I agree with the majority. Stained glass knight, cleric and goblin are the best. Demon is cool, though it looks so much like a "real card" with those text box proportions it feels a little odd. Saprolings are cute and the nightmare horror is amusingly derpy. It looks like it's trying to smile and wants a hug! Karox seems quite disjointed with the red frame and golden legendary crown, what's up with that? The rest are all fine and good, but a little generic.
Okay wait, someone might have said this already, but when Wizards put promos in the Duelist magazine (e.g., Mana Crypt, Arena, Nalathni Dragon), it was a huge controversy and Wizards said they never again make promos that were new cards. Isn't that kind of what Firesong and Sunspeaker is? I mean, it's easier to get, sure, but the fact that it's only available as a promo is kind of suspicious.
Yes, this has been brought up. And it's the reason this policy change is much more significant than a lot of people seem to realise, and is really not a good sign concerning the future of the game. Hopefully they'll listen to the feedback, promise to never do this again and reprint Firesong and Sunspeaker in some supplementary product down the line.
So... they were willing to go for the clunky-as-hell wording for stuff like Blightning and Searing Blaze, but not for stuff like Sudden Impact and Jovial Evil, even if it would've at least made the errata consistent and relatively easy to figure out? And making that one special little exception to everything (Vial Smasher the Fierce) for seemingly no reason whatsoever? Not even a single word of acknowledgment of the rift this creates between old cards and new cards?
Not enough expletives in the world. What an absolute cluster****.
This BAB is worrying because it's the second defining principle that WotC has held for over two decades, and is now breaking with this set: Do not print mechanically unique, tournament legal cards as promotional items. (The first principle being "Avoid power level errata; cards should do what they read." concerning the planeswalker damage redirection rules changes, but I've beaten that horse to death in other threads...)
Also, seeing people actually defend this is just sad.
My reaction to Cash spent on this fluke could be spent on boardgames instead. For example, my M25 is gonna cost me 180€. I could have spent that on GloomHaven or videogames instead. I probably won't even get a Jace. So why did I buy a box? To get crap rares, apparently. Thanks WOTC! I hope you go broke asap.
this has got to be satire, right? if you buy a boardgame you have 0 chance of getting any return on that investment. boardgames also have limited replayability, player constraints, and are hard to transport. if you don't want to play magic that's fine but compared to boardgaming it is a dream. if you wanted a jace you should have just bought a jace, instead of buying a box. don't be mad at wotc for your own stupid decisions.
to all of the amateur financiers complaining about the value of A25, i suggest you look at the mtggoldfish breakdown. it comes to the same conclusion i have: A25 is basically worth around what it is sold for. and while the idea of not exceeding msrp might disgust you, i would implore you to find any other game or product that you can buy and then resell for anywhere close to msrp.
magic isn't an investment, it's a game. opening packs isn't a prospect, it's a gamble. wotc simply makes magic cards, they don't actually owe you anything more than that.
Wait, what? You can't be serious? I take it you don't know what Gloomhaven is. Please go take a look here or here, then come back and tell me if paying 180 euros for a box of playing cards still seems like good value for money. Also, you are enormously underestimating the resale value of board games in general. You can resell a lot of those for "anywhere close to msrp", or at the worst just trade for a similar sized game. Although yes, there could be regional variance in this. But you still have access to at least Boardgamegeek and its marketplace.
As for the box non-randomization thing... Well, that's just obviously bad now isn't it. Still remains to be seen just how bad the problem really is. I recall something like this happening before, but all the badwill WotC has generated lately makes this incident that much worse.
Yes, it really is. It's just that as established MTG players we are used to horribly overpriced products. Wink
No, no it really isn't. And "Horribly Overpriced" is only brought up when you talk about the secondary Market, Catan is 50 Dollars..for a game that you can't use outside of the specific pieces that come with it.
Explorers of Ixalan, comes with the game and 4 Precon Decks and the gameplay can be expanded with cards you already own or get through drafting as opposed to spending another 40 dollars for an expansion.
