MTG Salvation

Magic community is pretty bad when you get to the competitive junkies/grinders. The problem is, even though it may be a small percent of players,those moments will stick with players and be completely turned off by it. Video gaming communities are probably worse, but then again it's only online so you kind of expect people to say more things when they're on their computer compared to in person.

Comment Hidden

Iconic 2.0 is looking to be pretty accurate

Quote from crumbcrispcoating »

The whole idea of FNM is to play the game with others who showed up with a friendly competitive mindset to hone your skills for a GP or a more serious tourney event. You play for the experience and to have fun, getting a promo card should not be the sole reason you are going out to your local game store. Unfortunately many of you are spoiled rotten and think you should be given something no matter what just because you play the game. It is honestly really sad, you think you are automatically "owed" a reward from WotC for attending an FNM rather than just playing for fun or practice. Hate to sound like a grandpa here, but back in the late 90's you would play for simply the thrill of winning, seeing the regulars of the local game store, trading to get some new cool cards, and then maybe walking away with $20 store credit, and the prize wasn't the main motivation. That was it, no shiny promo card, just hanging out with groups of gamers all showing up to play the friggin game. The "OMG WOTC IS THE WORST COMPANY EVUR WORST STUPIDEST IDEA THEYVE EVER DONE NEVER PLAYING MTG AGAIN" typical hyperbole comments here only reflect the state of selfishness and self-entitlement with this generation of MtG players. Sucks.

Back in the early 2000s the FNM promos weren't complete junk and there were WotC stores. Why bother attending a tournament if the payout is crap? Or rather why support a company who keeps screwing up constantly and citing 'data' that has been detrimental to the game for the past several years ? I bet most people can practice or playtest for a tournament for free with friends. So there has to be an incentive to spend a Friday night at a gaming store.

They really need to clean house. Everyone needs to be fired and a new person needs to be in charge of Magic for Wizards/Hasbro. This has to be one of the dumbest changes they've ever done. They keep citing data and surveys for their crap decisions the past several years, really seems like they have no idea how to interpret any of those in a positive manner. Looks like still no reason to attend FNMs for the future.

Quote from Colt47 »

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 compare the bannings of this year compared to Mirrodin or Saga. Saga bannings were legitimately broken cards. Mirrodin was closer in scope of power for bans towards Saga than this years. This years bans are a result of them pushing a stupid story while making answers terrible. I don't think there will be a big drop off in power compared to Saga --> Masques and Mirrodin --> Kamigawa.

Quote from Leelue »

Quote from Stormscape Master »

The biggest problems with the current state of Magic are boring design since they don't want anything they deem 'unfun' which is really stupid and subjective.

It's subjective, but if 2/3s or more of people don't like it I don't think "subjectivity" is a strike against it anymore.

What would you prefer, though? Dial the power up too high and you're stuck making busted card after busted card trying to make sure all the bustedness evens out without something reaching too far ahead. Your counterspells and tech answer cards like combust will be pretty wild.

Eternal formats have over 10,000 cards to even the playing field. You give something an edge in a Modern-powered standard and it doesn't hae an answer I think people will quit.
I would be interested in seeing a standard like that, but I imagine it's not really sustainable over decades

Where's the 2/3 stat?
I'd prefer more playstyles being viable rather than just creatures with spells attached to their bodies and planeswalkers. Doesn't have to be a lot of power creep or nerfing but Wizards has shown their design team has gone downhill for the past decade. If their design team was any good they wouldn't be having all these issues popping up consistently for the past few years.

The biggest problems with the current state of Magic are boring design since they don't want anything they deem 'unfun' which is really stupid and subjective.
I feel like they're pushing too many products out each year as well which is leading to Magic fatigue.
Also I feel they don't punish cheaters or the types of players that try to win via being a rules nazi or technicalities which is really off putting for anyone in a tournament.

More trash non-creature spells from WotC no surprise there.

Foils are for the most part more aesthetically pleasing to me. I'm not sure if I'd spend the money to foil out a complete deck, but on cards I like I generally foil them. Otherwise they are great trade bait

Personal opinion, but I'd really like them to stop pushing walkers and ditch the partner mechanic. I just want interesting legendary creatures that on their own are worth building around.

