New block structure and set rotation changes

[Lemnear]

Does this mean the end of bad 2nd or 3rd sets where WotC runs out of ideas every damn time? I apprechiate

[ReAnimator]

As someone who has played and still sometimes does still play standard, this is pretty much all upside. I have literally no problems with any of it. The financials won't really be that big of a change, this certainly isn't sky is falling, gouge out the player base tactics. 3rd sets always sucked and you didn't really need to buy any of it, and same with core sets.

The different lengths that things are legal isn't really that huge because usually the last part of a standard cycle (like we are in now) with 8 sets legal for 3 months is usually super awful and not as many people play during that time anyway.

Copy and pasted from someone else:

Under the old system a year consisted of 4 sets:

1 - Standard legal for 24 months
2 - Standard legal for ~20 months
3 - Standard legal for ~17 months
4 - Standard legal for ~15 months

Your average cards you buy are now legal in Standard for around ~18-19 months. (PLUS MORE because Core sets had a lot of reprints).

New system is like this:

1 - Standard legal for 18 months
2 - Standard legal for ~15 months
3 - Standard legal for 18 months
4 - Standard legal for ~15 months

Your average cards you buy will be legal in Standard for around ~17.5 months.

[DLifshitz]

2) Instead of one 3-set block each year, we get two 2-set blocks each year with the 4th set occupying the previous Core set slot.

3) Blocks remain only 18 months Standard-legal instead of 24 months to keep Standard "less stale" (and forcing people to buy more packs ). Doesn't really affect us aside from buying/selling future staples to keep that in mind.

2) - I suspect this means the steady stream of five-faction fantasy theme park versions of various cultures from around the world will continue, because there won't be enough time to create anything else in between design cycles.
3) - Possibly idea is not just to get people to buy more cards, but also to make counterfeiting more difficult and less profitable. This change will certainly cause many people to switch to formats other than Standard, not so much because of the possible extra expenses, but to hold on to their old cards - which will now include some cards that are less than 2 years old!

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Agreed. I actually loved the core set when it was dedicated to staples. Unfortunately, profits come first.

+1 here. and I'd love to say that Tsumi once again sorted out my own thoughts in a way I'd never would, could or should.
I'm quite surpruised with what they've done to Standrard. There's so much turmoil inMtG in last few years, a new non-rotating format, a death - maybe expected one - of Extended, this whole change of how Std will look like, the smaller blocks (and hopefully tighter with less garbage), MMA. This may be pretty thrilling times for the people who enjoy Magic (both players and designers) and it seems to me like this major shake up will open many new possibilities.Will some of the m be good? Hopefully. Will some of them suck? i guess so. No matter what, even from the view of a most-stationary-format-ever-specialist, this is pretty thrilling.
I got itches i never had in last fifteen years. I'd love to play Standard.

[Aggro_zombies]

These changes will burn players out on Standard faster, and possibly on competitive play faster as well. Rotations usually wipe out a bunch of players who get tired of the rat race of dropping $100+ on cards when new sets come out so they can keep current, only for 90+% of those to plummet in value to near-nothing once the rotation happens. Rotations happening faster means second-tier cards - the ones that aren't the absolute most powerful but nevertheless integral to mid-tier decks - will lose value much faster now since there's a greater chance that a fast rotation will neuter your deck and a lower chance the card will make the jump to playability in a bigger format.

However, barring a massive reprint-o-palooza, Modern is too expensive for a lot of these players to want to enter and the Eternal formats are basically gated country clubs with burly security guards that won't admit you unless you have at least six figures of salary per year. That means players who burn out on Standard are more likely to attrition out of the game or at the very least revert to casual formats like EDH where they buy maybe half a dozen cards per set at most, and then most likely not the most expensive ones.