Not all expansions for Catan cost 40 dollars, and the cards I already own or got through drafting were by no means free. But you seriously think that 60-70 euros for Explorers of Ixalan is reasonable? That's around 74-86 US dollars? Whatever floats your boat. :I
I'd argue that this means that Catan is also horribly overpriced. Flipping through Amazon quickly, I'm seeing plenty of Hasbro board games for under $10. It looks like most of the $30+ board games are pretty niche - which I would argue means they're overpriced because they know their audience is willing to pay that price.
But yeah, $65 for Explorers is a tough ask, let alone the $72 I see them at in my local big box store. The $40 on Amazon, however, seems way more reasonable for a niche game that is cross-compatible with MtG.
I'm not really sure why we're talking about Catan specifically, but that game does have more complex components than Explorers with the wooden / plastic pieces (depending on the edition), thicker and bigger cardboard tiles etc. I still wouldn't buy it for $50, but that has more to do with how I played that particular game out almost 20 years ago. :>
We're also probably not seeing the same selection of products on Amazon, but most of those $10 board games seem to be either really small family card games on the level of Uno or Skip-Bo or children's games, like Snakes & Ladders or Mousetrap, on sale. Maybe it's a cultural thing? Around here, board games are by no means all that niche anymore. Catan and several other games like Ticket To Ride, Carcassonne and Dominion could nowadays be easily compared to stuff like Monopoly, Scrabble and Pictionary in their ubiquitousness.
But yes, horribly overpriced tabletop games exist too. Explorers of Ixalan at 60-70 euros being one of them. For 40 euros it's more reasonable (things seem to cost a bit more in general over here compared to the US), but it's not always available at that price.
On topic: I'd have felt better if they had chosen to make the errata as harmful to planeswalkers as possible - make Earthquake hit all players and planeswalkers, for example. Then again, I still think that PWs are one of the worst things to ever happen to the game, but that's neither here nor there. Barring that, I'd rather they didn't errata at all and just silently nerf 25 years of cards so that cards do exactly what they say on the card instead of "anything printed before Dominaria follows these rules but anything after is as written on the card" even if the 2 cards have identical text in print. The solution chosen screams of trying to have their cake and eat it too, and is inelegant in my opinion.
This, like I said before, I completely agree with. Nerfs would feel bad short term, but at least it's a problem that would solve itself in the long run when they design and print more cards that comply with the new rulings. But now they ended up with a solution that just gets worse over time, and once they have reprinted existing cards with the new texts, they can never really reconsider the decision either. Cards should do what they say, and power level errata that creates inconsistent functionality, on a massive scale like this, really should not be acceptable.
I actually really like the idea of Explorers of Ixalan as well, it's just that the product was way overpriced for what it was. Never really liked Archenemy, though, that one's just badly executed. But kudos to them for at least trying!
Considering that Explorers came with 4 Precon decks..it really wasn't that expensive.
Yes, it really is. It's just that as established MTG players we are used to horribly overpriced products.
No, but seriously, the MSRP of that thing is still about $65. Two of the three major online retailers around here have it in stock. One of them is selling it for 75€ (yes, seriously), and the other has it currently on sale for 41,96€ (from 59,95€), which is much better but still not particularly stellar. I also checked cardmarket.com and on EU area the prices ranged from around 30€ to 70€. However, when you include shipping costs that 30€ game would still cost me around 70€ total. I paid 70€ for my new, straight off the shelf copy of Caverna. Admittedly that's quite a good price for that particular game, but still... you can get so much more than Explorers of Ixalan for 60-70€, it's not even funny. And there's also the trading / resale value to consider. If I get bored of my Caverna, I can be pretty sure to get a decent price for it, or trade it 1:1 for a similar sized game with someone. How much would you be willing to buy / trade a used copy of Explorers of Ixalan for?
But it's not all bad. A lot of stores also sell just the accessory set from Explorers (tiles, counters, rules) for a very tolerable price (under 10€) , so there's always the possibility to buy just those, then build your own game around that from the cards you already have. Which is exactly what I'm planning to do at some point.