I'd really only be happy with printing walker cards of established characters from the story's past, hopefully within the 99. This way they do not have to weaken or limit the card or waste a good legendary creature slot where the commander should be.

WotC seems to feel that countermagic, small mana spell decks and combo are "unfun". Yet, mindless sorcery tap and slap is very exciting.

Unban everything and spare me the bull*****. WotC is going to continue to print creatures irresponsibly and then follow that up with making creature based decks the most viable strategty.

Im seeing 20+ creatures in a majority of lists. Thats not diversity. Just seems like wotc telling me what i can and cannot play, which is the exact reason i steer clear of standard.

Really look at these matches and tell me why i shouldnt get to cancel a creature. Prove to me why tribal Needs cavern and not just aether vial? Then after your weak, baseless argument (have your cake and eat it too), you will start wailing about blood moon.

My wife can win matches with the human deck and she barely understands how the game works.

I have no problem with people playing tap and slap as long as i can interact with it. But my tools keep getting taken away (*****ty counters, *****ty draw) and creatures keep getting better effects built in than mpst spells and slapped in uncounterable shells.

Ban Cavern or unban everything. Id prefer the latter but this linear tap and slap is getting boring.

Modern is becoming prohibitively expensive. This is a problem, because this is Magic's 'keeper' format. Kids play Standard and draft. When I say kids, I mean teenagers and college students. The draft is enough to get them the cards they need need for their commander. Not sure how Brawl will affect that. There comes a time when they tire of the constant flow of funds, and they mature. They will either sell out of the game and move on with their lives, or convert to Modern. It behooves Wizards to convert them to Modern, because a Modern player will stay with the game for a far longer time. They could convert to Commander, but WotC wants to be careful with that. Commander players are far more tenuously connected to the game. My commander group is rather rabid, but they pay little to no attention to what's going on with the game at large.

I'd say what WotC needs is a LOT more communication. And a standardized plan for reprints that is clearly communicated. A Modern Masters set every 2 years is a great idea. I find it hard to imagine they will ever run out of things to reprint, for 2 reasons:

1: Right now, the game is very wide open. The number of cards seeing demand is high. This is not 2015, where there were 5 or 6 'Tier 1' decks. We have dozens of decks that can spike a tournament into top 16 or 32 contention. Any of those could top 8 at any time.
Much as I hated it at the time, and still hate it, Splinter Twin ban was a smashing success for Modern.

2: Carried off successfully, a new program of openness is going to only increase players in the fold, which will keep demand steady and consistent, always resulting in upward pressure for reprints.

Wizards needs to get off their DRAFT nut, and realize, Draft is great to sell Standard products. Draft does not need to sell Masters products. I bought 4 cases of MM15, 4 cases of MM17 and 1 case of EMA, and it sure as hell was not to draft it. (And that is not even getting into the Standard cases I bought.)

Communication and consistency. Bring back Modern Masters. Tell us Modern Masters is NOT a drafting set. The sole reason is to introduce more copies of needed cards into the arena. If a land reaches $50, you can expect a reprint. That's not a promise of one, but expect one. If a planeswalker reaches $60, again, no promises, but start expecting. And so on. Clear communication about what their standards are for reprints will prevent the wild swingy buyouts that frustrate so many players. Reassure us that when the time comes to sell, we generally should get 40 to 50 cents on the dollar. You probably won't make a profit, but you also won't walk away with nothing.

Eliminating the draft aspect of the set completely removes a year of design time. All you have to do is calculate how much EV to add, and then go about picking cards that need a reprint, right down to the common and uncommon level. It allows you to ignore the need to upshift into Mythic 'because this at rare or uncommon will ruin the draft experience.'

Best of all, losing a year of design time gives you much greater flexibility in making late changes. Having uncommons worth $25 or $40 is one of those problems. Constantly being 2 or even 3 years out from being able to satisfy demand is NOT an option. When Goblin Lore or Mishra's Bauble start demanding stupid prices, you need to be able to say - Scratch Lightning Bolt and replace Goblin Guide with something else, we're shifting value and throwing in Bauble or Lore. Even if the set is supposed to go to the printers next Monday.

