MTG Salvation

Quote from Courier7 »

Was it greed on EA's part, though? Did they force anyone to use online loot boxes? No online game, as far as I am aware, forces anyone to spend money for it (aside from the actual purchase of the game, of course). Any game or portal which is "pay to play" will be clearly spelled out in the license/installation agreement.

Quote from toctheyounger77 »

Urza's story was one of MTG's BEST storylines. Perticuarly for people who started at the beginning. Say what you want about jace/Bolas to many old players Urza/Yawgmoth are the major characters of MTG. and Squee... I want to see him again so baddly.... I miss my goblin buddy..... It was Advneture novles at their finest and some of the best mtg books written.

At points, yes. Understand, though, that because Urza was around for so long, he kind of predominates most of the lore. With that in mind, he and Yawgmoth are the best and worst of MtG Lore. The end of the saga was messy as all get up, and I have to say I much prefer the Brothers' War and Yawgmoth's beginnings in the Thran to that later period. Don't get me wrong, some of it is awesome - and Tempest was my first block, so Volrath was my Darth Vader. But the amount of author changes and sloppy writing near the end of Urza's story was not great, to be awfully kind. Commander Guff was breaking the fourth wall with all the blunder and reckless abandon of a 4 year old on a sugar buzz.

By comparison, these days, yes the story does drag on. Not everyone likes Jace, and he is a bit of a Gary Stu. Gideon is one-dimensional. But there's movement, character development, multiple plot lines, and character evolution there, even if it's slow enough that you can't see it right away. And that, as I said, really comes from having the stories tied in to a plot that can only move as fast as card blocks are printed. It's far from the ideal way to tell a fantasy story, and in many ways parallels the way Game of Thrones stalled out. At least in our case we're getting the story, albeit incrementally. In Martin's case, he seems to have more or less given HBO free reign to tell the story for him.

EDIT - I'm really hoping to see Squee in the new Dominaria set. Unlikely, but you never know.

Quote from toctheyounger77 »

Quote from RxPhantom »

Quote from toctheyounger77 »

Quote from RxPhantom »

Quote from SecretInfiltrator »

I think you set yourself up for disappointment if you hoped A25 would be the set to "save Magic".

I didn't say that. My only hope for Masters 25 is that it wouldn't be a massive disappointment, but alas, it was another misfire in a series of misfires. My patience is almost gone, which is why Dominaria is my last hope. Normally I'm not they kind of person to deal in doomsaying, but the last two years have been atrocious, and a course correction is overdue.

I disagree with this. There's been some great sets in the last couple of years - generally the consensus is the return to Zendikar was a flop. But I loved the return to Innistrad, Eldritch Moon was a lot of fun and had some solid cards. Kaladesh was great in a similar way, despite blowing standard apart (Energy just wasn't conceived properly). AmonSet was great flavour wise and had some solid cards, and I've really enjoyed Ixalan. I guess opinions vary depending on your format of choice, but for mine, EDH, I've really enjoyed the last couple of years.

That's fine; we can disagree, but glossing over the disintegration of MtG's flagship format is a little onerous. I could go into exhaustive detail as to why I've been dissatisfied, but I can boil it down to a few bullet points:

1. Mechanics that run the gamut between boring (BFZ's allies and landfall, fabricate) and absurd (just energy really).
2. A poorly written story.
3. A glut of product to the point where they're cannibalizing each other.
4. The near complete destruction of standard.
5. The phrase "too strong for standard."
6. Overpriced Masters sets.
7. The glacial pace at which needed reprints are actually reprinted, which is mainly hampered by #5.

I have other, more minor issues, but these are the big ones.

I agree with some of these. "Too strong for standard' is a joke, energy was a great idea implemented badly, and the rolling bans in standard have made me laugh my ass off and made be very grateful to only play EDH. I can also agree they need to cool it on rolling product out. It's kind of grotesque how much product they push out these days. And I agree with the masters sets of course.

The story...well, it's been worse. Do you remember how messy the end of the Yawgmoth/Urza story got? It was the worst thing ever. That being said, I honestly think a lot of the issues come from the fact that it's a standard story meted out in portions over months, where if you were reading it as a single novel it would seem more competent. The format of the storytelling is difficult, and it'll probably never flow really, really well. Just understand that it will never be Faulkner or Hemingway and enjoy it for what it is. I think after Ixalan it's picked up quite well.

The only reason I gloss over standard is that I don't play it. There are concerns, and the rolling bans are a farce, but standard will be fine so long as WotC keep releasing product; they just need R&D to sort their ***** out so that they're not banning new cards every standard release.

Quote from thatmarkguy »

I would so love for them to realize that ‘too strong for standard’ as a reason for stopping printing old staples is a problem that leads to anything new becoming a problem (energy, vehicles). If they’d use Dominaria to ‘reset’ and go back to giving every color the things it’s stopped giving them - Green with 1-drop Mana dorks, red gets land destruction, blue gets 2-cost counter (spell), white gets boardwipe at 4, Black gets good rituals/tutors/bargins... standard has survived these things before, it can survive them again. And if every color is given back a tool from its old toolbox it isn’t especially unbalancing either.

Quote from KamikazeArchon »

Quote from Silver_Spellthief »

Because no one wants to open a $10 pack to only see a bunch of chaff. If these sets were filled to the brim with value where a player would be guaranteed to get around $10 back in secondary market value, that price tag could be justified

This is literally impossible. The secondary market price would just drop. You're never going to be guaranteed to get more from opening a pack than the pack's price.

but we know that it costs just as much to print Masters packs as it does to print standard packs. This makes these sets stink of being $10 pack lotteries designed to make players hope to pull a Chalice of the Void, Imperial Recruiter or Jace the Mind Sculptor.

Yes, Magic is in some ways like a mini-lottery. You don't know what you're going to get. Lots of people play the lottery. A lot more than play Magic. And they buy tickets at a lot more than $10 each. The element of chance is a known part of buying Magic boosters.

I'm not going to tell you to buy M25 if you don't want to. Hell, I wouldn't tell you to play MTG at all if you don't want to. Some of these expectations just strike me as odd.

Quote from Melkor »

I would assume a Master set or something similar, or maybe a Duel deck type thing. I would be shocked to see those in Standard again. Not saying it's impossible, but you saw how weak Standard has been recently, and it could ONLY be Dominaria