Ajani having a weird hanging plot thread is probably another of the ongoing casualties of the plot being attached to a card game with its own needs. They might just elide that bit and have him show up with an all-new 'walker on Ravnica. Or maybe we see Tybalt/Ashiok's surprise face turn?
Interesting: RNA is getting called "penultimate moment of the Gatewatch's story" rather than "penultimate moment of the Gatewatch's battle against Bolas". This seems to imply an end of the Gatewatch. While I have no preference here, there is going to be a lot of talk about this. Though it seems likely Bolas will be defeated (if not permanently, then at least his plans thwarted in a way that will send him off-stage to lick his wounds for a while), they could move on to a new post-Gatewatch vehicle of storytelling.
I imagine they mean the end of the Gatewatch storyline - ie, maybe the Gatewatch will still be around but won't be the focus of the story, which will shift to a different ongoing plot (Presumably with the Eldrazi back in the box/destroyed and with Bolas defeated, the Gatewatch might go dormant and we could get a story about something other than trying to thwart a multiverse-spanning supervillain).
My assumption is that Guilds of Ravnica/Ravnica Allegiance will be "fall in Ravnica" while "milk" will be "winter in Ravnica, and also Bolas is wrecking it". The fall set having a fall aesthetic is just a happy coincidence, though it would be cute to have a "Christmas in Ravnica" vibe before everything starts falling apart.
Did I miss something? Was a buy-a-box promo announced?
It's very possible that the people the Dominaria BAB promo were meant for reacted positively to it ("it" being a way to sneak an extra Commander-focused legend into a card set). I don't think mtgsalvation's reaction is very indicative in these cases.
I don't get what more people were expecting though. It's announcement day, not spoiler day. They announced new products (and showed the sort of early preview art that usually goes with those announcements). Did people think they were going to go into detail about releases ahead of the spoiler week for those releases?
Also: Theros was a really popular set with a good draft environment (especially triple Theros, which was great) that sold well and generated some fun and powerful Standard decks. Mtgsalvation's weird hate-on for Theros is an outlier that rests on mtgs' typical weird narrative of "we're mad you didn't meet our extremely specific expectations built up by speculating on the rumor mill for weeks."
A lot of people hate Theros-era Standard but not because of Theros... it was sandwiched between Pack Rat and Siege Rhino.
Original ravnica had a ton of very powerful (arguably, too powerful) fixing at common (bouncelands and signets) so it also drove you towards three colors in draft. But it was a weird three colors where you wanted one of the shards/wedges that included two of the guilds in the set.
Return to Ravnica was more focused on two-color drafting and each guild being a specific archetype, especially in the second set (Gatecrash) which was fairly fast and dominated by aggressive Boros decks.
The reason for 2 sets of Ravnica while Dominaria got just one is that you can't do one set's worth of Ravnica; there's no way to fit all ten guilds into a single set (they tried that and it poorly even though it was all-returning mechanics) and there's no way you can say "we're doing five of the guilds now and then in a few years when we return to ravnica again we'll do all the other five", the player base would riot. Going in for a third set is odd but my assumption is that the spring set is much more of a Bolas-themed set that happens to take place on Ravnica than a third Ravnica set.
Artifact theme at common is 100% just a theme in the draft environment and not some hint of what the following fall/spring sets are. Some cards with that theme might impact Standard (Ensoul Artifact reprint?), but M15 had a similar theme and it wasn't in Standard with any artifact blocks.
Really has a prominent theme in any set ever turned out to be a hint at what was coming afterwards, even in a core set? There's often a few plants meant to synergize with future sets but never something like a full draft archetype.
Also, the blue 1-drop that gets a bonus if you control an artifact is substantially worse than a phantasmal bear, for the same reason that Ghitu Lavarunner is substantially worse than Goblin Guide.
Even if Wizards wanted to put wastes in M19, which they don't because it would be confusing to new players and pointless except to please a minuscule niche of EDH players, it's wayyyyy too late for that by now.
EDH rules committee should just adopt the rule letting you use any one basic in your colorless commander deck. It would make those decks easier to build with absolutely no downside.
The difference between Brawl and Standard is that WotC never positioned or promoted Standard as a casual or multiplayer format. Standard isn't designed to be inviting for casual players or to work well in a multiplayer setting, while Brawl is.
And ultimately it's not really true that competitive formats end up in an equilibrium where everyone plays a tier 1 deck. Like I said upthread, look at any video of someone playing through a Modern league on mtgo, you'll definitely see some Hollow Ones but you'll also see some nonsense. People play Magic to have fun even in competitive settings, and for a lot of folks building a deck and taking it into a competitive setting, or just testing out new ideas, is part of the fun.
Standard discourages that kind of play, which really affects how more casual players view Constructed in general. In Standard, the power level differential between cards is very sharp. You've got your Scarab Gods and Hazorets, and you've got your... Majestic Myriarchs. The presence of powerful rate cards makes linear strategies hard to pursue unless they're very robustly supported in the small Standard card pool. Standard has its virtues relative to Modern, definitely, but it's hard for a Standard format to be as diverse or as balanced as Modern currently is.