Keep Modern stable, and you will always be able to sell a master set that, because you eliminated the hours that go into crafting a draft format, is even easier and cheaper to make. You will better be able to control the prices of cards, and grow Modern as an 'After Standard' format. Standard is a format that depends on 'Daddy's money, or, sad as it is to say, student loan money. When the era of fiscal responsibility hits, and allowance money and student loans no longer pay for your entertainment, and a single constant expense is desirable, Modern should be cheap enough for former standard players to ease into. This is not just coming out of my rear end. I live in a college town, with 2 high schools of 2000+ students each. College students constantly comment about student loans money paying for their gaming and magic. I see players fade away as student loan money runs low in February and March. I see high schoolers quit as allowances get reduced or eliminated as parents cut off the flow and tell them to pay their own way. Suddenly these high schoolers decide in a big hurry that draft is expensive!


But it all comes back to communication and consistency.

Those 9 cases I bought of MM15, MM17 and EMA?

Gone.

I sold out of the game because I cannot handle the inconsistent nature of WotC. They can't decide how to handle rotation. They can't decide how many sets should be in a block. After 25 years, they can't figure out that formats work best when it is Rock, Paper, Scissors. They can't decide of Modern should be a Pro Tour or not. They made 'graveyard matters' blocks with no way to deal with graveyards. They made 'Energy matters' with no way to deal with energy. They can't decide how to handle something as simple as rewards for showing up to their events. They keep screwing up the simplest things. They can't figure out how to #paythepros. Constantly, from the moment I started playing on the eve of MM25, it has been a consistency of poor decisions, half tracks and backtracks from WotC. And now they can't even be smart enough to not kill the cash cow that was the Masters series. I'm burned out. Too much whiplash. I'm done. I have 2 modern decks, 1 legacy deck, and I play Commander 90% of the time. And I have every expectation they are going to continue to grab control of that format just so they can screw it all up like they do everything else.

My hell, they do ONE thing right, in introducing an investment level of cards like the Masterpiece series, and sure enough, doing what they do best, they screw it up. They make the ugliest cards in the history of collectible, customizable or trading card games.
They are so bad you literally cannot read them. They look nothing like a Magic card. A kid walking down the street would never pick it up and say, 'Hey! Magic!' Hell, the Reddit boards STILL get players asking 'What is this card I got in my Amonkhet pack? It's in some foreign language?'

Masterpieces were a fantastic idea. It sucked the value of a box all the way up to the collectors of the game. That, in turn, made Standard a lot cheaper to play, and Drafts a LOT more entertaining. There was the small drawback that your box EV was a lot lower if you didn't have a Masterpiece, but Standard players play draft, they don't much buy boxes. Allowances don't quite stretch that far.

And then, to compound the stupidity, they did away Masterpieces with the vague, 'We aren't doing them anymore, but we can always bring it back if we like!' More of the same inconsistent excrement I've come to expect, and leads everyone to say, 'They'll be back next time they have a bad set that needs something to sell it.'

Communication. It's really easy. Set a standard on reprints, and tell us. Do not mess with what works, aka Modern Masters. Quit changing all your formats. Do not jerk us around with rash decisions that you have to reverse 6 months later.

But what do I know? I do know this: I don't buy cases any more. WotC managed to slay this golden goose/whale.

No. Until MaRo et al shove their "its not fun for newbies" mentality up where the sun does not shine, I won't be playing standard. Hand destruction, land destruction, taxes and countrspells are all neutered under the "not fun" banner, so Mtg becomes "planeswalker and critters: the gathering", where its PWs, creatures and removal spells, and the best 2-3 decks are known in seconds, and completely unanswerable because you can't hit their hand or mana. The whole things stagates and every match is jund v jund- souless, grindy garbage and the unanswered planeswalker wins. Again.

Alright, I finally have some time from school to talk about my weekend and some choice I made for the Regionals.
I wasn’t specifically taking notes during my games, but I think I remember enough to give all of you an idea of what I got to experience

Round 1: Merfolk w/ Maindeck Chalice

Game 1: I was on the play, led with a mana dork into turn 3 combo, nothing exciting to see here in all honesty.

