I’m skeptical. As a survivor of the Dungeons and Dragons edition wars, the topic of WotC being sold was brought up time and again by wishful thinkers of all sides. It was always given the same answer, which is that historically Hasbro NEVER sells anything they hold the rights to.
I have taken many long breaks from this hobby, including most of the modern era, but I can’t recall it ever being this bad when it comes to Standard, not for this long a period of time. People seem to hate and avoid it, where it previously was the dominant format for most of my experience.
What's happened this time is that wotc is being forced to deal with some very vocal and toxic elements on top of the set issues. Force of Will company had an issue like this and nearly pulled out of the united states market entirely, but wotc has no real way to escape the situation.
What I believe you’re talking about is very recent. The problems with Standard go back longer than that.
Most the people I know don't care about the toxic online stuff.
We want a good game.
We want support for our stores and for Standard that makes sense.
WotC needs better management across the brand and especially in promotion/marketing, they are failing utterly right now.
I do care about the toxic online stuff. Right now, I’m not ready to walk away from the investment in both time and money I’ve made over the past year, and I don’t really have anywhere else to be. The online crap has me almost one foot out the door, and Standard continuing to be on life support is eventually going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
I have taken many long breaks from this hobby, including most of the modern era, but I can’t recall it ever being this bad when it comes to Standard, not for this long a period of time. People seem to hate and avoid it, where it previously was the dominant format for most of my experience.
Looking at the entire set, it seems like Rivals has a high floor and low ceiling power-level wise. I’m not really seeing much that will enter competitive play, but the non-competitive cards seem stronger than usual.
If I was going to run this card I would be trying to curve out at 5 with this and Hour of Devastation. Block all day and live through your own sweepers.
I bought a box of Unstable and decided to build some decks out of it. Figured I'd build five decks, one for each faction. I kept each deck faction specific, and limited rares and Mythics to 2ofs. Bought some singles to supplement the box, didn't spend more than 15 bucks on them when things were done. I added some cheap taplands for mana fixing. I built these decks primarily to work, as opposed to doing silly things. I figure doing silly things is pretty much a given. I haven't tested these decks much, and I'm worried the Crossbreed Labs deck and the League of Dastardly doom deck might be a little weak as those factions don't only a single card in their Faction that builds contraptions, and the only non-faction card that does is blue. I kept all five decks Faction specific, with no cards from other factions. The other three decks all have loads of cards that build contraptions.
Modern most certainly does sell packs and it's one of the reasons that Modern Masters always takes off. There are people who literally save up all year just to buy Modern Masters Booster Boxes because they have no interest in standard and want cards that are playable long term when they crack packs. It isn't even about the actual market price a lot of the time. I know one person at my LGS just likes the thought of opening up Path to Exile and Damnation more than opening up a Hour of Revelation or a Doomfall.
That's all well and good if you already have the cards. It really can suck if you don't. I came back at the end of 2016 and had to start from scratch. Non-creature cards are indeed a lot weaker than I remember them, but I have to deal with what I can find opponents for and play a decent game on my budget. I'm not interested in being a crappy modern player, and being a strong Modern player requires a $1200-2000+ investment. Legacy is a no go unless I start printing my own fake cards. I can(and did) build kitchen table decks using the best of what early sets can offer on a budget, but most casual players play Commander these days, which I hate, and the ones that don't often are prissy about format(Modern or Standard) where I am not. I ended up playing a lot of limited, which I'm good at and enjoy, and I made the jump to Standard when I noticed my Limited playing combined with some of my kitchen table purchasing had produced a surprisingly strong Standard collection, one that I could complete at a reasonable cost factoring in the upcoming rotation. That and I had a monster stack of store credit from my Limited winnings to put into it. I'd rather just play kitchen table, but it's too hard to find people. I don't like Modern. I'm a casual player at heart, and the casual in me looks st Modern and it's all just busted 4-5 turn decks. Standard is weaker, but it doesn't turn me off the same way for that same reason. That and I was in a position to buy in cheap.
For a new or returning player, what is discouraging is being non-competitive against decks you can't personally build. Some of that is skill and experience, but a lot of it is money, especially older cards.
Just to show what can be done with precon decks, here's an example. I'm the resident non-commander casual guru who helps the noobs and teaches them how to play. The decks I use are a group of 10 2-color(one of each combo) Amonkhet Block decks. These decks are purpose-built, based on draft archetypes, and limited to a $20 budget which I often go well under. Here are two of those decks:
A friend of mine said that prize support has gone way down across the board for Magic. Maybe that could be an answer, ramp up the prize support for Standard and Frontier by a lot, and ignore Modern.
Right now the main problem with Magic is that we are going through the Urza's Saga / Mirrodin block dance all over again, which means we are probably doomed to have a repeat of the Mercadian Masques block all over again as they overcompensate for the current standard. Case in point, Mirrodin -> Kamigawa. Urza's Saga -> Mercadian Masques. Kaladesh -> ???. I think we already are seeing some of this overcompensation in other ways with card products like the new Anthology set for commander and Archenemy. Just a few short years back we had the Origins Duel deck that had Collected Company, Siege Rhino, Warden of the First Tree, Anafenza, Kin-tree spirit, Windswept Heath, and Tasigur, the Golden fang. Then as we moved towards now the number of great cards in the decks started decreasing, with the last really good one being Blessed Vs Cursed. It was sort of a miracle that Nissa vs Ob Nix actually turned out to be a somewhat good value, and that was strictly because of the sudden spiking of Nissa thanks to standard.
