty. She over performed for me.
Reserve List prices will never drop even after buy outs. All of MTG's wealth is being concentrated in the Reserve List because of WotC's aggressive reprinting of modern and older cards not on the reserve list. Its the final cash grab. The game has been on a serious down turn since they tried to change standard's rotation schedule, block expansions, and removing core set. The recent comments about the population downfall is telling of MTG's future.
Reserve list prices are going nuts right now. Even stretching to Ice Age and Mirage. The buy outs this month have been crazy. This is not good for the game in the long run.
Yeah, I don't care. It can't be too difficult to make a Limited format that isn't completely ripped in half by a card like Doom Blade.
Limited is my specialty. I can say for a fact that doom blade and the likes NEVER made draft unfun or unfair. But Billy got 3-4 doom blades in his deck I cannot beat that. Well your table should not have passed that many to him in the first place. How is there that many doom blades present at the table and no one didn't cut cut or splash? Seriously these arguments were the epitome of stupid. Maybe he opened them. Well luck is a thing and you cannot beat luck I don't care what your skill level is. Its a factor of the draft. Accept it and play or don't and play something else.
That meta is better for the game. Besides most match ups are only skewed in game 1. There is a reason we have sideboards. A player's skill will get them through these bad match ups. A little luck is always helpful of course.
WotC spent too much time trying to imitate Hearthstone instead of sticking to what has worked for over 20 years. The game itself is not the issue. Online gameplay and a good client most certainly is.
Standard bannings will be the death of this game. If they continue to ban cards people will stop buying singles. Those that do will be unwilling to invest as much into the singles depressing prices. We are going to be in this weird place for the next 2 years because of the sets changing back to normal rotation. Most players understand that. A statement from WotC about that issue would also help. Letting things ride is going to be better than bannings in the long run.
Playing since 1996 and I left the game last year because of the steam pile that was removal being printed. When they commented that Doom blade was too powerful I knew a train wreck was incoming. These are the things they did wrong:
2 mana removal got increased to 3 mana. Shifted up from uncommon to rare 0.50 for doom blade but hero's downfall capped at $16. Not only was the removal crap but you were forced to pay an ass ton for it because it is all we had. Lets keep that trend going but make it worse incoming sorcery speed 3 mana removal. Searing spear/lighting strike is too good. Again lets make every removal for every color worth crap.
4 mana wrath effects are too good. Lets move it up to 5 mana. Oh I know now lets make vehicles and powerful planeswalkers that also dodge the wraths. 4 mana wrath is the breaking of playability.
Last is the death of the 1 mana dork. Every deck is just curve 1-4 and you will win. If I wanted that I'd play hearthstone.
Copter would have seen no play if lightning strike or doom blade was in the format. Reflector Mage is only good because there are no ETB creatures.
What other 2-drop would you play over Copter in a deck that played Copter, in a world where Lightning Strike and Doom Blade are legal?
Here's a hint, Copter is still more resilient to those spells than anything you would name, and has the highest upside of anything you would name, either. It's completely ridiculous to say that Copter wouldn't see play because of 2-mana spot removal. Harnessed Lightning already existed, was a strictly better Lightning Strike for the purposes of lining up against creatures, and was widely played in Kaladesh Standard, and Copter was still everywhere.
And Reflector Mage is great even against powerful ETBs on creatures. Siege Rhino was pushed completely out of the format in Oath of the Gatewatch Standard because of Reflector Mage, and Rhino was the poster boy of unnecessary, stupid good ETBs on good creatures for a year and a half. Hell, Reflector Mage was frequently used to bounce Ishkanah, Grafwidow when the two were in Standard together, and Ishkanah had an almost perfect ETB to line up against Mage. Your ETB effect would probably have to be literal Flametongue Kavu before your 4+ cmc creature lined up favorably against Reflector Mage. Making a token doesn't do it, because if the token is threatening enough to make bouncing your dude a bad proposition, they just bounce the token. Still leaves you the initial body, but then you played something like Wingmate Roc with no Raid trigger or Ishkanah with no Delirium - generally these are bad on rate without the token. Making multiple tokens doesn't do it either, bc multiple tokens can't actually be big enough to threaten Mage and his buddies (try to construct a fair 4-5 mana card that puts multiple tokens into play that are big enough to scare a mob of 2/3s), so you just bounce the token maker, run over the tokens and then still get an attack step with the board clear of those cards. Anything that doesn't affect the board is laughable.