Sideboard: I don’t remember exactly but this match up was already favored in my experience, so you don’t need to worry much about the sideboard, in this case I believe I took out paths for thalia and finks when I discovered the maindeck chalice.
-4 Path to Exile
-1 Birds of Paradise
+2 Thalia
+3 Kitchen Finks

Game 2: Kept a solid hand with mana dork into knight or geist, no combo but I’ll take it. Unfortunately he had to mulligan down to 5 and it was a game of geist beating face in 3 turns. We talked after and his inclusion of chalice was a decent idea in a room of mostly infect.


Round 2: Infect – My only match loss in swiss

Game 1: Solid 7 with mana dork knight, voice, path and lands – I’m on the play so I play a dork and see what we’re up against. He leads with glistener elf and I play voice with mana up for path. The idea here was that I can path on upkeep, if he vines it then he doesn’t have mana to kick and blows a pump spell while I can still block with voice. Path goes through, he plays blighted agent. Back my way, I draw another path so I play knight and path his agent, the game was pretty much over at that point.

Sideboard: I tried to get rid slow cards that didn’t either stop the opponent or win the game
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Qasali Pridemage
-2 Scavenging Ooze
-3 Voice of Resurgence
+3 Izzet Staticaster
+2 Thalia
+2 Spellskite

Game 2: A mull to 6 with no path but at least playable cards was something I felt I had to keep. He got there with glistener elf very quickly and we packed it up, not much to see.

Game 3: The most fair game I played against infect, I don’t remember details to be honest but I punted the game pretty hard. I could have main phase collected company’d to give myself either a winning or blocking board but passed turn, leading to a spell pierce blowout. Did not make that mistake again I promise you.


Round 3: Infect – don’t worry there is a lot of this

Game 1: This was not a very memorable round to be honest, mana dork into voice with path was my go to turn 2 when I saw infect. It got there this game followed by some geist swings to the face.

Sideboard: Same as other infect matches

Game 2: Turn 1 mana dork, turn 1 glistener, turn 2 staticaster and the game was essentially shut down. After that I laid on the beats with solid beatsticks and kept pinging threats, he had to blow his spells defensively so he was out of the game. BE CAREFUL OF MUTAGENIC GROWTH. It can be a blowout, but izzet staticaster with coralhelm out can be some serious shenanigans.


Round 4: Infect of course

Game 1: I do apologize as the infect games start to blur other than some notable ones, but I believe a 2 path hand just kept him off threats while I beat face, sometimes you’re just playing bant company and it works trust me.

Sideboard: Standard infect sideboard

Game 2: While beating face works, so does pumping your unblockable blighted agent….so there’s that. Nothing else to see here, no path and we’re dead sometimes.

Game 3: Mana dork into knight into coralhelm sees an easy game 3, I believe I mulled to 6 looking for a path and found a combo instead, seems pretty good.


Round 5: Mardu Boom/Bust Control- the COOLEST deck I played all day.

Game 1: I start off with solid 7 card hand, mana dork, voice, voice, path, geist and lands. He plays a fetchland and I play a birds, he fetches a blood crypt and I assume hes on grixis, then he plays flagstones of tarkir and boom//bust boom’s my land and his flagstones, getting him a plains. I was stoked that it happened because it was so cool. I played a voice on my turn, he played bob, I played another voice, and a third after that. He couldn’t keep up with the voice value.

Sideboard:
-3 Qasali Pridemage
+2 Thalia
+1 Elspeth(Didn’t know what else I wanted)

Game 2: The game was kind of a blur, but he sided in smallpox and thought he had me until I dropped knight of the reliquary and he realized land destruction = bigger knight. Knight beat face real hard and I made sure to shake this man’s hand for playing an awesome deck.


Round 6: Naya Burn

Game 1: Hierarch into voice kept his turn 1 nacatl under control for a bit. Eidolon is a HUGE threat to our deck. Get it off the board as soon as you can unless you’re pack a collected company. Chumped with voice to save my life total and get a token, turn 3 I just passed with collected company up and got his nacatl with some collected company combat tricks. He kept eidolon back which was rough, but knight of the reliquary along with smiter was rough for any burn deck. My turn came and I swung with the token and smiter before I just passed. The opponent proceeded to burn my face and leave me dangerously low, but endof turn knight fetch for gavony and pump got me into lethal range. My turn came up and kessig wolf run was already one of my lands, leading to a lethal swing through eidolon.

