The current state of Magic

[Hanni]

Make Rebels great again.

[Barook]

Shoudn't Tahngarth, Sisay, and Squee be having their own adventures on the Victory? I would be excited for Squee 2.0, a new series of ships that are playable, and some Sisay draw spells plz.
Pretty sure Tahngarth and Sisay died from old age since the conflict was several hundred years ago, but maybe Squee is still around due to his supposed immortality.

[Aggro_zombies]

IIRC, the Phyrexian invasion happened about 100 years before Odyssey, and that happened about 100 years before Time Spiral, and the current timeline is about sixty years after that, so...yes, everyone from the Weatherlight should be dead except possibly for Squee.

Squee, King of the Dominarian Goblins would be fucking rad, though.

As for Slivers, they likely still exist, and will probably show up if they're plot relevant. If they weren't bringing back Core Sets, I would say there would be a 100% chance of them showing up because that's the most logical place to rehash that beloved tribe, but with Core Sets now in the mix I'm not so sure. I honestly hope they don't bring Slivers back because the design space is kind of tapped out there, but it's also low-hanging fruit that will get people excited and drive sales, so who knows.

We've seen some glimpses of Dominaria, in approximately the current timeline, though I don't know how canon they still are. Elspeth was hiding there after she fled from Bant but before she went to New Phyrexia to help out Koth; Ajani tried to recruit her to come back to Alara, but Koth ended up getting both her and Venser to come with him. Ajani apparently still hangs out on Dominaria. The plane doesn't appear to be as bad as it was during TSP but it isn't recovered by any stretch, but that might have just been due to where that particular part of the plot took place. Shiv and Jamuraa should be relatively intact since Teferi had kept them phased out until the mending started.

I'm somewhat optimistic about most of what's been announced. The change to the block model is good and makes sense. Having the Core Sets back as a repository for generic answers in Standard will hopefully help that format get off life support, though I'm doubtful they've truly found a way to make Core Sets sell as well as regular sets. The digital stuff is a mess but WotC's digital stuff is always a mess, so at least it's holding steady (though, seriously, who in god's name thought an MMO was a good idea?!). Ixalan seems hammy enough to be genuinely enjoyable, and a return to Dominaria after a long absence is welcome, if predictable.

[Barook]

I'm somewhat optimistic about most of what's been announced. The change to the block model is good and makes sense. Having the Core Sets back as a repository for generic answers in Standard will hopefully help that format get off life support, though I'm doubtful they've truly found a way to make Core Sets sell as well as regular sets. The digital stuff is a mess but WotC's digital stuff is always a mess, so at least it's holding steady (though, seriously, who in god's name thought an MMO was a good idea?!). Ixalan seems hammy enough to be genuinely enjoyable, and a return to Dominaria after a long absence is welcome, if predictable.
They do seem to have started printing more answers again (e.g. HOU has a Shatter with a 3 damage option, or the new Pithing Neelde variant in Ixalan). But that all doesn't help when we get "Felidar Guardian 2: Hostage Boogaloo" with that new UB pirate because they couldn't use common sense in their wording.

What currently annoys me the most about MTGO that there's no sane way to play the decks that really interest me (Counters Company in Modern, Food Chain/Bomberman in Legacy) due to the way infinite combos (don't) work on MTGO. It's forcing you to spend hundreds, if not thousands of clicks for a single game for something that could be easily cut short in Paper.

[Barook]

Want the special Magic VIP package for HasCon? Pay 600 FUCKING DOLLARS (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/alexullman-news-05232017-hascon-ticket-prices-released/) for a bunch of garbage. Also, these are the panels.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DEfm4H_XkAAeqU3.jpg:large

What the hell is wrong with them? :really:

[slave]

Print more dredge cards and more cards that can abuse them. :tongue:





Can I get an amen?

[Claymore]

1 hour Q&A with Maro? Another poorly scripted Improv show? Do they want people to abandon magic?

[Dice_Box]

If I had the money, I would have a bunch of my friends go and we would ask nothing but questions on why X or Y is not legal/is still legal in Legacy and ask why they thought Restricting Gush was going to solve a MM and Mentor problem.

[tescrin]

If I had the money, I would have a bunch of my friends go and we would ask nothing but questions on why X or Y is not legal/is still legal in Legacy and ask why they thought Restricting Gush was going to solve a MM and Mentor problem.

Don't feel too bad, you wouldn't get the answers you want. When I got a response on his blog about Mind Twist he was like "lol cause it's broken" and all the seals horked in approval. I wouldn't expect better responses.

[rufus]

... all the seals horked in approval. ...

Such a vivid metaphor.

[thecrav]

Want the special Magic VIP package for HasCon? Pay 600 FUCKING DOLLARS (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/alexullman-news-05232017-hascon-ticket-prices-released/) for a bunch of garbage. Also, these are the panels.

What the hell is wrong with them? :really:

MtG has increasingly stopped appearing at large gaming conventions. Why pay through the nose to go to GenCon when almost no gamer hasn't tried Magic? Instead they show up at comic-cons and other conventions that fit under general nerd-dom. They've got gamers. They're after a different group of people now. The events at HasCon aren't for Magic players. They're for the kid who's into My Little Pony or Transformers.

That being said, it's a weird combination of ^that^ and the exclusively pre-release of Iconic Non-Reserved Masters

[civet five]

So this is from the official Ixalan page - Pirate Vraska fighting dinosaurs (http://i.imgur.com/yL1Xh2l.jpg).

This is silly enough to be actually awesome. At least it isn't "Jacetice League joins a new plane to ruin everything yet again!" plot.

GTF outta here. Feathers on dinosaurs = ruined

[supremePINEAPPLE]

GTF outta here. Feathers on dinosaurs = ruinedYeah, why can't they be realistic dinos just like in Jurassic World. Stupid archaeologists thinking they know things.

[Claymore]

This was originally brought up in the Community MTGO thread when the change happened, but interesting article about the impacts of Wizards further restricting the MTGO Daily data.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/wizards-data-insanity

Reminder of the change:


Starting immediately, Wizards would be cutting the number of decklists published from Magic Online in half—from 10 per format per day to five per format per day. Along with reducing published lists, Wizards would also be changing the way the lists were selected. In the past, the 10 lists were chosen at random. Moving forward, the five lists will be random but with the caveat that there won't be any overlap (so the same archetype can't be published twice on the same day).

[Dice_Box]

Just read this after you read the announcement: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/wizards-data-insanity

I hate the idea there is going to be ever less Vintage data. Also, as a guy who plays with data a lot, this is going to impact Legacy. The new Miracles deck is a DTB right now mostly because of its strong online showing. This change is going to warp how the DTB is set up, because a portion of the data used to structure it is no longer in any way a true sample. Its now a curated snapshot of the ideal that Wizards wishes to see.

I also find it strange that homogeneity is viewed as so bad it must be stamped out in any way that they can manage, while older formats like Legacy and Vintage are left to stew in the same pot regardless of the situations that arise. Miracles was a blight on Legacy for a long time, the format basically had its "Solved" deck and we watched for years as it was overlooked and left untouched. Right up to them stating that even with all the data, if it was not for "time issues" top would have been left alone. No action taken, even with all the data they held. (You do not have to agree with my view on Miracles to at least admit that piece of writing was BS)

Basicly what I am saying is I do not feel that Wizards can be trusted to make the correct choices behind closed doors with the data they hord. They have shown to me, as a data monkey, that they are unwilling to use this mountain of data (that I would kill to access) for anything other than a pulpit from which to look down on people like myself and tell us "We know more than you so shove it" when we say there are issues.

[PirateKing]

Players, "Card X is broken"
Wizards, "Oh really? Show me the data"
Players, "We can't, you have all the data"
Wizards, "Oh right, hold on let me check"
Players, "..."
Wizards, "Nope, card X is fine"
Players, "..."

[rufus]

...
Players, "..."
Wizards, "Nope, card X is fine"
Players, "..."

Wizards, "See it' isn't even in the list of 5-0 decks on MTGO!"

[morgan_coke]

After coming back and playing a bit I think Leovold, TNN, and DRS should all go away to banland. They're just honestly stupid, unfun cards.

Like, DRS basically nukes all non-dredge GY strats as a side effect of existing and being everywhere. TNN is the least interactive creature I've ever seen, and it's got relevant Tribal status to boot. Leovold is just pushed too hard.

[Fox]

After coming back and playing a bit I think Leovold, TNN, and DRS should all go away to banland. They're just honestly stupid, unfun cards.

Like, DRS basically nukes all non-dredge GY strats as a side effect of existing and being everywhere. TNN is the least interactive creature I've ever seen, and it's got relevant Tribal status to boot. Leovold is just pushed too hard.

So here's the thing about DRS, it's one of the only actually interactive pieces of yard hate in legacy. Leyline, RiP, Cage, Priest, and others of that ilk simply exist to create non-games of magic. The non-game problem is especially apparent in the entire modern format, where the name of the game is to side in "you can't ever win" standalone cards.

DRS is a heavily played card, it is a powerful card....but it enables a multitude of strategies, particularly at higher than 1-2cmc (Counterbalance is effectively gone, decks are now better in the sense that they've become their meaner [lower-costed] forms). Also consider that because legacy is now healthy (no Counterbalance), we don't have to suffer through every DRS strategy being 4x DRS + 4x Decay as a baseline; so again, variety has overall increased surrounding DRS.

I don't think anyone is going to argue that all 3 of the creatures you've listed are well-designed, but that hardly makes them ban-worthy. You're also talking about hitting 3 creatures which are all in the same deck. You can call 4x Hierarch, 4x DRS, 4x mix of Leo/TNN whatever you want, but it's TurboTNN - it's a fairly mindless strategy, it shouldn't win games, but it does. There are a number of decks like that revolving around SCM (Czech Pile), SFM (UWx Blade), or BBE/Shardless - they all pretty much play like the same deck (obviously Jund isn't blue), just piles of good cards augmented by good creatures (and you can up that count with Baleful Strix in most of them).

The solution to decks like those are getting pinched by Delver while simultaneously getting hammered by combo, rather than trying to ban a mountain of good stuff cards. I would guess that Portent miracles is also beginning to do its part from the control side to limit the midrange soup. From the combo side I can tell you that banning Surgical, Leyline, RiP, and Cage would severely decrease play'ability of the three cards you want gone; but even then you're talking about an immediate ban on the Daze Angel (Chancellor). Legacy is actually in a pretty nice place right now, Decay isn't mandatory and I can't even remember the last time I had to face a Goyf since Push was printed. That silent prisoner exchange of Goyf/Decay for Leo/TNN/Push is one that DRS happened to fit into nicely on either side, so it gets played more - now what did happen there though was a definite upshift in DRS + blue, and focusing on that blue spike will make a more sound ban argument than these three creatures are "stupid [and] unfun."

[Barook]

After coming back and playing a bit I think Leovold, TNN, and DRS should all go away to banland. They're just honestly stupid, unfun cards.

Like, DRS basically nukes all non-dredge GY strats as a side effect of existing and being everywhere. TNN is the least interactive creature I've ever seen, and it's got relevant Tribal status to boot. Leovold is just pushed too hard.
Leovold would be less of an issue if it couldn't ride on DRS' perfect mana wave. But that's not the B&R thread.

The whole thing stinks, but it's going to backfire eventually. Just because they handpick their data now doesn't mean that metagame can't stink. Players still vote with their wallet and if the metagame is perceived as "unfun", they'll stop spending. The playerbase in general should use its power more often because if all the recent changes have shown anything, then it's that we got WotC by the balls.

[twndomn]

After coming back and playing a bit I think Leovold, TNN, and DRS should all go away to banland. They're just honestly stupid, unfun cards.

Like, DRS basically nukes all non-dredge GY strats as a side effect of existing and being everywhere. TNN is the least interactive creature I've ever seen, and it's got relevant Tribal status to boot. Leovold is just pushed too hard.