There's no need to go overboard and make obviously false statements here. Yeah Standard's suffered mightily from the decline in quality of interactive spells, but your comments are ridiculous.
Copter is not worth the effort in standard if there was good removal. Playing on turn 2 is a tempo loss. Playing a non-ETB creature to crew it on turn 3 and it get shot immediately another tempo loss. No the card is all tempo loss. At the least mana you have paid 3 mana and 2 turns to do nothing and lose a card. Those numbers do not equal efficient. I'd pass for standard.
Rally pushed out Siege Rhino and Collective Company decks. Reflector Mage had nothing to do with it. Bouncing a creature has not been a good effect in well over 10 years because of ETB creatures. Collected Company lets RM make the cut in formats with ETB. It is not a direct result of RM alone. Every deck that plays RM in modern has a way to flash it into play.
Every problem with the current standard is a direct result from having bad removal. None of these cards are spectacular in any way. Copter would have seen no play if lightning strike or doom blade was in the format. Reflector Mage is only good because there are no ETB creatures. Every creature is a vanilla with some activated cost tacked on. Emrakul would also never have been an issue if there was any kind of graveyard hate.
Look at the bans for Standard in the past. Skullclamp, JTMS, and Academy. ******* copter? Really?
I agree with everything you guys said, and i also feel WotC is so desperate that they created Expeditions and Masterpieces to force sales to go up, but it won't hold for long, specially if they release 10 different products each year.
But i'm not so pessimistic. Many times people have said that Magic is gonna die, that they sold everything because the game is over and don't want to lose their investments. But time and time again they've been wrong, and those who bought in a depressed market end up making a lot of money.
Magic is too good of a game to die. Pokemon is on the rise now, there's Yugioh, there's hearthstone, there's FoW, but none of them is as good as Magic (i played pokemon and a little yugi). The game being that good means that can be affected by bad decisions and greedyness, but ultimately a couple of good decisions bring thousands of players into the game and the player base increases and prices explodes. Everything is circular, this has happened before and will happen in the future. I'm confident that Magic will recover and this is a good time to pick up some dirt cheap cards.
In the past I couldn't agree with you more. The difference today is mobile games and phones are only going to get stronger. MTG has stood the test of time for sure. I still think it is a superior game to anything that exist today. That doesn't really mean anything though. When you look at the digital arena MTG is not the future.
My kids picked up hearthstone and figured it out quickly. No they aren't going to be top teir pros but that isn't the point. Fact is Hearthstone's RNG is really gambling during a game. It is addictive in nature. Combine that with an easy to learn game, can play on tablets, phones, and PC. You got yourself a winner. Now lets take twitch into account. On a any given day Hearthstone top channel at any given time is more players than MTG during the pro tour coverage. That isn't even counting all the other streams happening just the top stream. MTG does not translate well as a spectator. So on every single front MTG is losing.
The other factor is I have to go to a LGS to play MTG. I know may people hold on to the social aspect of the game. I am too one of those people. Since I haven't played since the beginning of the year I miss many friends I only had interactions with at my LGS. LGS are not cheap to maintain. With the huge population drop this year it is going to be rough. If you listened to some podcast about running a LGS they do talk about MTG explosive growth over the past 5 years. Many of them even talk about when it is going to end.