Magic is more popular than ever right now but that just means there's more people playing who realize that Standard is for chumps with more disposable income than common sense. However, any individual casual player isn't going to drive sales figures the way Standard players do - they only matter in the aggregate since they're the largest section of the player base, but they don't have the buying habits or individual budgets needed to, say, support local LGSes or keep WotC's profit margins rising for a long time without some insane growth in the game.

[Richard Cheese]

Could the shorter rotation mean they might be willing to push the power level of Standard cards a bit by giving us some reprints of Legacy/Modern staples? I'm going to assume not, but it's a nice thought.

[Aggro_zombies]

Could the shorter rotation mean they might be willing to push the power level of Standard cards a bit by giving us some reprints of Legacy/Modern staples? I'm going to assume not, but it's a nice thought.

Actually...

[Barook]

Actually...

Having powerful cards for less time in Standard might be a positive side effect that makes the experiment more with bringing old favorites back, but I read that as actually putting more reprints into the block sets.

Edit: It also looks like they're going to recycle old mechanics more often:

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post...ew-block#notes

Not necessarily a bad thing - I would take an old, working, popular mechanic over new, uninspired, useless crap every day.

[Arsenal]

Shorter Standard could mean that powerful cards, by mistake or design, are tolerated as they're only there for a few months instead of a year. This could trickle down to eternal formats as Standard could potentially have an overall higher power level (ie. Jund/Cawblade Standard era).

[ESG]

Fantastic changes. I'm really impressed. The Core set was filler, so good riddance to that. Two-set blocks rather than three-set blocks means that more storylines and worlds will be involved, which is desirable from a flavor standpoint. It will also keep things fresher. One of the problems with Standard is that the card pool is so small that it's pretty easy for a few powerful decks to dominate. This will increase the size of the card pool, making it less likely that a deck will conquer unchecked; it will reduce the timeframe that any dominant deck can reign supreme; and it will allow new decks to be designed because rotation will be more frequent. Also, as mentioned, this could enable WOTC to print higher-powered cards or even to reprint something like Force of Will.

[Lord Seth]

Why does Wizards do anything? They did this to sell more cards to sucker Standard players.

And well, this explains why no more block PTs.

Honestly, I think the complete lack of interest in block constructed had a bigger reason for no block Pro Tours. Granted, some of that is their own fault for providing no support to the format, but I don't think it was that popular to begin with. I think block constructed kinda suffered from a cycle of people not being that interested->less support given->now even less people are interested->even less support is given->people lose even more interest until it finally just got to the point that the only time anyone cared about it at all was the Pro Tour, and even that wasn't that exciting because no matter how cool the decks were, there wasn't anywhere to really play them.

As for this, the removal of the core set does bring up one issue in regards to reprints: Cards specific to certain planes. The core set was where you could throw stuff like Shivan Reef (a location specific to Dominaria) without having to go back to Dominaria (which honestly they should already, but that's another matter). There's also Modern Masters and the like, but those don't have print runs the size of Standard sets.

[Aggro_zombies]

Edit: It also looks like they're going to recycle old mechanics more often:

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post...ew-block#notes

Recycling old mechanics? Man, Lemnear is going to have a stroke.

[samurai_socks]

Deleted.

[Lemnear]

Recycling old mechanics? Man, Lemnear is going to have a stroke.

Why? I absolutely prefer them taking another spin on some old and popular keywords rather than introducing new names for the basically ever same creature-kicker mechanic. There are quite some keywords which would welcome a second spring and now as there are no more core sets to reprint those, they have to find their way into the regular expansions.

[Dice_Box]

I love when I see Standard players whom, when they ask why I don't play the format laugh when I say it's too expensive. In a vacuum they look at my Legacy collection and think I am out of my mind. I still ain't laughing and that format of yours still ain't getting cheaper. I am happy to help you transition the moment you guys wake up. Maybe more of you will now.