I mean, they should have thrown in filter lands and pain lands into a lot of the products and not shy away from printing more good cards like Wrath of God and Birds of Paradise. I'm really not sure why they picked Bonepicker or other recently printed Amonkhet cards for the Archenemy release outside of tying it to the plane, which they already are doing with the scheme cards.
I wouldn't call Kaladesha broken block like Urza's or Mirrodin. If it was broken, it would have a far greater presence in Modern/Legacy than the almost zero it has beyond Fatal Push. It's just strong in comparison to BFZ, SOI and Amonkhet, which isn't saying a lot.
Where the heck did I say the format was "broken"? Also, if we are going to talk terms of broken, yes it is hellishly broken for standard given they banned multiple cards and saying something isn't modern broken is basically throwing a grenade into an already blown up building, as that is a turn 4 format at this point that severely limits any kind of card design in terms of viability. They will over-compensate in the future unless a miracle happens and they actually learned from the last two times this happened.
In before Rishadan Port reprint and we are swinging with 1/1 creatures that cost 2 cmc to put into play with underwhelming tribal synergy abilities. Mercadian Masques: The "Fixed" homelands.
You were comparing Kaladesh to Urza and Mirrodin. I don't think the comparison holds up. Only two cards from Kaladesh block were banned, Smuggler's Copter and Felidar Guardian, compared to 5 from Urza block and 9 from Mirrodin block. Urza and Mirrodin both had a deep and major impact on older formats as they were launched, compared with Kaladesh block having next to no impact beyond Fatal Push.
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I do care about the toxic online stuff. Right now, I’m not ready to walk away from the investment in both time and money I’ve made over the past year, and I don’t really have anywhere else to be. The online crap has me almost one foot out the door, and Standard continuing to be on life support is eventually going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
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Here are the decks:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/434-unstable-order-of-the-widget
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/435-unstable-agents-of-s-n-e-a-k
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/437-unstable-goblin-explosioneers
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/439-unstable-league-of-dastardly-doom
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/440-unstable-crossbreed-labs
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That's all well and good if you already have the cards. It really can suck if you don't. I came back at the end of 2016 and had to start from scratch. Non-creature cards are indeed a lot weaker than I remember them, but I have to deal with what I can find opponents for and play a decent game on my budget. I'm not interested in being a crappy modern player, and being a strong Modern player requires a $1200-2000+ investment. Legacy is a no go unless I start printing my own fake cards. I can(and did) build kitchen table decks using the best of what early sets can offer on a budget, but most casual players play Commander these days, which I hate, and the ones that don't often are prissy about format(Modern or Standard) where I am not. I ended up playing a lot of limited, which I'm good at and enjoy, and I made the jump to Standard when I noticed my Limited playing combined with some of my kitchen table purchasing had produced a surprisingly strong Standard collection, one that I could complete at a reasonable cost factoring in the upcoming rotation. That and I had a monster stack of store credit from my Limited winnings to put into it. I'd rather just play kitchen table, but it's too hard to find people. I don't like Modern. I'm a casual player at heart, and the casual in me looks st Modern and it's all just busted 4-5 turn decks. Standard is weaker, but it doesn't turn me off the same way for that same reason. That and I was in a position to buy in cheap.
For a new or returning player, what is discouraging is being non-competitive against decks you can't personally build. Some of that is skill and experience, but a lot of it is money, especially older cards.
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Just to show what can be done with precon decks, here's an example. I'm the resident non-commander casual guru who helps the noobs and teaches them how to play. The decks I use are a group of 10 2-color(one of each combo) Amonkhet Block decks. These decks are purpose-built, based on draft archetypes, and limited to a $20 budget which I often go well under. Here are two of those decks:
2 Earthshaker Khenra
2 Glory-Bound Initiate
4 Gust Walker
2 Oketra's Avenger
3 Ahn-Crop Crasher
3 Dauntless Aven
2 Khenra Scrapper
2 Emberhorn Minotaur
2 Heart-Piercer Manticore
4 Cartouche of Zeal
2 Djeru's Resolve
4 Magma Spray
2 Onward // Victory
2 Trial of Solidarity
2 Trial of Zeal
9 Mountain
9 Plains
4 Stone Quarry
4 Exemplar of Strength
2 Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
2 Baleful Ammit
3 Banewhip Punisher
3 Obelisk Spider
2 Plague Belcher
3 Tenacious Hunter
3 Decimator Beetle
2 Hapatra's Mark
2 Shed Weakness
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Cartouche of Ambition
2 Torment of Venom
2 Evolving Wilds
9 Forest
4 Foul Orchard
9 Swamp
These decks actually work and can play real games.
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You were comparing Kaladesh to Urza and Mirrodin. I don't think the comparison holds up. Only two cards from Kaladesh block were banned, Smuggler's Copter and Felidar Guardian, compared to 5 from Urza block and 9 from Mirrodin block. Urza and Mirrodin both had a deep and major impact on older formats as they were launched, compared with Kaladesh block having next to no impact beyond Fatal Push.