This new generation. They could care less. They have all the social interaction they want from social networking and school. MTG is not poised to grab the next generation. On a cost note I can give my kids $50 worth of packs in heartstone and make just about everything they want. The cost difference is another aspect that will keep MTG from growing.
If WotC keeps up their current reprint policy I will not be sad about selling my collection. I sold everything not on the reserve list. Right now there is a huge jump in reserve list prices but that is because everyone is doing the same as me. When that demand teeters off in about 2 years I might sell out that as well.
This is exactly it. I came back to Magic during ZEN. That break I took was the only break I have taken since I started playing in 1996. I have been making $10k a year online for just a few hours each week. I kept it under 10k because of taxes. I could have done much more but didn't want the headache. Soon as Modern Masters came I knew the party was over. I divested everything in that format. Then, standard got wrecked but intentions and expeditions. At this point the only value left is sealed product and reserve list. Even the reserve list isn't safe. SCG is the only thing propping up reserve list prices. Legacy has been on SCG's chopping block for many years.
As the popularity goes down even vintage collectibles are going to collapse. MTG is a great way to park some money but it may be too risky now.
Expeditions and the Masterpieces have killed standard prices. Since they announced this will be a thing every set they have introduced a new rarity above mythic. Rares no longer hold any value at all past the weekend of Pro Tours. Mythics barely crack $10. Those few that do either hold strong at 10 for their life or have a huge gap of $20-40 (maybe 1 a set). So basically you end up with 2-5 cards worth over $10 and the rest are bulk. The rotation schedule also played a huge part in how fast cards fall in price. WotC has since gone back to the 2 year rotation but the damage is done. Between the faster rotation and expeditions I saw my standard collection drop $1000 in 2 weeks. Sold it all as fast and low as I could before it fell even more (and it did).
At this point there is no profit in the game for players. Only profit to be had is left to the stores selling packs. The problem is no one is going to be buying packs outside of draft and sealed so in the end WotC will lose money. Eventually it will catch up to the distributors and LGS.
On a side note digital TCG are coming up left and right. MTG is like the newspaper industry trying to compete in the digital world. MGTO has been around longer than any other digital product on the market right now and is one of the worst possible. I've been in magic for over 20 years but its time is up. It does sadden me.
More do with card prices. Modern has a stable market for the most part. You'll see some spikes and dips when the season comes and goes. Standard's spikes and dips are unpredictable and die off fast. One week you take in all these singles. Next week they are at 60% of their value. Even when they are buying at 40-50% value that is very risky.
Not much to report here. I 2-0 ever round and it wasn't even close. I only had befuddle and gideon's reproch for removal. The deck plays 13 historic cards so Urza's Ruinous Blast blew out my opponents. In 3 games I kicked Josu Vess. Rona pulled some double duty. She over performed for me.
Thread merged -KnickM
Limited is my specialty. I can say for a fact that doom blade and the likes NEVER made draft unfun or unfair. But Billy got 3-4 doom blades in his deck I cannot beat that. Well your table should not have passed that many to him in the first place. How is there that many doom blades present at the table and no one didn't cut cut or splash? Seriously these arguments were the epitome of stupid. Maybe he opened them. Well luck is a thing and you cannot beat luck I don't care what your skill level is. Its a factor of the draft. Accept it and play or don't and play something else.
A > B > C > A
That meta is better for the game. Besides most match ups are only skewed in game 1. There is a reason we have sideboards. A player's skill will get them through these bad match ups. A little luck is always helpful of course.
WotC spent too much time trying to imitate Hearthstone instead of sticking to what has worked for over 20 years. The game itself is not the issue. Online gameplay and a good client most certainly is.
Standard bannings will be the death of this game. If they continue to ban cards people will stop buying singles. Those that do will be unwilling to invest as much into the singles depressing prices. We are going to be in this weird place for the next 2 years because of the sets changing back to normal rotation. Most players understand that. A statement from WotC about that issue would also help. Letting things ride is going to be better than bannings in the long run.