Sideboard:
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 CoCo
-1 Birds
+3 Kitchen Finks

Game 2: Game 2 was not too eventful, I had a standard start to the game, got a finks out, which was met with atarkas command to stop lifegain and do 3. That hurt. A knight on the following turn was a wall and kept me alive for a few turns along with the finks. Eventually I drew a coralhelm and tried to go for it. I got deflecting palmed but was in a position where all he needed was a burn spell so I had to try. No path for my own knight in response led to a loss.

Game 3: I know wpgstevo was talking about gavony, and this game is why I love gavony. The first few turns were standard for both of us, nacatl and eidolon on his side and bird into voice from me. I got to coco out a knight and geist the turn after voice. This is when the game heated up, I was down to single digits and the opponent didn’t see a way for me to kill without coralhelm, and it would have killed me from eidolon. Instead, I fetched up gavony with knight and got there with a gavony activation on everything including the geist angel along with a path on a blocker. Gavony also is insane value with finks, so I am usually not too worried about burn, but this guy was a solid player that knew when to hold and when to go all out.

Round 7: Infect! The last one!

Game 1: We both mulled to oblivion and he had nothing, I just swung and he watched while I played magic. It kind of happens sometimes

Sideboard: standard infect

Game 2: This time I was the one watching my opponent play magic. I kept mulling down to 4 until I got a land. Another non-game.

Game 3: The only real game we played, leading with spellskite and then an izzet staticaster kept him off any relevant threats long enough for me to draw into geist and beat face. Sometimes the sideboard hate just gets there, and I can’t tell you how happy I was that I played Staticaster that day instead of mindcensor.

Round 8: Affinity – my favorite opponent, nicest guy on Earth

Game 1: I had no idea what my opponent was on, but I had the combo and I was gonna make it happen. He vomits his hand on turn 1 and then drops cranial plating on 2 just to watch me go off, luckily I had the combo or I was done to cranial vault skirge after an attack with lifelink.

Sideboard:
-1 Eternal Witness
-2 Scavenging Ooze
-2 Voice
+3 Staticaster
+2 Kataki

Game 2: I mulled to 5 with one land and a mana dork as my mana sources. I looked on my scry to see kataki and left it top. Turn 2 kataki kind of sealed the game, it’s just so big of a hoser that it carried the game away while I got out a smiter and knight. Kataki is so strong in our deck with the ability to get off company, I prefer it over stony silence as of my testing. This was probably the luckiest I got all day, but I’ll take it.


Round 9: The new Eldrazi, CFB list
This match was insane before it even started, we are at table 2 and selected for a deck check. Both my opponent and I get a game loss so they cancel out and we get to play with a 20 minute extenstion.

Game 1: I mulled to a hand of 6, pretty solid with potential to topdeck the retreat and combo. My mana dork into his 2 eldrazi mimics didn’t seem too good. Knight this turn showed what was going on and my opponent thought-knotted me to make sure I didn’t have the combo. He took one path. On my turn I pathed thought knot and drew into coralhelm, pretty clutch draw as I was ead to reality smasher next turn.

Sideboard: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO AT THIS POINT
-1 Eternal witness
-1 Birds
-1 CoCo
+3 Kitchen Finks

Game 2: I got to see the magic that is the eldrazi deck. 2 mimics into turn 2 thought knot into turn 3 reality smasher, it was over before it started. I can’t say much after game 1 though.

Game 3: Probably the most stressful game of magic I have ever played. This was the game to get into top 8. I mulled to 6, knight in hand with the usual dork and what not. I lead with a dork and he plays only 1 mimic. Thank god not 2 or 3 mimics. I got knight onto the field and we stared at each other’s big beefy boards with my knight being a little bigger than the eldrazi overlords. It became a board of knight and a dork staring at thought knot and mimic. He played a sword of light and shadow(off the wall tech!) and swung, which put him almost out of my combo range due to limited number of lands. I topdecked coralhelm and combo’d off maximizing my mana gain with the mana dork and lands im fetching, I got to just bare lethal by ghost quartering my own land after using it for mana to get 1 extra damage. It was the most math I have ever done during a game of magic because I was not messing up here at the last game.