Fun and stupid are subjective.

At this point in time, a better question is: assuming you don't want to do anything broken and combo, you need to justify as to why you Don't run DRS and TNN. These 2 cards are the epitome of being fair, but their cumulative effect over several turns is just game winning. The only reason that would stop you from running these 2 cards while being a fair deck is because you run Terminus/Supreme Verdict, that's about it. You can make a case for Burn, but that's rather blurry.

[morgan_coke]

Leovold would be less of an issue if it couldn't ride on DRS' perfect mana wave. But that's not the B&R thread.

The whole thing stinks, but it's going to backfire eventually. Just because they handpick their data now doesn't mean that metagame can't stink. Players still vote with their wallet and if the metagame is perceived as "unfun", they'll stop spending. The playerbase in general should use its power more often because if all the recent changes have shown anything, then it's that we got WotC by the balls.

You're right. I guess what I was getting at is I strongly dislike the importation of "battlecruiser magic" into Legacy. And apparently they decided to force the issue by printing just blatantly broken stuff like Leovold and TNN as "Legacy Only".

[morgan_coke]

Fun and stupid are subjective.

At this point in time, a better question is: assuming you don't want to do anything broken and combo, you need to justify as to why you Don't run DRS and TNN. These 2 cards are the epitome of being fair, but their cumulative effect over several turns is just game winning. The only reason that would stop you from running these 2 cards while being a fair deck is because you run Terminus/Supreme Verdict, that's about it. You can make a case for Burn, but that's rather blurry.

I'd also agree with this, and I hate it just as much as when you need to play Brainstorm to be competitive. They need to adopt a "Pillars" approach to Legacy, and make some stuff besides just the blue shell + broken duders truly competitive.

And no, blue shell + even moar cantrips and terminus doesn't really count, lol.

[menace13]

This was originally brought up in the Community MTGO thread when the change happened, but interesting article about the impacts of Wizards further restricting the MTGO Daily data.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/wizards-data-insanity


WotC: "We don't know how to balance formats, so in an effort to make it appear better; we are limiting the information available from everywhere. Thx in advance."

[rufus]

WotC: "We don't know how to balance formats, so in an effort to make it appear better; we are limiting the information available from everywhere. Thx in advance."

We can't work things out with R&D so we'll use obfuscation instead.

[Gheizen64]

I'd also agree with this, and I hate it just as much as when you need to play Brainstorm to be competitive. They need to adopt a "Pillars" approach to Legacy, and make some stuff besides just the blue shell + broken duders truly competitive.

And no, blue shell + even moar cantrips and terminus doesn't really count, lol.

Countertop + miracles was so extremely different in gameplay from 4c play every good card though (lots of basics, slow clock, no wastes etc...). And it would've been even more if they had banned BS, as miracle would've went for the portent+ponder suite, 4c goodstuffs would've probably adopted thought scour/opt alongside Storm (to fuel delve/drs/threshold/spell mastery/PiF), SnT would've outright died or be forced to play garbage like See Beyond. Ponder would have become the best cantrip in the format, but not being able to draw 3 /reshuffle and dodge discard would've gone a long way.

Alternatively, make BS a pillar, but give us another pillar cards. But nooo, SotF is too good cause it give consistency to 30+ creature decks that aren't elves. Recruiter would make goblins semi-viable! The horror! And even then, BS is so low investment and fit everywhere that i argue it shouldn't really be a pillar.

[Final Fortune]

I agree SOTF and Skullclamp would do a lot to discourage the aggro-control and control meta that we've defaulted to, it'd be great to see Affinity and Survival toolbox again and make control decks have to use a more pro-active game plan and aggro-control use more than spot removal.

[Megadeus]

Countertop + miracles was so extremely different in gameplay from 4c play every good card though (lots of basics, slow clock, no wastes etc...). And it would've been even more if they had banned BS, as miracle would've went for the portent+ponder suite, 4c goodstuffs would've probably adopted thought scour/opt alongside Storm (to fuel delve/drs/threshold/spell mastery/PiF), SnT would've outright died or be forced to play garbage like See Beyond. Ponder would have become the best cantrip in the format, but not being able to draw 3 /reshuffle and dodge discard would've gone a long way.

Alternatively, make BS a pillar, but give us another pillar cards. But nooo, SotF is too good cause it give consistency to 30+ creature decks that aren't elves. Recruiter would make goblins semi-viable! The horror! And even then, BS is so low investment and fit everywhere that i argue it shouldn't really be a pillar.

If you decided to do "pillars" in legacy, there would be 2 pillar. Brainstorm or Chalice. One of these is much better than the other.

[H]

If you decided to do "pillars" in legacy, there would be 2 pillar. Brainstorm or Chalice. One of these is much better than the other.

Pillars don't really work in Legacy because the power level is (mostly) too (relatively) homogeneous.

Sure, most decks might play Brainstorm or Chalice, but plenty play neither and are solidly tier 1, or 1.5.

Examples such as Elves (Cradle), Death and Taxes (Vial), Maverick (Green Sun?), Jund (???), and so on.

[Julian23]

When you think of "pillars" you think of strategy, not tactics. Otherwise Black Lotus would be a pillar of Vintage.

If I had to come up with a list of the pillars of Legacy, it would probably be something like:

- Delver of Secrets
- Chalice of the Void, even though Ancient Tomb would also be a good choice
- Dark Ritual
- Stoneforge Mystic
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor

You could also make a case for Abrupt Decay, but that card crosses over into too many different types of decks and doesn't have really have enough strategic depths to be a pillar. DRS represents both tempo as well as midrange strategies and as such is also not a very good choice as a pillar of the format.

Edit: Show and Tell is another option, but the card/decks feels a bit too niche for me to consider it a pillar.

[Fox]

Sure, most decks might play Brainstorm or Chalice, but plenty play neither and are solidly tier 1, or 1.5.
Examples such as Elves (Cradle), Death and Taxes (Vial), Maverick (Green Sun?), Jund (???), and so on.

Maybe there has been a time where Maverick or Jund were actually good, but I don't think either of them should ever be confused with a tier 1-1.5 deck. How tiers are evaluated is subjective, but for me Jund and Maverick are tier 2 - i.e. strong enough interactions to compete in legacy, but "bad" decks which lose due to internal inconsistencies. If you're looking for a GB non-Bstorm deck to add to the list of DnT & Elves, then AggroLoam is probably the best bet (but this deck is even more wildly inconsistent, it does however cheese wins with Chalice). Next best tier 1-1.5 candidates are R/G Lands and B/R Reanimator.

Edit: guess you can't add AggroLoam due to Chalice.

[CptHaddock]

Is dark ritual really a pillar of the format currently? I'd say that Griselbrand is more of a pillar right now than ritual is.

[Lemnear]

I don't think that Delver and Ritual really are different "pillars" as all the decks playing those evolve around fetchlands, Brainstorm and Ponder, (and depending on your cynical level) with the main difference being the type/Timing for the killoption chosen.

If I had to pick "pillars" for representing fundamental different bases of decks in Legacy:

- Fetchlands (optimizing mana/cards)
- Chalice of the Void (messing with opponents cards)
- Blood Moon (messing with opponents mana)

[morgan_coke]

If you decided to do "pillars" in legacy, there would be 2 pillar. Brainstorm or Chalice. One of these is much better than the other.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Right now there are two Pillars in Legacy. You're playing Chalice/Ancient Tomb + stuff, or you're playing Brainstorm/Ponder + stuff, or you're playing a subpar deck. That even applies to combo decks now.

There are other "almost there" pillars, like Aether Vial, but the restriction of stack interaction and filtering to blue and the death of goblins due to ever more powerful creatures and mana cheats means that they'll never actually get there.

SDT was actually the closest they ever came to giving other colors Brainstorm levels of deck manipulation, but it turns out the best shell to run it in was the BS/Ponder one, so it only made the problem worse instead of solving it. And they're so terrified of making another Top style mistake they won't print anything similar again or in other colors. It's not like they couldn't use Scry or similar or just make some more Mirri's Guile/Sylvan Library type cards. They tried a little with Oath of Nissa, but only getting 3 card types was just a bit too limiting. Replace "Creature, Land, or Planeswalker" with "Permanents" and it would have made it there. I guess Ancient Stirrings and Traverse the Ulvenwald are also kinda close, but only in very limited decks.

I mean, try giving black a "look at the top 8 cards of your library and put one into your hand" sorcery for 1 or 2 and call it Demonic Study Aide or something. Give white Preordain. Faithless Looting was a great first step for Red, let's see more in that direction.

And let's be honest here, Chalice is only a "Pillar" because it shuts down Brainstorm.

EDIT: what I'm saying is I wish they'd look at the format like this and realize we need to either get rid of BS or just add a third and fourth Pillar.
EDIT2: and that's really hard to do, because even stuff like Survival, which could hit Pillar status.. is best in a BS/Ponder shell.

[Bryant Cook]

At least to me, I think you can break down the three major pillars down to their most fundamental levels:

• Nimble Mongoose - Nimble Mongoose represents the blue tempo decks, formerly represented by Delver of Secrets. These decks act as the "fun police" of the format.
• Hive Mind - Degenerate dirtbags who don't care about Chalice of the Void on one, but still like to play powerful things.
• Didgeridoo - People who like to do awesome things, like cheat creatures into play or other unsettling things on the first turn.

[Crimhead]

At this point in time, a better question is: assuming you don't want to do anything broken and combo, you need to justify as to why you Don't run DRS and TNN.

Are you saying D&T is a sub-par deck choice? UR Prowess? Infect?



And no, blue shell + even moar cantrips and terminus doesn't really count, lol.
But Miracles is nothing like the good-stuff "Battle Cruiser" TNN/Leotard lists. :confused:



If I had to pick "pillars" for representing fundamental different bases of decks in Legacy:

- Fetchlands (optimizing mana/cards)
- Chalice of the Void (messing with opponents cards)
- Blood Moon (messing with opponents mana)

I though the idea of "pillars" in Vintage was that decks will be built around one but not play the others. Fetchlands are played in all sorts of decks, so they are not a good candidate.

I don't play Vintage myself, but I'm told the old pillars are breaking down a little bit.

[Dice_Box]

It is my honest opinion that the only really "Untouchable" cards in Legacy (So True Pillars in the old adage) are Force, Fetchs and Duals. Everything else is secondary to those cards. But if I was asked to look at the fabric of which the current format is sewn into it would be this:

Force
Tutors (NO, GSZ, Infernal, Gamble, Rotation)
Tomb (Chalice fits here)
Xerox (Brainstorm and Ponder)
Spell Mana (Ritual, Petal, LED)
Waste (Port, Stifle)

This I feel more or less covers everything. Vial likely held a place in there too once, but I personally feel Vial's stock in Legacy has fallen over the last few years. Fish is fading and Goblins is gone leaving DnT as its only real home now.


I don't play Vintage myself, but I'm told the old pillars are breaking down a little bit.
Not so much that as time has moved on. Drain is not even a staple any more and the idea anyone would seek to restrict Ritual is more amusing than actually a true thought. This leaves Rod, Shop and Bazaar, all of which I feel are more powerful now than they were when the idea was first suggested.

[Fox]

Plenty of pillars out there, but the main card determining what can and can't happen in legacy right now is G. Probe (Grixis Delver, ANT, SnT) more than any other card. Right now I count 3-4 G. Probe decks as DTB (depending on the builds of SnT and Grixis).

[Lemnear]

I though the idea of "pillars" in Vintage was that decks will be built around one but not play the others. Fetchlands are played in all sorts of decks, so they are not a good candidate.

How often do the classic fetchlands+cantrip decks play Chalice or Bloodmoon vice versa? If you play Ancient Tomb + Chalice, you most likely do not play your own cantrip shell. That's what I was trying to highlight.