[ShiftyKapree]

I'm looking forward to these changes, I now plan on playing standard again, which hasn't happened since Shards block. As far as prices are concerned with cards having less time in standard prices could go up or down depending on how the print run of these cards are out in the economy. With them being able to test the waters of cards I see massive mistakes being made, giving us even more external staples. Which I'm fine if it brings KotR back haha. As far as the coresets go I did enjoy those and was able to transition back to standard easier when I got back into it, but I recently graduated college so I will now have more time to play and more importantly money. I will still consider myself a legacy player majority of the time but it is fun to play the game on how it was intended to be played by burn spells, turning creatures sideways and counterspells. Not the busted ass decks we see today in legacy, also drafting seems like I will enjoy that the most.

[btm10]

7. I have seen some players comment that Wizards may be willing to print more powerful cards because they will be legal for less time. I personally do not think Wizards will go down that round due to the knock on effects of Modern/ Legacy.

-Cheers-

I'm not sure where I come down on this point. It's a useful counterargument to the optimistic point that less time to deal with means more space for powerful cards/engines, but MaRo has also said that one of the things that more frequent rotation will allow for is more power. The most optimistic part of me says that this would even allow for reprints of non-Reserved staple because they could be slipped in to sets that minimize thier adverse impact on Standard. I have Wasteland in a Standard full of monoclolred spells in mind as I write this, but there are likely other examples that wouldn't impact Modern that may work better, like making Force of Will the only counter in Standard or putting it in a block's small set where the theme is 'cares about number of cards in hand' or something. Again, neither of those scenarios is likely to happen, but something similar might be.

[BBG|Scott-Spain]

This pretty much prices me out of ever playing Standard again. Purchases would be way too frequent for me. On the brighter side, if they ever get another "Stoneblade" situation on their hands, they have the option of waiting it out since they will rotate out faster.

[lyracian]

It seems all sales driven. What does not sell well Core sets and Third Block set therefore lets get rid of them.

I love when I see Standard players whom, when they ask why I don't play the format laugh when I say it's too expensive. In a vacuum they look at my Legacy collection and think I am out of my mind. I still ain't laughing and that format of yours still ain't getting cheaper. I am happy to help you transition the moment you guys wake up. Maybe more of you will now.

I agree Standard is expensive the problem becomes though what options do you have to play competitive Magic other than Standard? Locally we have Monday Draft; Legacy Tuesday (if we can get 8 players); Modern Thursday (8-16 players); Friday 3 Shops running FNM (20-32 players).I try and go as many Thursdays as I can just so I get the chance to play.

[TsumiBand]

Unless the life-span of the average Magic player has increased -- and last I heard, it was 18 months, but that's a very old figure -- keeping up with a season or two of Standard is typically far less than buying into competitive Legacy. Barring any "aw shucks, another cross-format staple, whoops" issue like JtMS or Goyf or what-have-you, in which case the price jumps up as everyone scrambles to acquire the card, thus preserving the myth of Expensive Eternal.

I mean sure you could make the argument that in 18 months any purchase you make into Legacy would potentially be worth much more because the price point of duals/Forces/Wastelands/etc continues to rise, but then you've got people trying to convince players to spend high hundreds or low thousands of dollars to get in, in a format with high power, low variance, and a less-coherent visual appearance or UX or whatever you want to call it (multiple card frames, multiple wording approaches, etc).

The fact that they can exercise a higher degree of control over the Standard experience is probably what makes it more attractive to new players - from the mechanics to the art to the card face, the experience is unified, and that's more meaningful than I think a lot of Vintage & Legacy players acknowledge. There are no Rock Hydras to deal with, no re-translated Oracle wordings ("what do you mean, these tokens disappear during the cleanup step. These are the only fucking creature tokens in the game that disappear during the cleanup step."), no ignoring the oddly shapen mana symbols from your Legends cards next to the Guildpact MacOS card frames with their clean and precise symbols, next to that goofy-ass Tarmogoyf from an alternate future with a wonky border that looks like a knuckleduster... (btw, I would love to see Progenitus try to live on that FS border. I say, it cannae be done! It cannae!)