I don't see how the rules for damage redirection has much to do with Arena other than lazy programmers. (And before anyone jumps on me for that last statement. Programmers are inherently lazy, do you want to chew through a bazillion lines of data when you can get the computer to do the heavy lifting for you?)
It makes for a much more intuitive, streamlined and (maybe even most importantly from WotC / Hasbro's point of view) easy to spectate online game when you can just drag and drop your damage spells and effects straight on to their actual targets. Just like in Hearthstone! :S
The issue is that old cards, as written, are not compatible with new cards now.
It was part of it. They just have a ton of errata to do, which they've done before through oracle texts and in reprinting.
Well... yes..? The absurdly massive amount of that errata and the enormous inconsistency it creates in old card texts vs. new card texts is why I was spazzing out in the first place.
Anyway, we're kind of running in circles now. They made a stupid decision ten years ago, and now they made an even stupider decision in an attempt to fix it. What's done is done, and we can only wait and see how this thing plays out. I'll certainly be looking forward to the official articles explaining this rules change, the amount of errata, and the reasoning behind them...
Board gaming in general is going through a golden age right now, both in popularity and the amount of games released. There's really no shortage of physical games out there if that's what people want. Or am I just misunderstanding something? :S
I'm sure Maro has said something along the lines of: Magic's players have been playing Magic on average longer than the lifespan of other games.
It doesn't matter if there are a lot of physical games. Magic is competing with them quite well.
I'm not even sure how you could measure the lifespan of all other games. Most of them are not even trying to do the same thing as Magic, such as maintaining a competitive scene and supporting two big online products, and they are also meant to be one time purchases.
Again, I meant this from the perspective of a potential new player. Someone who just walks into a game store looking for something to play with their friends. What does Magic have to offer them? They canceled the Duel Decks, and those were for two players only anyway, so... Archenemy: Nicol Bolas and Explorers of Ixalan? Do you think those products measure up, in this context, against something like Star Realms, Imperial Settlers, Race for the Galaxy, Lord of the Rings LCG, Pandemic, Great Western Trail, Dominion etc? Especially considering the resale / trading value for Archenemy and Explorers is pretty much zero. I know a lot of people who like to gather around a table to play all kinds of physical games, and from my perspective this is the battle that Magic has already pretty much lost.
Also, the fact that MTG Arena is based on a physical game is not a strength, if that is what the quote meant. Quite the opposite, it's a pretty big disadvantage compared to other, purely digital card games out there.
However, having said all that, I must applaud them for embracing the more casual side of the game by going all in with products like Commander, Planechase, Conspiracy, Unstable, the upcoming Battlebond etc. I actually really like the idea of Explorers of Ixalan as well, it's just that the product was way overpriced for what it was. Never really liked Archenemy, though, that one's just badly executed. But kudos to them for at least trying!
History has proven that MTG is indeed quite robust, and has been able to recover from some pretty dark times. I'm still genuinely worried about the direction WotC is heading, going from one blunder to another for how long now? Of course I hope for the best, but I also wasn't kidding with that mid-90's Sega comparison. :/
See the thing is, that if you read each of those Chandras, the original says "Chandra Nalaar deals 1 damage to target player." and the new one says "Chandra, Torch of Defiance deals two damage to each opponent." If a spell or ability targets a player with damage, it could also target a planeswalker. If it doesn't target, I.E. by saying "each" instead of target, then it can't target a planeswalker because it doesn't target anything. That's not hard. It's just as complex as saying that you can't hit a hexproof creature with Shock but it would be hit by Pyroclasm. The distinction is already written in the card text and there shouldn't be any discrepancy. If it targets you can target a planeswalker, if it doesn't, you can't.
I wasn't talking about Chandra, Torch of Defiance, I was talking about the new Chandra, Bold Pyromancer in the new Dominaria set, spoiled in that leaked FAQ. That Chandra has the following plus ability:
+1: Add RR. Chandra, Bold Pyromancer deals 2 damage to target player.