For the "pillar" discussion, I don't think it makes much of a difference if your cantrip+Fetchlands shell kills with Rituals+Tendrils, S&T+Griselbrand or Delver+DRS

[Cire]

For the "pillar" discussion, I don't think it makes much of a difference if your cantrip+Fetchlands shell kills with Rituals+Tendrils, S&T+Griselbrand or Delver+DRS

Going all the way - it seems like:

Cantrip/Fetch Shell (S&T, Storm, Delver, Grixis, Reanimator)
Ancient Tomb Decks (Chalice, Moon Decks, Eldrazi, Various Stompy type builds)
Other (D&T, Elves, Dredge, Lands)

When people complain about format staleness - what they really want is more of "other" decks, but designing for other is hard. You need to come up with cards that can't just be used in the Cantrip Shell OR in the Ancient Tomb shell. The successful "other" decks are extremely idiosyncratic and unique.

[Lemnear]

Going all the way - it seems like:

Cantrip/Fetch Shell (S&T, Storm, Delver, Grixis, Reanimator)
Ancient Tomb Decks (Chalice, Moon Decks, Eldrazi, Various Stompy type builds)
Other (D&T, Elves, Dredge, Lands)

When people complain about format staleness - what they really want is more of "other" decks, but designing for other is hard. You need to come up with cards that can't just be used in the Cantrip Shell OR in the Ancient Tomb shell. The successful "other" decks are extremely idiosyncratic and unique.

I am totally with you here. I am all for powerful cards which don't slip easily into the colorless ramp or Fetchland shells. Unfortunately, we are at a point where WotC has to come up with very artificial Restrictions to prevent new cards to be simply absorbed by the 3c/4c goodstuff.decs. From SFM to Tombstalker to Decay, we have seen countless examples of that happened still

[tescrin]

Leyline, RiP, Cage, Priest, and others of that ilk simply exist to create non-games of magic. The non-game problem is especially apparent in the entire modern format, where the name of the game is to side in "you can't ever win" standalone cards.

If we're fair though, these cards create non-games against one-trick pony non-game decks. Why does Priest shut down Sneakshow? Because it's so heavily focused on doing one thing well (which is good deck design.) Why does Chalice shut down Delver? Because it does one thing well. We can go on.

These decks are weak to a hate card because they are utterly optimized for a single style of interaction. People, like myself, who like midrange like the resilience and versatility of Dudes + Disruption being bigger, but suffer from Jack of all Trades. Storm and other combos instead eat people alive who aren't ready, and die a horrible death to a single card half the time.

The idea that the Non-Game of "Ritual x3, Tutor, Pif, Tutor, kill you" on T2 is any different from the non-game of "Canonist, go" is artificial. The non-game of S&T "Lol I win" isn't much different from the non-game of "CPriest eot" except that the latter in each case is a weaker strategy that requires a bunch of supporting cards to not still lose. The idea that the non-game of Dredge where basically no decks win G1 isn't a balancing factor to the fact that it still usually loses G2 and G3 is because it's a one-trick pony.

Competitive magic designs one-trick ponies because they are very efficient, but not versatile. This is why non-games occur. Competitive play is usually based on hyper-efficiency of redundant pieces rather than the mixed strategy approach, because decks/lists you should be favored against can beat you when you draw the "wrong half" of your list. And going back to Midrange decks, this is exactly why they don't always perform well. They are jack of all trades who are often specialized only for a couple MUs, and generally alright against the myriad of others.

[morgan_coke]

Tescrin:

If we're just going to have all the games decided by matchups, it's simply a disguised series of coinflips. And that's no fun for anyone.

[Purple Blood]

When you think of "pillars" you think of strategy, not tactics. Otherwise Black Lotus would be a pillar of Vintage.

If I had to come up with a list of the pillars of Legacy, it would probably be something like:

- Delver of Secrets
- Chalice of the Void, even though Ancient Tomb would also be a good choice
- Dark Ritual
- Stoneforge Mystic
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor

You could also make a case for Abrupt Decay, but that card crosses over into too many different types of decks and doesn't have really have enough strategic depths to be a pillar. DRS represents both tempo as well as midrange strategies and as such is also not a very good choice as a pillar of the format.

Edit: Show and Tell is another option, but the card/decks feels a bit too niche for me to consider it a pillar.

Interesting that you say Lotus isn't a pillar of Vintage but that Ritual and Tomb are pillars in Legacy. Curious on what distinction you're making here.


Yeah, that's what I meant. Right now there are two Pillars in Legacy. You're playing Chalice/Ancient Tomb + stuff, or you're playing Brainstorm/Ponder + stuff, or you're playing a subpar deck. That even applies to combo decks now.

There are other "almost there" pillars, like Aether Vial, but the restriction of stack interaction and filtering to blue and the death of goblins due to ever more powerful creatures and mana cheats means that they'll never actually get there.

SDT was actually the closest they ever came to giving other colors Brainstorm levels of deck manipulation, but it turns out the best shell to run it in was the BS/Ponder one, so it only made the problem worse instead of solving it. And they're so terrified of making another Top style mistake they won't print anything similar again or in other colors. It's not like they couldn't use Scry or similar or just make some more Mirri's Guile/Sylvan Library type cards. They tried a little with Oath of Nissa, but only getting 3 card types was just a bit too limiting. Replace "Creature, Land, or Planeswalker" with "Permanents" and it would have made it there. I guess Ancient Stirrings and Traverse the Ulvenwald are also kinda close, but only in very limited decks.

I mean, try giving black a "look at the top 8 cards of your library and put one into your hand" sorcery for 1 or 2 and call it Demonic Study Aide or something. Give white Preordain. Faithless Looting was a great first step for Red, let's see more in that direction.

And let's be honest here, Chalice is only a "Pillar" because it shuts down Brainstorm.

EDIT: what I'm saying is I wish they'd look at the format like this and realize we need to either get rid of BS or just add a third and fourth Pillar.
EDIT2: and that's really hard to do, because even stuff like Survival, which could hit Pillar status.. is best in a BS/Ponder shell.

It seems like the real problem is that no other color has the ability to make things run as consistently as BS/Ponder does in blue. I think the answer is a little more creativity on card creation instead of trying to give every color (or a colorless) brainstorm. I don't think it would be that hard..

Leovold should have been a white card. If it was the you would have it pretty simple: blue and green already have filtering and tutor-ish effects which you discussed above; white should be the color that turns filtering/drawing off e.g. white Leovold; black is pay life for more cards so less filtering more raw card availability; red gets Faithless Looting but they could also print a card using the Eidolon of the Great Revel design space. RR 2/2 "If a player would draw a card except the first one he or she draws in his or her draw step each turn, Eidolon of the Great Revel deals 2 damage to that player instead."

A world with that Eidolon and a white Leovold might actually see a Boros deck compete with the blue shell in legacy. The format could theoretically become way more diverse if there were another color that could compete directly against the generic blue shell. It would have to be something that hates on those cards otherwise you will just get decks combining both.

[morgan_coke]

Interesting that you say Lotus isn't a pillar of Vintage but that Ritual and Tomb are pillars in Legacy. Curious on what distinction you're making here.



It seems like the real problem is that no other color has the ability to make things run as consistently as BS/Ponder does in blue. I think the answer is a little more creativity on card creation instead of trying to give every color (or a colorless) brainstorm. I don't think it would be that hard..

Leovold should have been a white card. If it was the you would have it pretty simple: blue and green already have filtering and tutor-ish effects which you discussed above; white should be the color that turns filtering/drawing off e.g. white Leovold; black is pay life for more cards so less filtering more raw card availability; red gets Faithless Looting but they could also print a card using the Eidolon of the Great Revel design space. RR 2/2 "If a player would draw a card except the first one he or she draws in his or her draw step each turn, Eidolon of the Great Revel deals 2 damage to that player instead."

A world with that Eidolon and a white Leovold might actually see a Boros deck compete with the blue shell in legacy. The format could theoretically become way more diverse if there were another color that could compete directly against the generic blue shell. It would have to be something that hates on those cards otherwise you will just get decks combining both.

Spirit of the Labyrinth
Chains of Mephistopheles
Fate Unraveler
Kambal, Consul of Allocation

That's white/black, but it's been done. Doesn't really work, though the costs may simply be too high. Really anything after T1, maybe T2 isn't going to have the kind of effect you want because by that time they've already used a few cantrips.

[mistercakes]

Should Leovold have been white?

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3549

[Crimhead]

How often do the classic fetchlands+cantrip decks play Chalice or Bloodmoon vice versa? If you play Ancient Tomb + Chalice, you most likely do not play your own cantrip shell. That's what I was trying to highlight.

I agree that cantrips don't play nicely with CotV. But I was talking specifically about fetchlands. Aggro Loam is probably the best CotV deck in the format, and it would suck without fetchlands. Lands I would not characterise as a "Chalice deck", but it certainly leans on the card a bit is certain post board situations.


If we're just going to have all the games decided by matchups, it's simply a disguised series of coinflips. And that's no fun for anyone.That's a bit extreme, don't you think? I think feel like most matches fall between 50:50 and 65:35.

Legacy meta-gaming and deck positioning is heavily rooted in match-ups, but they are not the be all and end all. Matches and games are by no means "decided" by pairing before hands are even drawn and kept.

[Gheizen64]

Going all the way - it seems like:

Cantrip/Fetch Shell (S&T, Storm, Delver, Grixis, Reanimator)
Ancient Tomb Decks (Chalice, Moon Decks, Eldrazi, Various Stompy type builds)
Other (D&T, Elves, Dredge, Lands)

When people complain about format staleness - what they really want is more of "other" decks, but designing for other is hard. You need to come up with cards that can't just be used in the Cantrip Shell OR in the Ancient Tomb shell. The successful "other" decks are extremely idiosyncratic and unique.

Tomb decks don't really have the numbers to merit a different category from Other imho. It's basically all cantrip cartel, with elves/D&T as the next most played deck i believe at 4%? Tomb is way below that, and even in the full Eldrazi winter i believe they hovered around 10% at most.

Ah and btw WotC decision to restrict decklist is such garbage tier concern whine.

[Cire]

Tomb decks don't really have the numbers to merit a different category from Other imho. It's basically all cantrip cartel, with elves/D&T as the next most played deck i believe at 4%? Tomb is way below that, and even in the full Eldrazi winter i believe they hovered around 10% at most.


Ah yeah, of course, the categories aren't equal. Far from it. The Cantrip/Fetch shell would be almost the entire game, the rest will be "Other" and Tomb shell is the rest. The point was that's generally how decks are built in legacy.

Step 1: Choose your kill
Step 2: Does your kill fit in Cantrip/Fetch Shell, if yes go to Step 3A, if not go to Step 3B
Step 3A: Fill in the remaining spots of your deck with either more threats and/or more protection
Step 3B: Does your kill fit in Tomb Shell, if yes go to Step 4A, if not go to Step 4B
Step 4A: Fill in the remaining spots of your deck with either more threats and/or more protection
Step 4B: Your kill apparently requires a strategy that CANNOT fit into a Cantrip/Fetch Shell OR a Tomb Shell, Fill in the remaining spots of your deck with either more threats and/or more protection.

My point is that is the general ORDER of deck building in legacy. If you CAN run Cantrip/Fetch you do, if not, if you CAN run Tomb you do, if not, you're playing an idiosyncratic deck which is completely unlike ANY other deck in legacy. Look at the decks that are "Other" - Enchantress, elves, dredge, D&T, lands, pox, etc - they might have similar strategies to other decks but they look and run cards completely different than any other deck other than themselves. That is not to say they are a smaller percentage of decks than tomb decks, they are not, but generally when a new card presents itself people first try to stick it into a Cantrip/Fetch shell then they think of putting it into a stompy or some chalice type deck and only then if it doesn't work do they think of whether it deserves a completely different set of cards around it.