I think Brawl, being singleton, softens up those issues a lot. You can no longer build decks by picking a curve of nine of the best rate cards for your strategy and playing four of each. This means the impact of those cards is lessened overall, and the power level of decks if flattened out overall. Deck archetypes are looser, encouraging experimentation within an archetype; yeah sure you probably want Scarab God in your blue-black deck, whether at the helm or in the 59. But when you get deep into the slots, it starts looking a lot more debatable. Baral decks were degenerate but they were also scraping the bottom of the barrel for playables, including such C- draft cards as Horns***gle. It's less of a no-brainer whether, for example, you want to play Locust God with more burn or with more permission, for example, because it's no longer a comparison between running 4x of a counterspell or 4x of a burn spell. The average power of draws is lower, decks are less consistent, and that should lead to a "flatter" metagame where the distance between the tier 1 decks and the tier 2 decks is smaller, and so on down the chain. This makes brewing or playing quirky decks more inviting.
So overall, I think your fears of 1v1 Brawl discouraging people from looking into casual play or multiplayer are unfounded. I expect Brawl to get about the kind of suport Pauper currently gets - there's leagues on mtgo, wotc keeps the format from breaking with regular bans, and you can play at some stores and at side events in GPs.
But if Brawl turns out to be diverse and entertaining like I hope it does, I'd be stoked for something like a team Constructed Brawl GP.
I think wotc showed they intended to support 1v1 Brawl when they set up 1v1 leagues on MTGO.
I don't think you actually understand what people generally talk about when they talk about the difference between good and bad formats. Standard has been intermittently bad for a long time but not because it's solved. People have been frustrated with Standard because it's been a parade of broken decks one after another.
It's still kind of a pointlessly negative reaction to hope people don't enjoy or become invested in 1v1 brawl because you think it'll somehow ruin your experience of playing multiplayer. I think you'd enjoy Magic more if you didn't feel threatened by other people playing it in ways that you don't care for.
Singleton formats are a lot less sensitive to the "gravity" of single very powerful cards being in the format (which is what typically makes Standard bad), dropping the higher starting life total hopefully means that permission and big mana goodstuff decks won't be favored, so I'm cautiously optimistic.
Tbqh I think marvel would be fine in standard now, especially with all the other good energy cards banned. like what's the best thing you could flip with marvel, a giant dinosaur? Overwhelming splendor your opponent? I doubt it'll do anything particularly broken in Brawl.
I mean I don't think it's a huge problem for the format if there's a pithing needle printed in standard every other year that gets prebanned. It doesn't really affect Brawl in any way beyond one less rare slot in one of the four sets that came out that year being relevant to the format. To me it seems like the obvious compromise solution.
Honestly, I fully expect them to keep printing Needle effects in Standard, because Standard needs them, and then preemptively banning them in Brawl. Yeah it's a little annoying for players who only play Brawl who open Needles they can't play with, but you can always trade the Standard staple rare you just opened away. On dual lands, singleton formats inherently have worse mana but they're also slower and have a lower power level. The dual taplands and Evolving Wilds, that are generally unplayable in Standard, are probably viable in Brawl even in a 1v1 setting. GXy type mana bases seem very viable in Brawl right now.
The changes are basically everything I wanted so I'm pretty happy. I'm glad Wizards recognized 30 starting life was unsustainable in a 1v1 setting. Separating from the Standard ban list seems like a no-brainer. Keeping 1v1 and multiplayer ban lists in sync seems fine to me; I can't imagine the format will need that many bans going forward. I can't wait for those changes to come down to MTGO.
I'm sad copter wasn't unbanned and that scavenger grounds stayed, but it's nice to see some changes. I'm actually kind of annoyed at ferocidon being unbanned, it will be all over. Baral, while cancer in 1v1 is largely irrelevant in multi, which means I never really saw him so I'm indifferent there. Karn and Hope of Ghirapur seem like weak commander's, but Traxos could be fun. Is Rashmi energy viable now?
Copter staying banned seems correct to me - Powerful auto-include colorless cards are part of what I dislike about Commander. I don't understand why anyone would want Scavenger Grounds banned. If someone brings a Ferocidon to a multiplayer table I applaud their commitment to the bit.
I figure no colorless commander is ever going to be really viable in 1v1 (Wizards isn't going to print colorless cards at the required volume and power level for singleton Standard, not even in Eldrazi or artifact sets) but letting people just put basic lands into their deck is a great change for casual players who want to jam Karn.
I imagine they mean the end of the Gatewatch storyline - ie, maybe the Gatewatch will still be around but won't be the focus of the story, which will shift to a different ongoing plot (Presumably with the Eldrazi back in the box/destroyed and with Bolas defeated, the Gatewatch might go dormant and we could get a story about something other than trying to thwart a multiverse-spanning supervillain).
It's very possible that the people the Dominaria BAB promo were meant for reacted positively to it ("it" being a way to sneak an extra Commander-focused legend into a card set). I don't think mtgsalvation's reaction is very indicative in these cases.