Round 10 - ID


Top 8:

Round 1: Grixis Control – the ONE deck I did not want to see that day

Game 1: Between my hand getting shredded by discard, jace, telepath flashing back and snapcasters recurring kill spells, I thought that all hope was lost as I have 7 lands and no cards in hand while he has jace and snap in play with 1 card in hand. I top-decked and played scavenging ooze, he became a 7/7 at the end of the opponents turn and he was out of kill spells from killing all of my knights. A top-decked path and eating all the creatures got me a bare lethal. I was living the dream, we’re going all the way….not.

Sideboard: I’m still not sure. I was not prepared for this match because I didn’t expect it.
-1 CoCo
-3 Qasali Pridemage
-1 Birds
+2 Elspeth
+3 Finks

Game 2: He did what control does, he kept up card value, kept a jace on board and killed almost everything I played. I think I mentally blocked out this game as I was almost completely out of the running the entire game. Sometimes the opponent has all the right cards, especially control decks, and that’s part of the game.

Game 3: I started off with a 6 card hand hoping for a land and scry into one, awesome start! Mana dork turn 1 into mana dork turn 2 is solid while the opponent taps out turn 2 to play jace. On my turn I main phase coco to try to take over the game. This is when I knew it was over sadly, I CoCo’d into 2 mana dorks and 2 voices. They got anger of the gods’d off the board and I had nothing but a coralhelm in hand. I played it out and I drew the game out absurdly long hoping to stick a knight and win out of the blue even with a coco, but v-clique on one draw step into k command into snap k command took away 3 draw steps while I ticked away. The one time I got my hopes up, I cast CoCo that I drew in response and he dispel’d it. That was the game and we shook hands. Really funny and fun guy to play, I’m happy that he got to win it all especially with control!


Thoughts:
Let me share some of my thoughts and you guys can think whatever you want about them:
I think the izzet staticaster tech was the sole reason I made it as far as I did. I won games off the back of that card with all the aggro and I regret nothing. Bojuka bog was there was a fetchable hate against graveyard decks, but it ended up being useless in this tournament except potentially the grixis control match but I never stuck a knight anyway. Bojuka bog is something I grew used to in my LGS as a lot of graveyard decks are popular at home. I think other than bojuka bog, the sideboard is very solid in the current meta. I’ve tried chord versions of the deck or chord in the side, but chord is not fast enough against what I saw. If regionals is an indication of the meta, then I think this sideboard is not too bad but there is room for improvement that I would love to talk about. I think in the main board I may change the land base to include one more red source, but other than that, I loved my list.
On the topic of eldrazi, I myself and my opponent both feel that we are favored in the matchup against the CFB list. Going wide works against them and we are pretty dang good at going wide. A turn 3 combo is usually pretty good too, just saying. Thanks for reading guys, I’m excited to join the discussion!

My opinion is not going to be popular, but here goes.

My least favorite era of Magic is probably right now. Standard really sucks to me, with some odd decks that I don't like splashed in with Midrange, Midrange, Midrange. Modern has just gone through more bannings and more bannings rather than unbannings are on the horizon. Legacy is pretty cool still, but the lack of events sucks because for everyone else, Standard and Modern just rock. They can just grab some creatures, removal, and discard and then smash.

Quote from Sheepz »

If they only decided to play modern because it's the next best thing to legacy but without the reserved list, then I see no reason to cater to them whatsoever. Those players don't have a real desire for a distinct format. The idea that legacy with shocks is enough distinction for some people makes me a little sick. I play commander, pauper, modern, legacy, and standard and the more similar the formats become, the more I lose from the game. To me, if they could fix blues draw in modern with something like accumulated knowledge, the format would be perfect, no raise in power level required.

Clearly, we have a misunderstanding. I play Legacy. I don't need Legacy-lite. Although I personally believe that the power level of Modern should be raised, nowhere in this thread have I ever suggested that Modern should become Legacy-lite. Bocephus believes that's what I'm suggesting. He is wrong.


