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View Full Version : Disatisfaction with "money formats"



Mordel
12-04-2008, 11:20 PM
Lately it's been really weird: I have been feeling almost betrayed by wizards with the direction standard and 1.x have been sort of drifting in. I remember an article a few years back when Pro Tours(masques/invasion t2, I think) were starting to get aired on ESPN2 and whoever it was from the r&d team was saying something within the context of them shooting for a game that was more dynamic for spectators and with more of a focus on the red zone.

Initially I was thinking that this was cool and then cards that I had grown attached to like counterspell, duress and other sort of familiar "motifs" began to disappear from standard and then legacy formed(something that I paid no attention to at the time) and the game started to gradually change.

As far as the cash formats are concerned, things are pretty healthy from a sort of objective design standpoint, but from my standpoint the game is only recognizable by core mechanics and so forth.

Viable control decks need to be four or more fucking colours now to compete and in my mind encourage people to decks that turn creatures sideways because of the glaring vulnerabilities that come with running the best cards of five colours and cobbling them together to be able to compete with tribal decks. That is fucked up if you ask me.

Magic has been a huge part of my life and the majority of my free leisure time from when I was seven(yeah, seven mtg started as a ploy to get me practicing reading) up until now when I am twenty-two. I have a shelf that is literally packed with mtg literature and print outs dating back to the book the Flores put out that involves decks and interviews with various legendary figures of the earlier part of mtg's competitive scene like Mike Long, Shawn "The Hammer" and even Tom Champeng if I recall.

It just struck me how much the game has changed and sort of left me behind/lost me because everything that I used to like about the game itself(not the scene) and grown accustomed from the new formats is gone. Even a few years ago, looking back standard was starting to feel more like a job than a hobby and I felt like it was casual Friday when I got to bring my BuG Rock deck to Vancouver to rape some affinity.

You know when you were ten or so and your one friend that was a few years older and went to a summer camp/vacation and came back a complete different person and wasn't really down with hanging and doing all the stuff that you guys used to do? That's sort of how I am feeling. It's odd really weird to feel like this about a game.

Anyway, I am kind of high right now, but I felt like expressing myself to a community that I was lucky enough to find or else I would have probably dumped a game that was a huge part of my life almost as far back as I can even remember.

Has anyone else run into this with mtg?

P.s: sorry for the wall of text if it offends anyone by it's lengthiness. Be concise is not my strong point, haha

bigbear102
12-04-2008, 11:51 PM
I sort of agree with you. Nostalgia is one of those things that can either make a bond stronger for the future, or weaken the bond because the present just isn't as good as what you remember.

As for the changing of the game to a multi-color format, I believe that that will change over time. Right now people are into 3-5 color decks and just playing the best cards regardless. R&D has always said that gold cards rank very high among players. Now that they have printed them in 3 of the last 4 blocks, they will most likely be shifting back to more mono-colored themes, or at least less gold themes.

I wouldn't give up hope yet. I think they'll go really far to butcher the game, and then save it. Kind of like everything that happens in this country.

Dan Turner
12-05-2008, 12:05 AM
I started magic when I was 14 years old. I played throughout high school and collage. played for money to pay bills (spent a whole year in collage not working). I love this game but I have quit a couple of times and came back and it is usually because of the money. I started Legacy this year because I can spend the money one time and play forever with a small infusion once a year.(mostly pimp stuff to replace my regular cards and new sleeves I am a sleeve freak) I can play legacy for less than the cost of playing type 2. The first time I quit I sold off everything except for my sets of beta and unlimited and legends and some extra high value cards (I left all this in my bedroom at my parents when I got married due to my mistake of marring a christian fundamentalist who believed magic was => Satan) After my divorce in 01 I came back strong Playing vintage and type 2. Then when I met my current wife I sold off a big chunk of my collection to pay for the wedding and my car (God when I picked up Black lotus's for $50 back in the day never thought I would trade one straight out for an almost new car (its a 1997 cavalier).

I kept just enough cards from that collection to play Vintage no type 2 no extended and no legacy. I then went on to trade a piece of power for a Vial Goblin deck with the duels and everything in it (RGB) he got the better end of the deal price wise but I am sure i got the better end of the deal due to the great people I have met here on The source and IRL playing Legacy.

Ijust got to say I love this game and I will never give it up again I missed it so bad when I was not playing.

Magic is not just a game it is a way of life and sometimes it turns you into a FANATIC.


Sorry I will try to fix this post when I am not so drunk and stoned from my pain pills.

troopatroop
12-05-2008, 01:49 AM
I started magic when I was 14 years old. I played throughout high school and collage. played for money to pay bills (spent a whole year in collage not working).

College. You went to College.

Mordel
12-05-2008, 02:24 AM
What if he was attending the favorite artform of teenage girls because of the cheapness and abundance of their silly "look what this celebrity is doing and wearing" magazines? hmmm???

Nihil Credo
12-05-2008, 07:04 AM
I left all this in my bedroom at my parents when I got married due to my mistake of marring a christian fundamentalist who believed magic was => Satan
:eek:

Skeggi
12-05-2008, 07:14 AM
I left all this in my bedroom at my parents when I got married due to my mistake of marring a christian fundamentalist who believed magic was => Satan

She probably has a point :wink:

DeathwingZERO
12-05-2008, 08:29 AM
I would have to agree that as of late the Standard scene has gotten to be more of a chore to play in than fun. But that's the evolution of the game's community, not the game itself. The blocks have their trends they tend to follow, but the players that are at tournaments are out to win in nearly all cases, not to have fun.

The internet is mostly to blame for this, for being the superhighway of information that it is. People can netdeck themselves into the Pro Tour, teams are out to build tech and rape the formats, and people generally are looking more to their ratings than they are to the enjoyment of the game. It happens to anything competitive when it reaches an increase in popularity.

I play Legacy and Vintage not because it's "old school", but because the objective of the game is the same as it ever was: enjoy what you play. There's so much more diversity of what to play in any general meta, and people aren't pigeonholed into playing just what wins. Extended, Block, and Standard can't really brag that, and that's the problem with them, being money formats.

Every once in a while I'll dabble in Block constructed or Standard, but never with my own money. However, Legacy and Vintage are still going to be everything I look at in this game, and it's the same amount of enjoyment playing in tournaments now as it was just learning the game back in the day.

Mordel
12-05-2008, 02:25 PM
That's definitely what brought my attention back to the eternal formats as of late: Being able to play a deck that I both enjoy and am still able to get my victory fix more often than not.

I tried standard recently and was looking at what I was going to play, picked something, made some adjustments and felt like a total whore...then felt like a goof because I'd chosen a sligh deck which apparently is on the periphery of the format at the moment because it sucks at winning versus the more dominant decks. Weee.

Even when I played lots of type two and extended, I was really fascinated by legacy and read through forums and articles a lot and would occasionally play a game and so forth.