That ability can not target planeswalkers. The original Chandra Nalaar has an ability with the same template ("deal damage to target player"), yet it can target planeswalkers. See what I mean? Besides, Chandra, Torch of Defiance is an example of another templating mess they created, where "damage to each opponent" and "damage to target opponent" can functionally mean several different things depending solely on when the card was printed. Some of those cards can be used to damage planeswalkers, some of them don't.
And it's not just the different Chandras that are affected, it's every card that has previously been printed with the template "deal damage to target player" or "deal damage to target / each opponent" vs. every new card that gets printed with that same template. The card text is the exact same, but the functionality is different. This means you can't really play the game as-is, without resorting to online FAQs and rules clarifications. Yes, there has been errata before, but never on a scale like this. Previously errata has also mostly concerned single cards, but now it affects a very basic and prominent feature of the game itself: direct damage to players. A massive amount of cards no longer do what the card text says. In other words, the game is broken. There's really no discussing that, it's just how it is.
We can, however, discuss the significance of this. Yeah, maybe I'm overreacting a bit and maybe the sky won't fall after all. Maybe the existing player base can get through this with just minor annoyance. But it does raise the entry barrier for new players, and makes the game that much harder to teach. Magic is a bit of a hard sell even as it is, and I can easily see something like this turning a lot of potential players away from the game. There are so many card games out there, and a lot of them are nowadays either self contained, or use the living card game model with no random purchases. Not to mention the variety of modern board games in general.
CCG's are stigmatized enough. They are seen as cynical, pay-to-win cash grabbers especially compared to LCG's. A game where you also need to tell new players they have to check on the internet how a significant amount of cards actually work, and remind them to really check each and every card individually because even the rules text on the cards themselves can not be consistently translated... yeah, it's not hard to imagine people would rather spend their time on some other game that's not constanly demanding money from them, and actually works the way it's written.
I'm speaking from experience, by the way. MTG is one of my favorite games ever, but it's so very hard to get new people interested in it nowadays. ***** like this is one of the reasons why. So hopefully you can understand why I'm frustrated.
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- All of the above could be fixed by making MTG strictly a digital product. All of it. Just sayin'.
This might be true but this is not going to be a majority opinion. Hanging out with friends in person and the flexibility of physical product is important. There are many things you can do with physical product that you can't do or would be much harder to do if they made it digital-only.
I wasn't really advocating the idea of getting rid of paper MTG, and I hope they don't do that anytime soon. But I wouldn't be surprised if the idea hasn't been seriously discussed somewhere in the depths of WotC or, more likely, Hasbro.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go reinforce my tinfoil hats.
Needs a lot of reinforcement; from the same article you are citing: "Also, because it's designed to be a paper game, it has a quality to it that is just different from all the video games out there. I believe this distinct difference is a huge advantage for Magic."
Yeah, that was a really weird thing to say from them. It's almost as if they don't pay any attention at all to what's going on outside of computer games and Magic. Board gaming in general is going through a golden age right now, both in popularity and the amount of games released. There's really no shortage of physical games out there if that's what people want. Or am I just misunderstanding something? :S
- WotC is internally very frustrated about the Reserved List, and has been for a long time.
- They are also annoyed by the card back, and have been for a long time. I think they will be even more annoyed once the new logo for the game is established.
- They hate banning cards, as they should, but can't help it if R&D screws up badly enough. Which it has done quite a few times lately, for whatever reason.
- They don't care about the physical quality of the cards anymore. A bit of profit is more important, even if the card quality is getting disruptively bad with the cards bending, warping and feeling different from older cards. Not to mention the poor print quality.
- Mark Rosewater has talked a lot about the changes they'd like to make to the game, ranging from mechanics to aesthetics, such as making instant a supertype, templating the mana costs differently etc. But they can't anymore, since so many cards have already been printed "the old way", and they realize making the changes now would be too jarring. ( https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/starting-over-2015-01-26 )
- Despite that, they just broke the mechanical functionality of 25 years worth of already printed cards, creating a clear gap between the old cards and new cards and deliberately breaking the templating consistency of the game. This is a huge decision, the significance of which can not really be overstated.