Here are a few things that would help Modern:

1) Modern should be self-policing. The ban list is a terrible way to manage a format. We all know this. It's not a secret. Managing the format's power level by banning things is frustrating and expensive for players. WotC doesn't believe that they have to do testing for Modern before they release cards, and guess what? They're wrong. Every time they end up having to ban a card, they upset players, even if the goals for the format mean that the card has no business being in Modern in the first place. WotC needs to take the kid-gloves off, and give the players access to cards that balance the format. Is that easy? Absolutely not. Does it need to happen anyway? Absolutely.

2) Modern needs to be less creature-heavy. I understand that "creature" is the most interactive card type, but that's not an excuse for WotC make every playable thing a "spell with legs". You want to know why Lightning Bolt is the most powerful card in the format? Because it hits creatures and players. Unlike Path to Exile, Bolt is never a dead card. The same "[catering] to the masses" that has led to an overabundance of creature-based strategies, is the same exact thing that has narrowed the number of playable decks and playable cards. If there were a prison deck in the format, people might actually have to think about how many creatures they decide to run.


Neither of those things is necessarily Legacy-lite. Modern isn't distinct because it has an oppressive ban list and a narrow list of playable strategies. Modern could easily have the tools to help every deck archetype, and a healthy list of competitive deck strategies. And those things could all be at the "Modern" power level.

But you'll never get those things by "[catering] to the masses". People don't like counterspells. People don't like land destruction. People don't like non-aura enchantments. What's really going on here, is that people don't like losing. They want every game to be close, so that they felt they stood a fighting chance. They want that maindeck Path to Exile to be useful, every single time.

WotC's card design in recent years has become lazy. It's not power creep; it's simplicity creep. People like swinging with aggressively costed creatures, so they've made an entire format full of them. The control decks are filled with "unfun" strategies, and so they essentially cease to exist. And not surprisingly, all of the dedicated combo decks are regarded as non-interactive.

My problem with Modern isn't that it's less powerful than Legacy; my problem with Modern is that it's more boring than Legacy. And that's not because I secretly want to do "broken" things; it's because I want a diversity of strategies that take advantage of the different deck archetypes and card types. If I wanted to play a format where I used creatures to swing all day long, I would just go play Standard.

EDIT:

Quote from bocephus »

Quality is 100% subjective. What you feel is quality, someone else could feel is way over the top or crap. On the other hand someone might feel something has quality and you feel it doesnt.

For the last time, the "metaphysics of quality", has a very specific meaning. It is not the conventional, English-language use of the word "quality". It is not subjective. We can debate about what things are "high in quality" or "low in quality", but quality itself is not relative to each individual. It wasn't relative for Persig. It wasn't relative for John Stuart Mill. You just keep reading these words and misunderstanding what they mean.

Seriously? Half the time the clan name isnt even at all appropriate, they certainly dont need to start randomly jamming guilds into deck names for no reason.

Every time someone says "Temur Delver" they should be shocked with a tazer.

It should be pointed out that many people's willingness to spend their hard earned money on this game relies in part to the ability to cash back out again should the need for money arise for them. Quite a lot of magic players don't have a lot of money. In dealing with sales/buying/trading at the local shop for years, and especially in recent years, one of the #1 reasons people were willing to drop $100+ on a deck when on such tight budgets was because they knew they could cash out at anytime for a reasonable percentage of that. If you remove the stability of the secondary market from the picture, the entire magic economy would collapse in on itself:

Stability in the singles market gives players confidence enough to spend decent sums of money on cards that they might not be willing to spend otherwise because of the generally liquid nature of magic singles and the ability to get cash back out of them quickly to cover unexpected expenses and otherwise. I know people who would build a $100-$200 standard deck each month, play for the entire month and then cash the deck in when rent was due (effectively having them renting the deck for the cost difference between what they paid and what they cashed out for.) If players are confidant that the value of their cards wont tank (standard rotations/banning aside), they will be more willing to spend more money on the game.