[Mr Miagi]

Should Leovold have been white?

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3549

He definetly shouldn't be blue.. :rolleyes:

[CptHaddock]

He definetly shouldn't be blue.. :rolleyes:

I don't really understand why he is green either other than him being an elf. I think the last time this topic came around someone pointed out that if he had been any other colors he would have messed with the legendary creature cycle that they had in conspiracy 2.

[Megadeus]

My problem with his is his one sided chains ability. Like at least there would be some sort of downside to playing him in a blue deck with 8+ cantrips if he were like all the other chains variants. Cards with actual downside or restrictions to deck building to get a powerful effect make for interesting deck building decisions. When it's one sided it's just incredibly lame

[Fox]

The idea that the Non-Game of "Ritual x3, Tutor, Pif, Tutor, kill you" on T2 is any different from the non-game of "Canonist, go" is artificial. The non-game of S&T "Lol I win" isn't much different from the non-game of "CPriest eot" except that the latter in each case is a weaker strategy that requires a bunch of supporting cards to not still lose. The idea that the non-game of Dredge where basically no decks win G1 isn't a balancing factor to the fact that it still usually loses G2 and G3 is because it's a one-trick pony.

I don't know that I really buy that assessment. In both cases the former requires multiple different pieces to win where the hatebear deck taps 2 lands and deploys a one-card combo that needs zero support to win a game (b/c it says opponent can't win in such and such manner and will take 2 per turn). I get that a fair deck has the most terrible feeling losses if their opponent goes SnT -> Omni -> Emmy (could also be SnT->Grisel), but that's always going to be harder to assemble than "I tapped for 2 mana and they couldn't win b/c I played a single card." Every deck in legacy has to have the right supporting cards, but hatebear decks are silver bullets...and it's always going to feel better to get locked out by a deck with deliberate proactive design which assembles a multi-piece prison (specifically in a format where they don't get to have a playset of Workshops). The fact of the matter is a fair deck in legacy will never have to face a Leyline/1-drop/2-drop card that has text like: "creatures can only enter the battlefield from the graveyard" or "as long as there is only one spell on the stack, it is countered" - and even if they did have to face it, it probably wouldn't simultaneously put them on a 10 turn clock. This isn't really a fixable problem though, sadly the old days are gone and "you can't win like that" cards no longer have cumulative upkeep or other sustain text, nor do that have drawbacks. A deck like SnT is a one trick pony, but hatebear decks are merely a pile of different one trick ponies.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

Don't know where else to post this since it isn't really threadworthy yet but the August pro tour next year is team constructed so legacy pro tour lol.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/organized-play/2018s-pro-tours-and-2017s-worlds-2017-07-19

That's surprising but cool (as long as it isn't used to manage the format at all....). The commentary should be hilarious at least.

[CptHaddock]

Don't know where else to post this since it isn't really threadworthy yet but the August pro tour next year is team constructed so legacy pro tour lol.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/organized-play/2018s-pro-tours-and-2017s-worlds-2017-07-19

That's surprising but cool (as long as it isn't used to manage the format at all....). The commentary should be hilarious at least.

Oh nice, I hope this means that we'll see some bannings (eh on this) & unbannings (preferably) in the near future to promote Legacy as a format. I can hear the modern babies crying already seeing modern being back in the spotlight.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

To be fair to them this did not go well for modern last time haha. Kinda silly that there is no explanation for why modern is back on the schedule despite all the problems with it being exactly the same still.

[H]

To be fair to them this did not go well for modern last time haha. Kinda silly that there is no explanation for why modern is back on the schedule despite all the problems with it being exactly the same still.

Probably mostly PR. Standard is not at all popular right now and no one is excited about it at all. Modern, despite "having issues" is more popular than ever, from what I've seen of attendance figures.

[Dice_Box]

Well look on the bright side, if you have money spare you can start buying shit now with near on no risk. Yay.

[Lemnear]

I agree that cantrips don't play nicely with CotV. But I was talking specifically about fetchlands. Aggro Loam is probably the best CotV deck in the format, and it would suck without fetchlands. Lands I would not characterise as a "Chalice deck", but it certainly leans on the card a bit is certain post board situations.

In Vintage, FoW and Dark Ritual were listed seperately as pillars and still get played alongside more often than not.

Chalice is a SB card in Loam variants atm and merely are an anomaly like the deck itself is.

[CptHaddock]

In Vintage, FoW and Dark Ritual were listed seperately as pillars and still get played alongside more often than not.

Chalice is a SB card in Loam variants atm and merely are an anomaly like the deck itself is.

When was FoW a pillar? The 5 pillars as I remember them were Ritual, Shops, Bazaar, Drain and Null Rod.

[tescrin]

A) I don't know that I really buy that assessment. In both cases the former requires multiple different pieces to win where the hatebear deck taps 2 lands and deploys a one-card combo that needs zero support to win a game (b/c it says opponent can't win in such and such manner and will take 2 per turn).

B) I get that a fair deck has the most terrible feeling losses if their opponent goes SnT -> Omni -> Emmy (could also be SnT->Grisel), but that's always going to be harder to assemble than "I tapped for 2 mana and they couldn't win b/c I played a single card."

C) Every deck in legacy has to have the right supporting cards, but hatebear decks are silver bullets...and it's always going to feel better to get locked out by a deck with deliberate proactive design which assembles a multi-piece prison (specifically in a format where they don't get to have a playset of Workshops).

D) The fact of the matter is a fair deck in legacy will never have to face a Leyline/1-drop/2-drop card that has text like: "creatures can only enter the battlefield from the graveyard" or "as long as there is only one spell on the stack, it is countered" - and even if they did have to face it, it probably wouldn't simultaneously put them on a 10 turn clock.

A) Yes, tapping 3 mana and winning on the spot is still better than tapping 2 and maybe-eventually-winning. I think even if we math it out, you will more consistently have a 5-7 pieces Storm hand in a storm deck than a deck will have a Storm-Hatebear even if they run 4 copies. The idea that the "non-game" created here is bad, when the non-game of storm saying "Cabal therapy, I win" or S&T saying "lol Force your force I win" isn't really different.

B) as mentioned, given the redundancy and the reliabilty of Sneakshow/Storm/Elves, etc.. I disagree. Further, the decks in question don't lose to this. Sneakshow sides Omni and/or removal and/or Moons, Storm sides in removal or just goes off before you can cast it, Elves just kills you before you cast it if they can, but also side in removal (and can hard cast as well.)

C) The problem is you're saying "I mean sure the combo deck wins on the spot with its combo, but the fair deck should have to assemble 3-4 pieces in order to maybe-sort-of-lock the combo player. and still not win for it." That's asinine. If Grisel, Norn, Emmy, etc.. didn't exist, sure. I could see that, but we're in a combo age where the number of derpy 2-card combos that literally instant kill you (or cause an instant kill) or immediately lock you out of the game is just as bad. Saying "Iona go" on T1/T2 or "Omni, Emmy, take a turn, swing" is a non-game. Don't bullshit me that a deck that has a 20% chance to get a T2/T3 lock card that it also needs Force of Wills to get to, and counters to protect, is somehow better or some how more offensive then "most broken cards the game has ever printed, cheated into play T1/T2, in the most broken color, with counterspell and discard backup." Fuck off with that nonsense.

D) You're half right. Instead Defense Grid will shut them out of the game, or Moon will shut them out of the game, or a T1/T2 combo because they didn't draw they're 40% chance protection spell T1 means they lose.

Please realize that the Non-games that happen from derpy hatebears are to the combo player as the combo is to the midrange player. The combo is a derpy "ha you can't do anything about this because the cards that interact with this combo are bad/unplayed/not-likely to be in a keepable hand. I however am a uber-smart netdecker who has shown true skill in having an unanswerable wincon that happens before you've untapped a second time. Revel in my utter genius."

How is "you may eventually lose to this easily removable hate-piece that I will require counterspells/discard to protect and will have to do that for 10 turns" somehow better than "I can deploy a hate piece that locks your entire deck T1, which requires the same answer you use for my combo, which you have a 40% chance of having; and it's not enough to have that but you also need lock pieces or other counters because I'll kill you T3/T4 while you still have only red mana/can't counter my spells/etc.."

There is no logic here to defend this reasoning. The combo deck is in a better position; Full Stop. The Combo deck creates non-games; Full stop. The deck trying to durdle into T2 with a 15-20% chance of having a lock piece, assembling Discard/Counters to hopefully keep you from insta-gibbing them is a lot less of a non-game than you make it out to be. It's not often a 1-piece wonder; and it's far less non-gamey than the "you can't tap for mana, you can't counter my stuff, you die T3" deck.

What's more, the main reasons the lock pieces employed by combo aren't creatures isn't because those creatures don't exist, it's because they're far easier to kill. The lock pieces often used against combo, however, usually are dudes, and then the combo players who don't run any removal whatsoever whinge about a non-game that they didn't bring interaction for. Isn't that the combo player's exact defense of the combo? "You should've brought interaction?"


There is not a single iota of coherent reasoning for your position. Please do not respond unless you can answer that last paragraph; which if you can; is a logical contradiction. Even if you disagree with the mass rants above it, your position is a contradiction of "lol bring interaction for this card that instant-wins the game, protects itself, and has an entire deck built do do it efficiently. What!? I have to interact with your cards that take 10 turns to win the game that you have only a slim chance of having anyway?!"

[Fox]

The second to last paragraph doesn't really have anything to answer. Plenty of combos use creatures whether it's Emmy, Grisel, other reanimation targets, or even Marit Lage. The lock pieces are now wincons, where they formerly were not (i.e. Thorn -> 2/1 first strike or Arcane Lab -> 2/2, etc...) - most hatebear effects' original printing did not tap to attack, nor could they be cast via Cavern or cheated with Vial (these are engine cards). If the hatebear effect isn't slapped onto a wincon, you actually have to have multiple cards (just like any combo player has to have multiple cards) and even more attention to deck design because the humble beats wincon would actually get worse at winning each time it draws non-engine hate (again combos generally have to board anti-engine interaction). Hatebear and artifact/enchantment effect that preceded it are generally at parody with overall cmc, this is not true of creatures which mimic a combo instant/sorc/echantment effect. Reanimate costs 1/Doomed Necromancer types generally cost around 4, SnT costs 3/Elvish Piper effects around 5, PiF costs ~5/Magus of the Will costs 6 - what combo cards have creature versions with reasonable cost parody which aren't being used? I would argue that such creatures are used when reasonably costed (Hexmage, Hapless Researcher, Putrid Imp).

I know why fair decks have to resort to cards that cheese out wins all by themselves because they've chosen to abandon interaction on the stack - it's probably the only way they were going to win a game against combo, because cards aren't really designed over ~25 years with intent of having thought provoking, interactive magic between combo and creature-feature decks.

You're missing the original post though @tescrin, where a [presumably] fair deck player wants DRS/Leo/TNN all banned for [insert reasons]. Now I don't know what deck he/she was on, but this is a thing in legacy where all the hatebear users loathe TNN b/c it's uninteractive, and it's just kind of funny to hear the "it's too uninteractive" argument coming out of players who get wins off the back of Thalia/Ethersworn/C Priest and others. There has to be a realization at some point that hatebear decks are bringing the dreaded TNN fate down upon themselves b/c of some nonsense 0-2cmc spell that says combo (the kind that keeps TNN out of the format) can't win anymore.

Another example could be Sanctum Prelate. I assume that R/G Lands would generally demolish any K-Command deck, furthermore I assume K-Command + Snapcaster is generally really bad news for a hatebear deck. Maybe why R/G Lands isn't protecting you from that is b/c Prelate on x=2 (particularly when combined with RiP for Barb Ring and Revoker for Vortex) is understandably miserable to know you'll run into. I mean R&D won't even give them a non-yard dependent Ramunap Ruins that kills Prelate.