- There was also this recent quote from Rosewater. I thought it sounded a bit unnerving when I first read it, but now it sounds downright ominous:
"If the game's human qualities give it its strength, what does it mean if that gets pushed too far? I think it means that sometimes the game suffers from some human frailties. It can be inconsistent as different elements that are each intuitive in a vacuum come in conflict with one another. It can be messy as years of additions start to force aspects of the game to get cluttered. It can be irrational as ideas mutate through different executions, leading to strange choices. I often talk about Magic as if it's a living, breathing entity. Its greatest weakness is that sometimes it acts a little too human."
- All of the above could be fixed by making MTG strictly a digital product. All of it. Just sayin'.
So... yes, I do believe the sky is falling and yes, I do think that blind panicking is the most reasonable course of action to take at this time. :ria::ria:
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go reinforce my tinfoil hats.
Yes, this has been brought up. And it's the reason this policy change is much more significant than a lot of people seem to realise, and is really not a good sign concerning the future of the game. Hopefully they'll listen to the feedback, promise to never do this again and reprint Firesong and Sunspeaker in some supplementary product down the line.
Not enough expletives in the world. What an absolute cluster****.
Also, seeing people actually defend this is just sad.
Wait, what? You can't be serious? I take it you don't know what Gloomhaven is. Please go take a look here or here, then come back and tell me if paying 180 euros for a box of playing cards still seems like good value for money. Also, you are enormously underestimating the resale value of board games in general. You can resell a lot of those for "anywhere close to msrp", or at the worst just trade for a similar sized game. Although yes, there could be regional variance in this. But you still have access to at least Boardgamegeek and its marketplace.
As for the box non-randomization thing... Well, that's just obviously bad now isn't it. Still remains to be seen just how bad the problem really is. I recall something like this happening before, but all the badwill WotC has generated lately makes this incident that much worse.
Not all expansions for Catan cost 40 dollars, and the cards I already own or got through drafting were by no means free. But you seriously think that 60-70 euros for Explorers of Ixalan is reasonable? That's around 74-86 US dollars? Whatever floats your boat. :I
I'm not really sure why we're talking about Catan specifically, but that game does have more complex components than Explorers with the wooden / plastic pieces (depending on the edition), thicker and bigger cardboard tiles etc. I still wouldn't buy it for $50, but that has more to do with how I played that particular game out almost 20 years ago. :>
We're also probably not seeing the same selection of products on Amazon, but most of those $10 board games seem to be either really small family card games on the level of Uno or Skip-Bo or children's games, like Snakes & Ladders or Mousetrap, on sale. Maybe it's a cultural thing? Around here, board games are by no means all that niche anymore. Catan and several other games like Ticket To Ride, Carcassonne and Dominion could nowadays be easily compared to stuff like Monopoly, Scrabble and Pictionary in their ubiquitousness.
But yes, horribly overpriced tabletop games exist too. Explorers of Ixalan at 60-70 euros being one of them. For 40 euros it's more reasonable (things seem to cost a bit more in general over here compared to the US), but it's not always available at that price.
This, like I said before, I completely agree with. Nerfs would feel bad short term, but at least it's a problem that would solve itself in the long run when they design and print more cards that comply with the new rulings. But now they ended up with a solution that just gets worse over time, and once they have reprinted existing cards with the new texts, they can never really reconsider the decision either. Cards should do what they say, and power level errata that creates inconsistent functionality, on a massive scale like this, really should not be acceptable.
Yes, it really is. It's just that as established MTG players we are used to horribly overpriced products.