Stability in the singles market gives shops the willingness to offer more for cards than they might otherwise offer. If the magic singles market had little value stability, most shops wouldn't offer anything close to a decent value for cards because they could stand to lose a significant amount of money. Holding onto stock of cards to have them available for customers would be a financially poor decision. Sure, they would probably still buy collections and such, but their offering prices would be less, and they would be much more likely to just flip them online quickly so as not to be stuck with cards that ended up tanking in the future. This is of course a risk now still, but by and large the buy and hold method for shops and their inventories has been a reasonable investment strategy for a while now because of the stability and strength of the secondary market.

If the values of cards drop considerably, players will be less likely to be willing to spend money on buying packs/boxes because the value of the contents would make such buying an even worse value than it is now. Without pack/box sales, wizards sales decline and they begin losing money vs. now comparatively. Its always a constant balancing act between giving people what they want via reprints or otherwise, and keeping that secondary market structure stable to keep the entire thing from collapsing upon itself.

Basically it comes down to this: Reprinting cards is 100% fine. I think its a good idea if cards are reprinted slowly over time to help keep the supply growing at a reasonable pace vs. the growth in the player base and thusly demand for the product. I believe products like modern masters are an excellent way to do that without causing a chronicles (or similar) panic in the market by printing too much during such releases. The occasional mass reprint of a card here or there like thoughtseize or mutavault or the like is fine as well, just so long as it isn't done en-masse. Not all cards are going to be able to be cheap, there will always be some expensive cards, there is just no real way around that while keeping the game economy stable. There will always be a fight between those who want affordable (cheap) cards to be able to build whatever they want, and those that don't want to see the money they have put into the game be impossible to recover (especially for businesses). One thing I hear about a lot is the poor singles collections that so many local shops have. For many shops, its a more viable option to give their singles collection a backseat to the stability of their sealed product sales.

Imagine if you owned a local brick and mortar store. You work your tail off to be able to keep that place from losing money so you can keep the place open. Your sales are good, but the high cost of rent/bills/etc continuously eats up any profits you are getting from your sales. Now imagine you made a point to keep a good collection of cards for your customers, constantly buying and selling and building a collection for all those modern/legacy/edh etc players in addition to the normal stock of standard cards. If you suddenly take that, and cut the value of the collection in 1/2 due to mass reprinting, you now have cost that business potentially $10's of thousands of dollars. Many local brick and mortar stores wouldn't be able to afford a hit like that to their inventory value. This would cause the shop to have to rethink their stance on their singles collection and potentially put the vast majority of the buying and stocking of cards on hold altogether. That loss of money and sales as a result could end up causing the business to lose enough money to warrant them needing to shut down. (Contrary to popular belief, most brick and mortar stores make zero or near zero profits each year after all overhead expenses, taxes and otherwise.) Wizards offers up so many limited run products for LGSs exclusively because they understand that the health of the local shops is directly connected to the health of the overall game.

Wizards has made it clear that they are going to do what they can to keep the supply of modern cards at least growing in a stable manner. For some cards it could take time before we see reprints and for many the amount of supply added from the reprints will likely not be enough to lower the price enough to satisfy the people wanting the game to be more affordable. My suggestion for people is to simply be patient. Cards will get reprinted, prices will rise and prices will fall, speculation will continue and most speculation will continue to not pan out for those that choose to do so. Right now staples like fetches are insanely high, however I think just about everyone knows they will get reprinted at some point, its just a matter of time. In the end, as before, its all a balancing act. Printing enough to bring up supply without destroying significant value is the best way to keep the stability and popularity of the game going. There will never be anything that wizards could do that would make everyone happy, but I strongly believe they are going to do their best to try to keep the standard and modern formats especially as strong, stable, and growing as possible because those formats are where their current emphasis is. For those legacy players or potential legacy players out there that are upset at the reserved list and the many non-modern legal cards in legacy who's prices continue to rise and rise, well, that's a big issue in and of itself, and one that I'm not sure will be dealt with anytime soon as wizards continues to focus on the other two formats (and limited), while continuing to add bits here and there to edh and legacy via normal card printings, and the occasional special product (like the commander decks et all).

Quote from Stormscape Master

Looks like all the foil Thalia, Guardian of Thraben have been bought out on tcg, jumped up to 35 for the only one left.

Someone just listed 3 at $17 and have several sets at the LGS for $25 each.