Hatebear decks don't give their cards enough credit for driving legacy towards a DRS+TNN format. It doesn't really matter side you come down on in the subjective debate about hatebears are uninteractive vs combo is uninteractive - just understand that some of the bullcrap "you can't win anymore" 1-card combos will correspond to losses to TNN. So my point is really that bans targeting stuff like Surgical/Cage/RiP/Leyline is a very good way to indirectly decrease TNN usage in the format. Losing to combo decks doesn't feel good (and SnT + fatty in hand is pretty mindless), but combo has its own way of shaping the metagame and it's not always harmful to hatebear decks to set it free a bit - look what effectively banning Counterbalance did for the format. I think there's something to be said for combo-side balance, but I would generally view B/R Reanimator as needing to go.

[Barook]

Probably mostly PR. Standard is not at all popular right now and no one is excited about it at all. Modern, despite "having issues" is more popular than ever, from what I've seen of attendance figures.
I'm pretty sure Modern is more popular than Standard right now, given tournament attentance numbers of paper tournaments. Standard and Modern are also on par on MTGO in terms of league attendance. Ignoring that would be pretty silly from a business point of view.

At least their response to that wasn't "People are playing something else than Standard? Blasphemy! Kill it all!" this time.

[morgan_coke]

I'm pretty sure Modern The Black Plague is more popular than Standard right now, given tournament attendance numbers of paper tournaments. Standard and Modern are also on par on MTGO in terms of league attendance. Ignoring that would be pretty silly from a business point of view.

At least their response to that wasn't "People are playing something else than Standard? Blasphemy! Kill it all!" this time.

Fixed.

[Barook]

The Black Plague is more popular than Standard right now
Pestilence buyout incoming!

[Barook]

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/6p8yoo/q2_hasbro_earning_report_magic_had_a_strong/

More info on Magic Digital Next on August 3rd.

[PirateKing]

Well Hasbro had such a strong Q2 that it's stock dropped 10% :|

[Barook]

MtG: Arena (https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/893173352474566657)

More info (https://twitter.com/MishrasFotoshop/status/893175444450750467)

"AAA" Game (like hell it's going to be, we're talking about WotC here) and mobile. Probably it's the HS clone we've seen earlier this year.

[MGB]

Whenever I see or hear "HasBRO" I have this mental image of a big jock who chugs beer at frat parties on the weekend.

[Lord Seth]

MtG: Arena (https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/893173352474566657)

More info (https://twitter.com/MishrasFotoshop/status/893175444450750467)

"AAA" Game (like hell it's going to be, we're talking about WotC here) and mobile. Probably it's the HS clone we've seen earlier this year.

Where does it say anything about being "AAA"? Maybe it's in the second link, but that link doesn't work.

[Dice_Box]

The second like was Mishra's photo shop pointing out that nowhere had Wizards said that Arena is to be a TCG.

[Barook]

https://www.twitch.tv/magic

Magic Arena reveal is going to start in a few minutes.

Edit: Looks like Hearthstone:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena

[apple713]

https://www.twitch.tv/magic

Magic Arena reveal is going to start in a few minutes.

Edit: Looks like Hearthstone:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena

MTG Arena seems interesting. I'm torn on whether or not i'll like it. They said they created this to be a form of magic that is more streamable but that seems like the wrong reason to create a game for such a narrow purpose. WOTC has MTGO with a PoS interface and now MTG Arena with a respectable interface. MTGArena will likely only be standard forward. It's also designed as a f2p game.

This seems strange to me because if they ever make previous expansions / cards there is going to be overlap with MTGO and MTGO is in desperate need of UI overhaul.

I hope that wotc doesn't waste resources on this game instead of fixing their old game.

One idea that crossed my mind is that they may be using MTGArena to test the waters on a new interface and see if they just jump full hog into a similar interface for MTGO. Probably the biggest design hurdle is the engine to drive turns and card interactions. They already had to build that for this game so it wouldn't be terribly difficult to replicate it for something like MTGO. From a business standpoint it seems weird to have the same game available in multiple digital formats.

[Megadeus]

They're probably trying to gain some of the streaming market online. I think they realize how buried they are by other games on stuff like twitch.

[Claymore]

So the MTG rules and deck building works the same way in MTGArena, it'll have the same release schedule, F2P, and it'll play limited/sealed/standard as well?

How is this not going to just blow MTGO out of the water?

[morgan_coke]

So the MTG rules and deck building works the same way in MTGArena, it'll have the same release schedule, F2P, and it'll play limited/sealed/standard as well?

How is this not going to just blow MTGO out of the water?

A lot of people have a lot of money invested in MTGO and they have no fucking clue how to unwind that even though they've realized that a F2P model a la Hearthstone - which they've now created in MTG Arena, is the way of the future.

So yeah, it will totally blow MTGO out of the water, because MTGO has sucked for pretty much it's entire lifespan, and they have no idea about what to do about all the money that people have invested in MTGO right now.

[Barook]

The new Un-set might sell like shit, but goddamn, these are some beautiful basic lands:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJO4a8yXUAAg1Nb.jpg:large

[morgan_coke]

The new Un-set might sell like shit, but goddamn, these are some beautiful basic lands:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJO4a8yXUAAg1Nb.jpg:large

Yeah, those are nice. I think the plains is either the expansion of or original art for a regular art size plains card.

[Barook]

Looks like an Energy ban for Standard is coming (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/play-design/block-monsters-and-how-we-avoid-them-2018-01-05)

While that isn't interesting for Legacy in particular, the design insight behind parasitic mechanics is rather disturbing:


Energy is a parasitic mechanic (a mechanic that only works with itself, doesn't need support from cards without the mechanic, and only exists in one set or block). The energy mechanic doesn't enhance your existing decks, but instead tells you to build a new deck using only energy cards. Most of the time, parasitic mechanics are healthy, because you still need support from other blocks. For example, mana bases and removal spells are usually not tied to a mechanic, so you'll have to go to other sets or blocks to fill out your deck.

Since when are parasitic mechanics healthy? Because I can't think of good examples. Even the name "parasitic" implies the exact opposite of that. And here I thought R&D finally learned that parasitic mechanics are cancerous. Guess we'll see more garbage in the future.

[Claymore]

Maybe it's a typo?

>Energy is a parasitic mechanic (a mechanic that only works with itself, doesn't need support from cards without the mechanic, and only exists in one set or block).

>Most of the time, parasitic mechanics are healthy, because you still need support from other blocks.

Two contradictory statements on what parasitic mechanics are and how they relate to other blocks. Replace it with "set mechanics" and the paragraph works.

[Dice_Box]

It's not contradictory, just poorly worded. These decks are based around a core of cards supported by other cards from external sets. The only way a deck like Goblin Bidding was as stable as it turned out to be is because 7th had City of Brass in it. An external card supporting an otherwise single block deck.

The suggestion is that even if a deck needs a set of highly specific cards to work (read Energy) it should still require some other support network, like lands or spells found in other blocks.

[wonderPreaux]

Looks like an Energy ban for Standard is coming (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/play-design/block-monsters-and-how-we-avoid-them-2018-01-05)

While that isn't interesting for Legacy in particular, the design insight behind parasitic mechanics is rather disturbing:



Since when are parasitic mechanics healthy? Because I can't think of good examples. Even the name "parasitic" implies the exact opposite of that. And here I thought R&D finally learned that parasitic mechanics are cancerous. Guess we'll see more garbage in the future.

Having read through the whole article, it seems like they have to bend over backwards to try and plan out these "parasitic" mechanics, with a failure consequence of a ruined standard and a success consequence of a... standard standard? What is even the point then? Are mechanics like energy really that novel to standard players, or is this just a scheme to have cards that are powerful in context of standard that won't make too many waves in Modern/Legacy? I get that if you push the envelope and just make more and more "directly" powerful/high utility cards, it can create some odd externalities for eternal formats (see Innistrad with SCM/Liliana), but this seems like a far way to go just to not have to test for eternal formats.

[rufus]

... Since when are parasitic mechanics healthy? ....

When they're weak or otherwise constrained. For example, having fetchlands (basic land types matter) in a set where the only lands with basic land types are basics is "parasitic" but likely to be healthy, and even in a fetch+nonbasic format, the ability to create mana bases supports a variety of decks.

It's a little disconcerting to see these design articles contain poor math.

[Phoenix Ignition]

My main problem with that article is the table at the end. What exactly does "Percent of Power" mean? Does that mean, "Percent of deck that can be created using (mostly/only) cards with a specific mechanic"? Percent of power sounds like they're trying to allocate the "total power" of the mechanic among two separate blocks, so the distribution should add up to 100%, which it does for the latter 2 categories.

I do think their view on "Parasitic" mechanics is wrong; it's totally fine to have a fully powered energy counter deck in Standard as long as it isn't the only strategy of powered cards. If they printed Lightning Bolt, you bet the energy decks would be running it. Same goes for their tribal/affinity references here, if you print something good enough those decks will run it (anyone else remember the first months of Tarmogoyf's domination? Goblins splashed green for it...). If they printed efficient or competitively costed board wipes merfolk would also never be that dominating. There are just heaps of bad cards and then the specific set mechanic that is being pushed for most of these cycles, which leads to format homogeneity.

The problem lies when they have such variance in how good the cards are in a set, such that no answer can be made to "barf out energy counters/siege rhinos/standard of the month," since not only did they never intend on energy counters being that good, they never intended on anything to be good enough to stop it.

[ronco]

I don't know if this is the place for this gripe, but they have commons in Rivals that were previously printed in... Ixalan. Did they just run out of ideas for those last few slots and say screw it, just reprint these? Hopefully there is an error on the wizards site but I doubt that from a spoiler standpoint.

Colossal dreadmaw
legion conquistador
raptor companion
sailor of means

They didn't even update the art!

[morgan_coke]

Man I'm glad I sold out of MTGO last month. I feel for whatever poor bastards get stuck with the bag when that all collapses.

[Lord Seth]

Looks like an Energy ban for Standard is coming (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/play-design/block-monsters-and-how-we-avoid-them-2018-01-05)Not sure about that. Admitting they messed up with something in Standard is different from banning it; they've admitted plenty of mess ups before without banning. I think they're probably going to just ride out energy until rotation; it's really only slightly more dominant than Monoblack Devotion was, really.


I don't know if this is the place for this gripe, but they have commons in Rivals that were previously printed in... Ixalan. Did they just run out of ideas for those last few slots and say screw it, just reprint these? Hopefully there is an error on the wizards site but I doubt that from a spoiler standpoint.

Colossal dreadmaw
legion conquistador
raptor companion
sailor of means

They didn't even update the art!It's probably a Limited thing, they want those cards to be as available in Ixalan/Rivals Limited as just Ixalan, as they're mostly the generic picks that sets generally have (the big beefy creature, the small aggro creature, the 3-mana 1/4 that has some random ability). Legion Conquistador is the only one that's particularly special, but it gets way worse if only 2/3 of your booster packs are from Ixalan.

[rufus]

...
It's probably a Limited thing, they want those cards to be as available in Ixalan/Rivals Limited as just Ixalan, as they're mostly the generic picks that sets generally have (the big beefy creature, the small aggro creature, the 3-mana 1/4 that has some random ability). Legion Conquistador is the only one that's particularly special, but it gets way worse if only 2/3 of your booster packs are from Ixalan.

It does speak to how their focus is increasingly on limited and draft.

[ParkerLewis]

My main problem with that article is the table at the end. What exactly does "Percent of Power" mean? Does that mean, "Percent of deck that can be created using (mostly/only) cards with a specific mechanic"? Percent of power sounds like they're trying to allocate the "total power" of the mechanic among two separate blocks, so the distribution should add up to 100%, which it does for the latter 2 categories.