I don't get what more people were expecting though. It's announcement day, not spoiler day. They announced new products (and showed the sort of early preview art that usually goes with those announcements). Did people think they were going to go into detail about releases ahead of the spoiler week for those releases?
Also: Theros was a really popular set with a good draft environment (especially triple Theros, which was great) that sold well and generated some fun and powerful Standard decks. Mtgsalvation's weird hate-on for Theros is an outlier that rests on mtgs' typical weird narrative of "we're mad you didn't meet our extremely specific expectations built up by speculating on the rumor mill for weeks."
A lot of people hate Theros-era Standard but not because of Theros... it was sandwiched between Pack Rat and Siege Rhino.
Return to Ravnica was more focused on two-color drafting and each guild being a specific archetype, especially in the second set (Gatecrash) which was fairly fast and dominated by aggressive Boros decks.
The reason for 2 sets of Ravnica while Dominaria got just one is that you can't do one set's worth of Ravnica; there's no way to fit all ten guilds into a single set (they tried that and it poorly even though it was all-returning mechanics) and there's no way you can say "we're doing five of the guilds now and then in a few years when we return to ravnica again we'll do all the other five", the player base would riot. Going in for a third set is odd but my assumption is that the spring set is much more of a Bolas-themed set that happens to take place on Ravnica than a third Ravnica set.
Really has a prominent theme in any set ever turned out to be a hint at what was coming afterwards, even in a core set? There's often a few plants meant to synergize with future sets but never something like a full draft archetype.
Also, the blue 1-drop that gets a bonus if you control an artifact is substantially worse than a phantasmal bear, for the same reason that Ghitu Lavarunner is substantially worse than Goblin Guide.
EDH rules committee should just adopt the rule letting you use any one basic in your colorless commander deck. It would make those decks easier to build with absolutely no downside.
And ultimately it's not really true that competitive formats end up in an equilibrium where everyone plays a tier 1 deck. Like I said upthread, look at any video of someone playing through a Modern league on mtgo, you'll definitely see some Hollow Ones but you'll also see some nonsense. People play Magic to have fun even in competitive settings, and for a lot of folks building a deck and taking it into a competitive setting, or just testing out new ideas, is part of the fun.
Standard discourages that kind of play, which really affects how more casual players view Constructed in general. In Standard, the power level differential between cards is very sharp. You've got your Scarab Gods and Hazorets, and you've got your... Majestic Myriarchs. The presence of powerful rate cards makes linear strategies hard to pursue unless they're very robustly supported in the small Standard card pool. Standard has its virtues relative to Modern, definitely, but it's hard for a Standard format to be as diverse or as balanced as Modern currently is.
I think Brawl, being singleton, softens up those issues a lot. You can no longer build decks by picking a curve of nine of the best rate cards for your strategy and playing four of each. This means the impact of those cards is lessened overall, and the power level of decks if flattened out overall. Deck archetypes are looser, encouraging experimentation within an archetype; yeah sure you probably want Scarab God in your blue-black deck, whether at the helm or in the 59. But when you get deep into the slots, it starts looking a lot more debatable. Baral decks were degenerate but they were also scraping the bottom of the barrel for playables, including such C- draft cards as Horns***gle. It's less of a no-brainer whether, for example, you want to play Locust God with more burn or with more permission, for example, because it's no longer a comparison between running 4x of a counterspell or 4x of a burn spell. The average power of draws is lower, decks are less consistent, and that should lead to a "flatter" metagame where the distance between the tier 1 decks and the tier 2 decks is smaller, and so on down the chain. This makes brewing or playing quirky decks more inviting.
So overall, I think your fears of 1v1 Brawl discouraging people from looking into casual play or multiplayer are unfounded. I expect Brawl to get about the kind of suport Pauper currently gets - there's leagues on mtgo, wotc keeps the format from breaking with regular bans, and you can play at some stores and at side events in GPs.
But if Brawl turns out to be diverse and entertaining like I hope it does, I'd be stoked for something like a team Constructed Brawl GP.
I don't think you actually understand what people generally talk about when they talk about the difference between good and bad formats. Standard has been intermittently bad for a long time but not because it's solved. People have been frustrated with Standard because it's been a parade of broken decks one after another.
It's still kind of a pointlessly negative reaction to hope people don't enjoy or become invested in 1v1 brawl because you think it'll somehow ruin your experience of playing multiplayer. I think you'd enjoy Magic more if you didn't feel threatened by other people playing it in ways that you don't care for.
Copter staying banned seems correct to me - Powerful auto-include colorless cards are part of what I dislike about Commander. I don't understand why anyone would want Scavenger Grounds banned. If someone brings a Ferocidon to a multiplayer table I applaud their commitment to the bit.
I figure no colorless commander is ever going to be really viable in 1v1 (Wizards isn't going to print colorless cards at the required volume and power level for singleton Standard, not even in Eldrazi or artifact sets) but letting people just put basic lands into their deck is a great change for casual players who want to jam Karn.