No, but seriously, the MSRP of that thing is still about $65. Two of the three major online retailers around here have it in stock. One of them is selling it for 75€ (yes, seriously), and the other has it currently on sale for 41,96€ (from 59,95€), which is much better but still not particularly stellar. I also checked cardmarket.com and on EU area the prices ranged from around 30€ to 70€. However, when you include shipping costs that 30€ game would still cost me around 70€ total. I paid 70€ for my new, straight off the shelf copy of Caverna. Admittedly that's quite a good price for that particular game, but still... you can get so much more than Explorers of Ixalan for 60-70€, it's not even funny. And there's also the trading / resale value to consider. If I get bored of my Caverna, I can be pretty sure to get a decent price for it, or trade it 1:1 for a similar sized game with someone. How much would you be willing to buy / trade a used copy of Explorers of Ixalan for?
But it's not all bad. A lot of stores also sell just the accessory set from Explorers (tiles, counters, rules) for a very tolerable price (under 10€) , so there's always the possibility to buy just those, then build your own game around that from the cards you already have. Which is exactly what I'm planning to do at some point.
edit: Or pretty much what SecretInfiltrator said.
It makes for a much more intuitive, streamlined and (maybe even most importantly from WotC / Hasbro's point of view) easy to spectate online game when you can just drag and drop your damage spells and effects straight on to their actual targets. Just like in Hearthstone! :S
Well... yes..? The absurdly massive amount of that errata and the enormous inconsistency it creates in old card texts vs. new card texts is why I was spazzing out in the first place.
Anyway, we're kind of running in circles now. They made a stupid decision ten years ago, and now they made an even stupider decision in an attempt to fix it. What's done is done, and we can only wait and see how this thing plays out. I'll certainly be looking forward to the official articles explaining this rules change, the amount of errata, and the reasoning behind them...
But that was not the issue. The issue is that old cards, as written, are not compatible with new cards now.
I'm not even sure how you could measure the lifespan of all other games. Most of them are not even trying to do the same thing as Magic, such as maintaining a competitive scene and supporting two big online products, and they are also meant to be one time purchases.
Again, I meant this from the perspective of a potential new player. Someone who just walks into a game store looking for something to play with their friends. What does Magic have to offer them? They canceled the Duel Decks, and those were for two players only anyway, so... Archenemy: Nicol Bolas and Explorers of Ixalan? Do you think those products measure up, in this context, against something like Star Realms, Imperial Settlers, Race for the Galaxy, Lord of the Rings LCG, Pandemic, Great Western Trail, Dominion etc? Especially considering the resale / trading value for Archenemy and Explorers is pretty much zero. I know a lot of people who like to gather around a table to play all kinds of physical games, and from my perspective this is the battle that Magic has already pretty much lost.
Also, the fact that MTG Arena is based on a physical game is not a strength, if that is what the quote meant. Quite the opposite, it's a pretty big disadvantage compared to other, purely digital card games out there.
However, having said all that, I must applaud them for embracing the more casual side of the game by going all in with products like Commander, Planechase, Conspiracy, Unstable, the upcoming Battlebond etc. I actually really like the idea of Explorers of Ixalan as well, it's just that the product was way overpriced for what it was. Never really liked Archenemy, though, that one's just badly executed. But kudos to them for at least trying!
History has proven that MTG is indeed quite robust, and has been able to recover from some pretty dark times. I'm still genuinely worried about the direction WotC is heading, going from one blunder to another for how long now? Of course I hope for the best, but I also wasn't kidding with that mid-90's Sega comparison. :/
I wasn't talking about Chandra, Torch of Defiance, I was talking about the new Chandra, Bold Pyromancer in the new Dominaria set, spoiled in that leaked FAQ. That Chandra has the following plus ability:
+1: Add RR. Chandra, Bold Pyromancer deals 2 damage to target player.
That ability can not target planeswalkers. The original Chandra Nalaar has an ability with the same template ("deal damage to target player"), yet it can target planeswalkers. See what I mean? Besides, Chandra, Torch of Defiance is an example of another templating mess they created, where "damage to each opponent" and "damage to target opponent" can functionally mean several different things depending solely on when the card was printed. Some of those cards can be used to damage planeswalkers, some of them don't.