I do think their view on "Parasitic" mechanics is wrong; it's totally fine to have a fully powered energy counter deck in Standard as long as it isn't the only strategy of powered cards. If they printed Lightning Bolt, you bet the energy decks would be running it. Same goes for their tribal/affinity references here, if you print something good enough those decks will run it (anyone else remember the first months of Tarmogoyf's domination? Goblins splashed green for it...). If they printed efficient or competitively costed board wipes merfolk would also never be that dominating. There are just heaps of bad cards and then the specific set mechanic that is being pushed for most of these cycles, which leads to format homogeneity.

The problem lies when they have such variance in how good the cards are in a set, such that no answer can be made to "barf out energy counters/siege rhinos/standard of the month," since not only did they never intend on energy counters being that good, they never intended on anything to be good enough to stop it.

While I pretty much agree on everything you said - including the fact that the "%" thing is quite clumsy and that yes, the main issue is not that they gave everything to the first set, but that they failed to correctly evaluate the mechanics' power in the first place (so the last part of the article does indeed seem completely ridiculous and wide off the mark) - there is still at least an advantage of better spreading new/risky mechanic over several sets : if it ever turns out to be dominant, at least it'll be so for a shorter period of time.

[twndomn]

First weekend on 2018 in which multiple large events involving Legacy:

MKM Frankfurt
http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/coverage-mkm-series-frankfurt-2018-legacy/

SCG Columbus Legacy Classic
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=3&start_date=2018-01-07&end_date=2018-01-07&event_ID=36&city=Columbus&state=OH&t_num=1&limit=16

MTGO Legacy Challenge
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/7p26fj/legacy_challenge_results_182017/

[Ronald Deuce]

The good news is that energy counters won't ever be a thing again, like snow mana, Tribal: the Card Type, Dredge, Storm, Allies (wait...), Dinosaurs, Goblins, Elves, The Monarch, artifact lands, free spells (WAIT...), or—

They're definitely taking "learning on the job" seriously. +1/+1 counters, Prowess, and hatebears don't offend anybody, right?

[EDIT: Also Bushido/Ninjutsu. And Wither. And playable mana rocks. And playable auras. And good tutors.]

[JackaBo]

First weekend on 2018 in which multiple large events involving Legacy:

MKM Frankfurt
http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/coverage-mkm-series-frankfurt-2018-legacy/

SCG Columbus Legacy Classic
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=3&start_date=2018-01-07&end_date=2018-01-07&event_ID=36&city=Columbus&state=OH&t_num=1&limit=16

MTGO Legacy Challenge
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/7p26fj/legacy_challenge_results_182017/

That's a healthy paper meta. Good to see!

[phonics]

The good news is that energy counters won't ever be a thing again, like snow mana, Tribal: the Card Type, Dredge, Storm, Allies (wait...), Dinosaurs, Goblins, Elves, The Monarch, artifact lands, free spells (WAIT...), or—

They're definitely taking "learning on the job" seriously. +1/+1 counters, Prowess, and hatebears don't offend anybody, right?

[EDIT: Also Bushido/Ninjutsu. And Wither. And playable mana rocks. And playable auras. And good tutors.]

Learning on the job 25 years into it, it feels like they learned that they dont know how to balance, so they have been reducing the scope of balancing over time to the point where they only balance now for limited and draft.

[Lemnear]

The good news is that energy counters won't ever be a thing again, like snow mana, Tribal: the Card Type, Dredge, Storm, Allies (wait...), Dinosaurs, Goblins, Elves, The Monarch, artifact lands, free spells (WAIT...), or—

They're definitely taking "learning on the job" seriously. +1/+1 counters, Prowess, and hatebears don't offend anybody, right?

[EDIT: Also Bushido/Ninjutsu. And Wither. And playable mana rocks. And playable auras. And good tutors.]

I like the salt in this post and also share the sentiment. As I recently said in a chat: I think I have been too long around to be excited for all the different kicker variants, combat step focus, inbreed design of sets, generic artwork and Jacetice League Superhero bullshit.

When MaRo announced that DOMINARIA will also be about the Gatewatch and prolly will follow the boring non-plot of Jace & Friends, something died within me

[Echelon]

I like the salt in this post and also share the sentiment. As I recently said in a chat: I think I have been too long around to be excited for all the different kicker variants, combat step focus, inbreed design of sets, generic artwork and Jacetice League Superhero bullshit.

When MaRo announced that DOMINARIA will also be about the Gatewatch and prolly will follow the boring non-plot of Jace & Friends, something died within me

Do cards have artwork..?

It's all just a blur to me. I run foils so I get to look at something shiny.

[Barook]

When MaRo announced that DOMINARIA will also be about the Gatewatch and prolly will follow the boring non-plot of Jace & Friends, something died within me
It is? Probably Liliana fled there after her battle with Bolas, given that it's her home plane. Hopefully they keep the Gatewatch bullshit at minimum.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DR53LLWWAAAFAGy.jpg:large

Karn, Jhoira and Teferi are coming back - although I have to question why Teferi looks like Eddie Murphy now. :really:

[morgan_coke]

I preferred it when he looked like Sam Jackson.

[Aggro_zombies]

I remember hearing something about Ajani being on Dominaria right now, putting together a team of planeswalkers with attitude to help back the Jacetice League up against Bolas. I think this set might be a sidebar to the main plot, to be honest. There's not really much for Lili on Dominaria, aside from her zombie brother - if she's going to go anywhere, it's Innistrad, since that's kind of her dedicated hideout.

[Barook]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/organized-play/q1-2018-coverage-eternal-weekends-and-more-2018-01-11

A good chunk of those playmats look like total garbage. It's actually shocking how garbage the art/art direction has become.

[morgan_coke]

I think the art's gone to crap because it's so scripted now.

Veteran Bodyguard and Benalish Hero had the description: "Hero and Super-Hero, make one a girl." Like, that was it. So Schuler created two pieces of amazing art.

Now it's like a ten page description and includes reference pictures of the art/style guide. Nothing good will ever come out of that.

[KrzyMoose]

I think the art's gone to crap because it's so scripted now.

Veteran Bodyguard and Benalish Hero had the description: "Hero and Super-Hero, make one a girl." Like, that was it. So Schuler created two pieces of amazing art.

Now it's like a ten page description and includes reference pictures of the art/style guide. Nothing good will ever come out of that.

I was literally just talking with some friends about this very issue. My buddy asked if I wanted to go to the prerelease for the new set, and I was like "I have no idea, I haven't thought about it at all." So, I looked at some of the cards, and realized that Magic is basically dead to me for two reasons:

1. The art is no longer imaginative, evocative, interesting, etc.

2. Magic cards don't look like Magic cards anymore.

It all looks so digital. We're supposed to be in this world of fantasy and magic, and yet the game looks like it was made on a computer.

[jandax]

One thing they can't screw up is that feeling and smell of cracking packs.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Barook]

The very restrictive limitation for the artist (and WotC's rather shitty pay - cheap bastards) are some of the main reasons why many former staple artists of Mtg don't or just rarely work for WotC anymore. Digital art is also cheaper.

As for not looking like Magic cards, Google identifying freshly spoiled Amonkhet invocations as Yugioh cards takes the cake.

[Ronald Deuce]

One thing I will say in Wizards's favor is that the font they've been using post-M15 looks a lot better than the old new one. Wish they'd incorporate it into the text boxes or make it a bit more pronouncedly unique. Or both.

[Zombie]

I was literally just talking with some friends about this very issue. My buddy asked if I wanted to go to the prerelease for the new set, and I was like "I have no idea, I haven't thought about it at all." So, I looked at some of the cards, and realized that Magic is basically dead to me for two reasons:

1. The art is no longer imaginative, evocative, interesting, etc.

2. Magic cards don't look like Magic cards anymore.

It all looks so digital. We're supposed to be in this world of fantasy and magic, and yet the game looks like it was made on a computer.

Android: Netrunner literally has more organic-looking art than this supposedly fantasy card game.

[Aggro_zombies]

I think the art's gone to crap because it's so scripted now.

Veteran Bodyguard and Benalish Hero had the description: "Hero and Super-Hero, make one a girl." Like, that was it. So Schuler created two pieces of amazing art.

Now it's like a ten page description and includes reference pictures of the art/style guide. Nothing good will ever come out of that.
A bunch of classic artists were brought back for Time Spiral - Anson Maddocks, for example. While you can reasonably expect an artist's style to change and mature over the years, compare Fallen Ideal with something like Cyclopean Tomb or Breeding Pit.

They don't make cards like they used to. I still maintain that the Sue Ann Harkey era of art direction (roughly from Mirage through Tempest with 5th in as well) is hands-down the best era for Magic art.

[Dice_Box]

One thing they can't screw up is that feeling and smell of cracking packs.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk
Modern Masters 2.

[Aggro_zombies]

Modern Masters 2.
What, are you saying you didn't like your expensive mythic rare reprint being LP right out of the pack?

[raudo]

We are just becoming old, lads. Old people never like changes. Let the next generation come and let us become the moanig oldies with our pimped legacy and 93/94 decks.

[morgan_coke]

I'm not OLD!!

I'm just saying, one of my neighbors let his yard get overrun by dandelions this summer, and I kinda want to off him and his whole family. I feel like no court would convict when presented with the evidence of how it was damaging my yard too.

[Crimhead]

I'm not OLD!!

I'm just saying, one of my neighbors let his yard get overrun by dandelions this summer, and I kinda want to off him and his whole family. I feel like no court would convict when presented with the evidence of how it was damaging my yard too.
The leaves are actually very tasty if you get them young. Steamed, or fresh in a salad.

Roots are edible too, but I've never tried them. I hear they make good wine.

I'm old, but at least I'm an old hippie. :wink:

[Lord Seth]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/organized-play/q1-2018-coverage-eternal-weekends-and-more-2018-01-11

A good chunk of those playmats look like total garbage. It's actually shocking how garbage the art/art direction has become.I was expecting to look at them and think "oh, it's just people complaining because things are different." Then I actually did look and... yeah, pretty mediocre. These probably look okay when shrunk down on a card but when blown up they're much worse.

It's kinda weird that Force of Will is probably the TCG with the best art right now. Yeah, I can see why the anime style might rub some people the wrong way and it can be too fanservice-y at times, but I think it's mostly pretty good and I actually really like the fact everything is full art (well, planeswalker-style full art).


I think the art's gone to crap because it's so scripted now.

Veteran Bodyguard and Benalish Hero had the description: "Hero and Super-Hero, make one a girl." Like, that was it. So Schuler created two pieces of amazing art.

Now it's like a ten page description and includes reference pictures of the art/style guide. Nothing good will ever come out of that.I find both of those arts you cited rather dull to look at, honestly. Not to say the current art doesn't have its issues, but I don't see Benalish Hero or Veteran Bodyguard as something to be nostalgic about.

I'm also dubious that being overly scripted is the issue. There was tons of great art I remember in Innistrad block (including my personal favorite art on an MTG card, Thalia Guardian of Thraben), and I believe the art was pretty scripted there too. It's more the general direction that seems to be a problem.

[rufus]

...
I find both of those arts you cited rather dull to look at, honestly. Not to say the current art doesn't have its issues, but I don't see Benalish Hero or Veteran Bodyguard as something to be nostalgic about.
...

Something to keep in mind is that the old art had a lot more stylistic variety. If only a fraction of the cards looked like oversaturated CGI, then it would probably be a pleasant thing to have a few cards that are flashier that way, but the phrase 'all ketchup, no fries' comes to mind when I look at RIX.

[l33twash0r]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-15-2018-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2018-01-15
Standard:

Attune with Aether is banned.

Rogue Refiner is banned.

Rampaging Ferocidon is banned.

Ramunap Ruins is banned.

So Standard is dead in my eyes. So many bans in last year.

[simdude]

So Standard is dead in my eyes. So many bans in last year.

I certainly do not understand how anyone could have even an iota of consumer confidence in standard given the last year.