2 mana removal got increased to 3 mana. Shifted up from uncommon to rare 0.50 for doom blade but hero's downfall capped at $16. Not only was the removal crap but you were forced to pay an ass ton for it because it is all we had. Lets keep that trend going but make it worse incoming sorcery speed 3 mana removal. Searing spear/lighting strike is too good. Again lets make every removal for every color worth crap.
4 mana wrath effects are too good. Lets move it up to 5 mana. Oh I know now lets make vehicles and powerful planeswalkers that also dodge the wraths. 4 mana wrath is the breaking of playability.
Last is the death of the 1 mana dork. Every deck is just curve 1-4 and you will win. If I wanted that I'd play hearthstone.
Copter is not worth the effort in standard if there was good removal. Playing on turn 2 is a tempo loss. Playing a non-ETB creature to crew it on turn 3 and it get shot immediately another tempo loss. No the card is all tempo loss. At the least mana you have paid 3 mana and 2 turns to do nothing and lose a card. Those numbers do not equal efficient. I'd pass for standard.
Rally pushed out Siege Rhino and Collective Company decks. Reflector Mage had nothing to do with it. Bouncing a creature has not been a good effect in well over 10 years because of ETB creatures. Collected Company lets RM make the cut in formats with ETB. It is not a direct result of RM alone. Every deck that plays RM in modern has a way to flash it into play.
Look at the bans for Standard in the past. Skullclamp, JTMS, and Academy. ******* copter? Really?
In the past I couldn't agree with you more. The difference today is mobile games and phones are only going to get stronger. MTG has stood the test of time for sure. I still think it is a superior game to anything that exist today. That doesn't really mean anything though. When you look at the digital arena MTG is not the future.
My kids picked up hearthstone and figured it out quickly. No they aren't going to be top teir pros but that isn't the point. Fact is Hearthstone's RNG is really gambling during a game. It is addictive in nature. Combine that with an easy to learn game, can play on tablets, phones, and PC. You got yourself a winner. Now lets take twitch into account. On a any given day Hearthstone top channel at any given time is more players than MTG during the pro tour coverage. That isn't even counting all the other streams happening just the top stream. MTG does not translate well as a spectator. So on every single front MTG is losing.
The other factor is I have to go to a LGS to play MTG. I know may people hold on to the social aspect of the game. I am too one of those people. Since I haven't played since the beginning of the year I miss many friends I only had interactions with at my LGS. LGS are not cheap to maintain. With the huge population drop this year it is going to be rough. If you listened to some podcast about running a LGS they do talk about MTG explosive growth over the past 5 years. Many of them even talk about when it is going to end.
This new generation. They could care less. They have all the social interaction they want from social networking and school. MTG is not poised to grab the next generation. On a cost note I can give my kids $50 worth of packs in heartstone and make just about everything they want. The cost difference is another aspect that will keep MTG from growing.
If WotC keeps up their current reprint policy I will not be sad about selling my collection. I sold everything not on the reserve list. Right now there is a huge jump in reserve list prices but that is because everyone is doing the same as me. When that demand teeters off in about 2 years I might sell out that as well.
As the popularity goes down even vintage collectibles are going to collapse. MTG is a great way to park some money but it may be too risky now.
At this point there is no profit in the game for players. Only profit to be had is left to the stores selling packs. The problem is no one is going to be buying packs outside of draft and sealed so in the end WotC will lose money. Eventually it will catch up to the distributors and LGS.
On a side note digital TCG are coming up left and right. MTG is like the newspaper industry trying to compete in the digital world. MGTO has been around longer than any other digital product on the market right now and is one of the worst possible. I've been in magic for over 20 years but its time is up. It does sadden me.
When you don't see articles that is a good sign. The price is so high there is no need to give speculation list to hype the peice.
Also the less talk you see about a card more likely it is good. That is why pros have their own circle of forums.