And it's not just the different Chandras that are affected, it's every card that has previously been printed with the template "deal damage to target player" or "deal damage to target / each opponent" vs. every new card that gets printed with that same template. The card text is the exact same, but the functionality is different. This means you can't really play the game as-is, without resorting to online FAQs and rules clarifications. Yes, there has been errata before, but never on a scale like this. Previously errata has also mostly concerned single cards, but now it affects a very basic and prominent feature of the game itself: direct damage to players. A massive amount of cards no longer do what the card text says. In other words, the game is broken. There's really no discussing that, it's just how it is.
We can, however, discuss the significance of this. Yeah, maybe I'm overreacting a bit and maybe the sky won't fall after all. Maybe the existing player base can get through this with just minor annoyance. But it does raise the entry barrier for new players, and makes the game that much harder to teach. Magic is a bit of a hard sell even as it is, and I can easily see something like this turning a lot of potential players away from the game. There are so many card games out there, and a lot of them are nowadays either self contained, or use the living card game model with no random purchases. Not to mention the variety of modern board games in general.
CCG's are stigmatized enough. They are seen as cynical, pay-to-win cash grabbers especially compared to LCG's. A game where you also need to tell new players they have to check on the internet how a significant amount of cards actually work, and remind them to really check each and every card individually because even the rules text on the cards themselves can not be consistently translated... yeah, it's not hard to imagine people would rather spend their time on some other game that's not constanly demanding money from them, and actually works the way it's written.
I'm speaking from experience, by the way. MTG is one of my favorite games ever, but it's so very hard to get new people interested in it nowadays. ***** like this is one of the reasons why. So hopefully you can understand why I'm frustrated.
I wasn't really advocating the idea of getting rid of paper MTG, and I hope they don't do that anytime soon. But I wouldn't be surprised if the idea hasn't been seriously discussed somewhere in the depths of WotC or, more likely, Hasbro.
edit:
Yeah, that was a really weird thing to say from them. It's almost as if they don't pay any attention at all to what's going on outside of computer games and Magic. Board gaming in general is going through a golden age right now, both in popularity and the amount of games released. There's really no shortage of physical games out there if that's what people want. Or am I just misunderstanding something? :S
- They are also annoyed by the card back, and have been for a long time. I think they will be even more annoyed once the new logo for the game is established.
- They hate banning cards, as they should, but can't help it if R&D screws up badly enough. Which it has done quite a few times lately, for whatever reason.
- They don't care about the physical quality of the cards anymore. A bit of profit is more important, even if the card quality is getting disruptively bad with the cards bending, warping and feeling different from older cards. Not to mention the poor print quality.
- Mark Rosewater has talked a lot about the changes they'd like to make to the game, ranging from mechanics to aesthetics, such as making instant a supertype, templating the mana costs differently etc. But they can't anymore, since so many cards have already been printed "the old way", and they realize making the changes now would be too jarring. ( https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/starting-over-2015-01-26 )
- Despite that, they just broke the mechanical functionality of 25 years worth of already printed cards, creating a clear gap between the old cards and new cards and deliberately breaking the templating consistency of the game. This is a huge decision, the significance of which can not really be overstated.
- There was also this recent quote from Rosewater. I thought it sounded a bit unnerving when I first read it, but now it sounds downright ominous:
"If the game's human qualities give it its strength, what does it mean if that gets pushed too far? I think it means that sometimes the game suffers from some human frailties. It can be inconsistent as different elements that are each intuitive in a vacuum come in conflict with one another. It can be messy as years of additions start to force aspects of the game to get cluttered. It can be irrational as ideas mutate through different executions, leading to strange choices. I often talk about Magic as if it's a living, breathing entity. Its greatest weakness is that sometimes it acts a little too human."
( https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/essay-what-you-will-2018-02-05 )
- All of the above could be fixed by making MTG strictly a digital product. All of it. Just sayin'.
So... yes, I do believe the sky is falling and yes, I do think that blind panicking is the most reasonable course of action to take at this time. :ria::ria:
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go reinforce my tinfoil hats.