[morgan_coke]

Ramunap and Energy aren't combined 40% of the meta, they're combined 70%+. But I guess you can get that down to just 40% if you only count Temur Energy, and not the other six decks that are the exact same but with black splashes, or BUG Energy.

[MaximumC]

So Standard is dead in my eyes. So many bans in last year.

Standard is always boring. When you see all these bans, that's a GOOD THING. Why? it means they're taking risks. They're printing powerful cards, not watered-down Theros garbage. Standard with lots of bans is good news for Eternal formats.

[JackaBo]

Standard is always boring. When you see all these bans, that's a GOOD THING. Why? it means they're taking risks. They're printing powerful cards, not watered-down Theros garbage. Standard with lots of bans is good news for Eternal formats.

True

[morgan_coke]

Standard is always boring. When you see all these bans, that's a GOOD THING. Why? it means they're taking risks. They're printing powerful cards, not watered-down Theros garbage. Standard with lots of bans is good news for Eternal formats.

Nah, they're just getting worse at designing sets and balancing cards. Which was the one single thing they used to have going for them.

[Barook]

Standard is always boring. When you see all these bans, that's a GOOD THING. Why? it means they're taking risks. They're printing powerful cards, not watered-down Theros garbage. Standard with lots of bans is good news for Eternal formats.
Oh yeah, look at all those cards that tear up Legacy! Oh wait. Out of all the banned Standard cards, it was only Smuggler's Copter that barely broke through (maybe Emrakul, the Promised End in 12 Post, too, but I haven't followed the deck). Felidar Guardian couldn't even do jackshit in Modern. Then we have cards like Reflector Mage, Rampaging Ferocidon and Ramunap Ruins which are just laughable compared to real heavy hitters like JMS ans SFM. And energy is just highly parasitic gargabe.

They weren't really taking risks here - they're just piss-poor at balancing their main constructed format now. The most exciting card that really shook up things in Eternal was Walking Ballista (Edit: I forgot about Fatal Push, but that's just another removal spell). Other than that, we had a new Chandra, Nissa, Vital Force and other cards like Abrade and Hazoret the Fervernt, but those are hardly game-changers. The last few sets have been pretty boring from an Eternal point of view.

This is worst possible outcome. We don't get new toys to play with while WotC is going to dial back the power level.

[ESG]

Nah, they're just getting worse at designing sets and balancing cards.

This is my take, too. It would have been very easy to print a few cards that involved removing energy, and yet they chose to make the mechanic something the other player couldn't interact with directly. It's unsurprising that bans were the eventual result. I hope this will be a good lesson.

[morgan_coke]

Nah, it's just a case of "we still haven't figured out that counterspells and viable land destruction are required elements of balance" striking yet again.

[Aggro_zombies]

To a certain degree? They've toned down counterplay across the board over the last few years. Some of this feels like they're really overdesigning sets based on trying to meet the demands of a pretty big body of market research and previous "lessons learned", which is pretty restrictive and also creates its own problems.

Take energy. Players complain when flagship mechanics don't show up in Standard (much like how people are complaining about tribal not being good enough now), so WotC pushes energy. They don't print interaction with it because they're worried that if they make interaction too strong, it will make players shy away from trying energy, and also force them to design cards that are way too parasitic outside of Kaladesh block - and that will make players complain too. Also, players don't like strong hosers printed in the same block as things they hose (see the outcry about Grafdigger's Cage when that was spoiled), and players don't like too many counters to the things they're doing because that can lead to frustrating games (see why all Wraths are five mana or conditional now).

The result is a monster that shoves everything else out of Standard and causes players to complain anyway.

The lesson here is to not listen to your players as much, because they don't know what they like and will complain about everything.

[Lord Seth]

Standard is always boring. When you see all these bans, that's a GOOD THING. Why? it means they're taking risks. They're printing powerful cards, not watered-down Theros garbage. Standard with lots of bans is good news for Eternal formats.Are you being sarcastic? Have you looked at the cards that got banned in Standard? They're garbage in Legacy. Their track record is a little better in Modern, but even there at best they're "okay" (Reflector Mage is probably the most notable of them) and some are essentially unplayable (basically everything banned in this announcement).

The bannings aren't a sign of them taking risks, they're a sign of them watering down the rest of Standard so that decks that normally wouldn't have been an issue are the best decks by far. There's been a lot more Legacy-calibur cards in the Standard blocks that didn't get bans, such as Innistrad or Return to Ravnica.

[Lord Seth]

Take energy. Players complain when flagship mechanics don't show up in Standard (much like how people are complaining about tribal not being good enough now), so WotC pushes energy. They don't print interaction with it because they're worried that if they make interaction too strong, it will make players shy away from trying energy, and also force them to design cards that are way too parasitic outside of Kaladesh block - and that will make players complain too. Also, players don't like strong hosers printed in the same block as things they hose (see the outcry about Grafdigger's Cage when that was spoiled), and players don't like too many counters to the things they're doing because that can lead to frustrating games (see why all Wraths are five mana or conditional now).Outcry over Grafdigger's Cage? There was barely any from what I can remember. There was some complaining about Cavern of Souls in this area but I think it would've been a lot less if not for Zac Hill's really stupid article that introduced the card.

Though even if there was outcry against Grafdigger's Cage, I don't think the problem is them not printing strong hosers in the same block as things they hose. It's them not even printing strong hoser cards in the next block. They don't put anti-graveyard cards in Shadow Over Innistrad block, okay. But then they didn't put any in Kaladesh block either, it took then until Amonkhet to print anything resembling playable graveyard hate. Similarly, no energy hate in Kaladesh block? Fine. But then in the subsequent blocks, the best we got is Solemnity, which is limited to White and is rather weak at what it does (if it either took away all energy counters when it entered the battlefield or cost less, I think it would have been more viable hate).

In regards to the sweepers, I actually did sort of like the change to 5 mana over 4 mana. The problem is that they didn't put anything on the 5-mana sweeper cards to warrant the extra mana, instead putting largely irrelevant extras. More relevant bonuses, even just a simple cantrip, would've gone a long way to making the 5 mana feel justified.

[Barook]

To a certain degree? They've toned down counterplay across the board over the last few years. Some of this feels like they're really overdesigning sets based on trying to meet the demands of a pretty big body of market research and previous "lessons learned", which is pretty restrictive and also creates its own problems.

Take energy. Players complain when flagship mechanics don't show up in Standard (much like how people are complaining about tribal not being good enough now), so WotC pushes energy. They don't print interaction with it because they're worried that if they make interaction too strong, it will make players shy away from trying energy, and also force them to design cards that are way too parasitic outside of Kaladesh block - and that will make players complain too. Also, players don't like strong hosers printed in the same block as things they hose (see the outcry about Grafdigger's Cage when that was spoiled), and players don't like too many counters to the things they're doing because that can lead to frustrating games (see why all Wraths are five mana or conditional now).

The result is a monster that shoves everything else out of Standard and causes players to complain anyway.

The lesson here is to not listen to your players as much, because they don't know what they like and will complain about everything.
But said players are also those who earn WotC their cash. It's easy to dismiss the general playerbase as idiots, but the playerbase as a whole is way smarter than a few guys on the design team, simply because they have more and smarter minds at hand that matter, even if it's just a few individuals. That's why the Felidar Guardian combo was figured out in an instant by the playerbase while R&D completely missed it.

The problem with Kaladesh block was that the sets after it also didn't contain hate for artifacts (aka vehicles) and especially not for energy. Not ruining the set's mechanincs in the same block is fine and has been at staple of Magic design for a long time, but not integrating any safety valves at all is asking for trouble. Amonkhet, for example, would have been a wonderful opportunity to make cards that remove counters from permanents or players to get boni, fitting with the -1/-1 theme of the block.

[Crimhead]

When you see all these bans, that's a GOOD THING. Why? it means they're taking risks.

You think Ramunap was born out of WotC taking a risk? The same people who said Desert was oppressive?



Nah, it's just a case of "we still haven't figured out that counterspells and viable land destruction are required elements of balance" striking yet again.
Bingo!


Are you being sarcastic? Have you looked at the cards that got banned in Standard? They're garbage in Legacy.
Looter Scooter has seen moderate success in Fish. Not exactly a bomb, but I wouldn't call it garbage either. Arguably it only needs the right shell.
Otherwise, yeah, the rest are pants.

[phonics]

The very restrictive limitation for the artist (and WotC's rather shitty pay - cheap bastards) are some of the main reasons why many former staple artists of Mtg don't or just rarely work for WotC anymore. Digital art is also cheaper.

As for not looking like Magic cards, Google identifying freshly spoiled Amonkhet invocations as Yugioh cards takes the cake.

Actually, WOTC pays artists pretty well from what I have heard, some of the best rates in fantasy illustration, on top of that it can be pretty lucrative if you do art for a recognizable card that people want artist proofs for (I think masterpiece artists were selling their proofs for like 200$+ ea and they get a stack of them from WOTC). The big difference now is that afaik the entire composition is pretty much dictated for most cards, which leaves very little room for the artists interpretation, though maybe some of the more popular artists like Terese Nielsen probably have more freedom. This combined with the shift from 'art' to 'illustration' since the early 2000s homogenizes the art style overall, which makes it seem more cohesive (which I assume WOTC wants) but at the same time a lot of the charm is lost. Pretty much the only artists with distinct style are hold overs from the previous era. With regards to the border designs, I think they hired someone specifically to work on them, which seems strange given how inconsistent the results have been (decent Kaladesh ones to Amonkhet's abomination).

[maharis]

Oh yeah, look at all those cards that tear up Legacy! Oh wait. Out of all the banned Standard cards, it was only Smuggler's Copter that barely broke through (maybe Emrakul, the Promised End in 12 Post, too, but I haven't followed the deck). Felidar Guardian couldn't even do jackshit in Modern. Then we have cards like Reflector Mage, Rampaging Ferocidon and Ramunap Ruins which are just laughable compared to real heavy hitters like JMS ans SFM. And energy is just highly parasitic gargabe.

They weren't really taking risks here - they're just piss-poor at balancing their main constructed format now. The most exciting card that really shook up things in Eternal was Walking Ballista (Edit: I forgot about Fatal Push, but that's just another removal spell). Other than that, we had a new Chandra, Nissa, Vital Force and other cards like Abrade and Hazoret the Fervernt, but those are hardly game-changers. The last few sets have been pretty boring from an Eternal point of view.

This is worst possible outcome. We don't get new toys to play with while WotC is going to dial back the power level.

The reason for this is that Legacy decks are all about efficiency, 0-1 effective CMC. There are very few conceivable cards left in that range that could be printed. Fatal Push closed one of the biggest gaps that was available (B removal at 1 cmc, and even it is still lower powered overall than Bolt or STP). In order for a card to break into Legacy, it has to compete with the most efficient spells in the history of the game and the power level there has been pretty much mined: Bolt, STP, Force, Brainstorm, DRS, Thoughtseize, Mother of Runes. Imagine a card in any of those cards' colors that competes on power level with that card.

For cards that cost more than 1 cmc, the bar is equally high. Compare a cool creature to TNN/Gurmag Angler, a planeswalker to JTMS, a reanimation target to Griselbrand, a combo mechanism to Show & Tell. Legacy is full of straight-up mistakes, but the format works because it is full of them and there are enough to go around. Joining the club, though, is incredibly difficult.

[Aggro_zombies]

I agree. I know this is a Legacy site, and "Bad Set for Legacy" = "Bad Set in the Abstract" is a pretty ingrained meme at this point, but the lack of Legacy-quality cards on the banned list has very little to do with issues of modern set design or set quality. Legacy is a format of mistakes, and it is very, very rare for a set to make multiple contributions to us - and the ones that do tend to stand out (like New Phyrexia).

[Dice_Box]

To me the current state of Legacy has more to do with DRS than anything in Standard.

[Lemnear]

Nah, it's just a case of "we still haven't figured out that counterspells and viable land destruction are required elements of balance" striking yet again.

I give them credit for pushing block mechanics like Energy to make them more than a gimmick, but the problem is that they don't print strong hate in the next block to create a cycle of introducing a mechanic, refining it and finally, hating it out.

On top of that there is still the core problem in Standard and modern, that answers cost at least as much as threats. The 3cc creatures they banned were just a problem because counterspells and removal often costs 3+ mana. Just look at the 5 mana sweepers, which are pathetic against 3-4cc creatures which do half of their job on EtB.

[Echelon]

To me the current state of Legacy has more to do with DRS than anything in Standard.

If DRS is a problem, so are Delver, Brainstorm and Ponder. Or fetchlands. Banning those would neuter DRS, Brainstorm and 3-4 colour monstrosities in general (i.e. kill the format as we know it) :laugh:.

[Dice_Box]

If DRS is a problem, so are Delver, Brainstorm and Ponder. Or fetchlands. Banning those would neuter DRS, Brainstorm and 3-4 colour monstrosities in general (i.e. kill the format as we know it) :laugh:.

I'm not saying the card is an banable problem (it is a problem though) I am just saying that next to DRS, Reflecter Mage looks quaint.

[Echelon]

I'm not saying the card is an banable problem (it is a problem though) I am just saying that next to DRS, Reflecter Mage looks quaint.

That I agree with :smile:

[Crimhead]

The reason for this is that Legacy decks are all about efficiency, 0-1 effective CMC. There are very few conceivable cards left in that range that could be printed.
But when was the last time a card got banned from Standard that wasn't good enough for eternal?

The issue is that Standard design is precluding any ability for self-policing, hence mediocre cards are easily getting out of hand.


I'm not saying the card is an banable problem (it is a problem though)
Really? A lot of us think Legacy in in a fantastic spot right now. When has any meta in any format been more diverse?

DRS facilitates a wide range of decks:

Elves
Czech
Delver
Leo BUG
Maverick
Loam

But does not oppress other archetypes like:

Blade
Lands
Miracles
ANT
Eldrazi
Prowess
D&T
Sneak Show

And we just got a new Tempo-Stompy deck that shows great potential.

Even cantrip decks are down to 59% according to MTG Top8

Genuinely curious why you would think there is any problem at all?

[Echelon]

B/c you simply need to bitch about something? :laugh:

[Crimhead]

B/c you simply need to bitch about something? :laugh:
Oh I agree 100%.

But I'm unable to find fault in Legacy, so I bitch about the bitchers. :tongue:

[Dice_Box]

Personally not looking to debate shit, but my personal view is that currently a lot of Legacy is built around a very small selection of cards and those cards should be watched. If you feel different, that ok by me. I don't care enough to even pretend I want to revisit BR shit.

[Crimhead]

You brought it up, bro.

[Dice_Box]

The card is a problem. Like Brainstorm, Chalice, Leo. It's a fucking format of problems. Please quote me having ever said ban DRS. I'll wait.

[Megadeus]

It's the same play patterns we've seen for years now though is the issue. Sure the kill condition is different but every game really just ends up being: play my deathrite, cast cantrip to find removal, remove your deathrite. Force your next spell, cantrip into threat and play threat. Then it just becomes who has a deathrite at the end of slinging removal at the other creatures ends up winning on deathrite activations eventually. Same shit, different year. Cantrips give you an illusion of decision making, but probably 90% of the time I don't even have to think about what to put back or how to order things it's all pretty simple.

[Crimhead]

The card is a problem. Like Brainstorm, Chalice, Leo. It's a fucking format of problems. Please quote me having ever said ban DRS. I'll wait.
I never mentioned bans. That's between you and Echelnon.

I asked why its a problem in the context of the meta.

Do you even like this game? Did somebody pee in your beer this morning?

[taconaut]

It's the same play patterns we've seen for years now though is the issue. Sure the kill condition is different but every game really just ends up being...

What do you want the play patterns to be, Mega?

[Crimhead]

It's the same play patterns we've seen for years now though is the issue. Sure the kill condition is different but every game really just ends up being: play my deathrite, cast cantrip to find removal, remove your deathrite. Force your next spell, cantrip into threat and play threat.
You are describing, what, 3 decks?

Where I play, there are also decks like ANT, Lands, Prowess, D&T, Elves, Eldrazi, Miracles, and more.


What do you want the play patterns to be, Mega?
Bitch about a card.
Card gets banned.
Bitch about another card.
Wash, rinse, repeat?

[maharis]

The DRS debate is one of the reasons that it's hard to put stuff into Legacy. I think that I could've made that same list I made above and had Noble Hierarch in it a couple years ago, and everyone would agree that it would be inconceivable to imagine a better mana dork. Now they've actually made one and its non-stop griping. (I know, there's space between Noble Hierarch and DRS in terms of power level, but this is what they made, so....)

DRS should've been a victory for Wizards -- it was a Legacy-relevant card that didn't warp Standard. It is the kind of card Legacy needs in order to support cards from new sets, actually. The only place effects can compete is up the curve where they are safer and easier to balance in Standard. That means decks need access to mana acceleration and ramp that isn't dogshit at other times of the game. It's too bad that it's become so polarizing.

IMO, the format is way more warped by TNN than DRS, simply because TNN's uninteractivity and inevitability protects it from the efficient removal of the format while forcing play patterns that polarize around answering it. You can't play any cool 3-drops that come out in sets, even those that I believe are powerful enough in a vacuum for Legacy, because your opponent can just Swords it and move on or play a TNN and brick it while you scramble for an answer. Snapcaster Mage allowing players to recycle efficient spells doesn't help either because even if you bait a STP with your DRS, when you both have three lands, that STP is always a threat to come back and eat your Excavator or Tireless Tracker or whatever. (DRS is one of the best weapons against Snapcaster, incidentally.)

Or, to rephrase: Putting a 3-drop in your deck that can be removed for no value by a STP is not tenable as long as you have the option not to. Absent TNN, everyone's 3-drops would be vulnerable enough that it would be a fairer fight.

In his Ravenous Chupacabra rant, Patrick Sullivan hit on this point nicely. He said that with every creature providing value as it hits the table, there's no tension in seeing if you get to untap with your bomb. You don't really care what your opponent does because you got your thing. It's a problem across MTG right now, not just Legacy, and hopefully they will find a way to fix it soon.

Actually, Sullivan's DRS rant is relevant here as well. We say we want Legacy-relevant cards, but when we get one that's actually impactful -- it's "ban now" city.

[Stuart]

It's the same play patterns we've seen for years now though is the issue.

This. I play Legacy every week, and while some individual games can be fun, I don't feel like I'm experiencing anything different from one week to the next. Clearly the format's fine for some of/most Legacy players, but there's a subset of us who are finding it stale.

[Crimhead]

I agree with almost everything you say (which is a nice change for us). :smile:

I disagree with this:


You can't play any cool 3-drops that come out in sets, even those that I believe are powerful enough in a vacuum for Legacy, because your opponent can just Swords it and move on or play a TNN and brick it while you scramble for an answer.

This isn't quite true.



Or, to rephrase: Putting a 3-drop in your deck that can be removed for no value by a STP is not tenable as long as you have the option not to.
This is more like it.

3-drop (creatures) that see play need to have impact. Leotard accomplishes this. Reclamation Sage. Flickerwisp. Sanctum Prelate, Recruiter of the Guard. Tireless tracker. Mentor. New Thalia. In Maveric, Ramunap or Rallier. Clique still sees a little play. Metalworker and Crusader seem to be exceptions.

Ultimately I think this is less that TNN is pushing other creatures out, and more about efficient 1cc answers punishing high cc threats. Legacy has been like that as long as I can remember, and 3-drops have always had to meet a very high bar. In the past maybe it was Bloodbraid Elf, Shardless Agent, or Geist - also cards that can't be removed for no value. Nothing has really changed here.

[Crimhead]

This. I play Legacy every week, and while some individual games can be fun, I don't feel like I'm experiencing anything different from one week to the next. Clearly the format's fine for some of/most Legacy players, but there's a subset of us who are finding it stale.
Switch decks, maybe? You don't have to play DRS + cantrips.

[Stuart]

Switch decks, maybe? You don't have to play DRS + cantrips.

I play Maverick, MUD, and Burn, but yeah I agree that it's on yourself to keep it fresh. Personally, I'm finding it's better to just hop formats when I get tired of Legacy - currently, that's meant more Vintage and Modern.

[Megadeus]

What has worked for me was not playing. Deck building is the best part of the game to me and that basically doesn't exist anymore at a competitive level. I have more fun building my deck than when I actually end up playing it whether I win or lose. Every night I leave legacy I feel like I have just wasted my time playing against the same shit I've played against for 4 years. But I always enjoy going home and building a deck before I remember that my deck can't remove a goddamn True Name and I die to random idiot who does everything wrong except play this shit 3 drop Progenitus

[Crimhead]

As the format gets more refined, I guess it becomes harder to brew. Part of that also might be a relative low impact from newer sets, failing to shake up the former paradigms.

That said, I do believe we just saw a hitherto unknown tempo-stompy hybrid go on a real tear. David Long gave us a new take on Lands a couple years back. RB Reanimator came out of nowhere. None of those decks are blanked by a TNN. Brewing is still a thing. Just not very many of us can actually do it well.

[Stuart]

What has worked for me was not playing. Deck building is the best part of the game to me and that basically doesn't exist anymore at a competitive level. I have more fun building my deck than when I actually end up playing it whether I win or lose. Every night I leave legacy I feel like I have just wasted my time playing against the same shit I've played against for 4 years. But I always enjoy going home and building a deck before I remember that my deck can't remove a goddamn True Name and I die to random idiot who does everything wrong except play this shit 3 drop Progenitus

Just play Pox and tell people to get fucked.

[Megadeus]

As the format gets more refined, I guess it becomes harder to brew. Part of that also might be a relative low impact from newer sets, failing to shake up the former paradigms.

That said, I do believe we just saw a hitherto unknown tempo-stompy hybrid go on a real tear. David Long gave us a new take on Lands a couple years back. RB Reanimator came out of nowhere. None of those decks are blanked by a TNN. Brewing is still a thing. Just not very many of us can actually do it well.

I am unaware of what tempo stompy deck you are referring to

[maharis]

I agree with almost everything you say (which is a nice change for us). :smile:

Right!


3-drop (creatures) that see play need to have impact. Leotard accomplishes this. Reclamation Sage. Flickerwisp. Sanctum Prelate, Recruiter of the Guard. Tireless tracker. Mentor. New Thalia. In Maveric, Ramunap or Rallier. Clique still sees a little play. Metalworker and Crusader seem to be exceptions.

Ultimately I think this is less that TNN is pushing other creatures out, and more about efficient 1cc answers punishing high cc threats. Legacy has been like that as long as I can remember, and 3-drops have always had to meet a very high bar. In the past maybe it was Bloodbraid Elf, Shardless Agent, or Geist - also cards that can't be removed for no value. Nothing has really changed here.

TNN isn't kicking everything out, but it is having a coalescing effect. Using MTGTop8.com data, TNN appears in 24.7% of decks that placed in live tournaments in the past two months. It's the second-most played creature by this measure after DRS.

Absent TNN, some of those decks would play Clique, some would play Knight, some would play Mirran Crusader or Trygon Predator or Geist or Shardless or something else. It would provide a more varied tournament experience and require more thought at the point of deckbuilding.

Of course, even then, the baseline of efficient spells one needs to compile to compete in Legacy still means that many decks would overlap significantly. But that is a much more difficult knob to turn because it is hard to disincentivize playing 1-drops. The last time they tried, well, Mental Misstep wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs, was it?

[Megadeus]

Right!



TNN isn't kicking everything out, but it is having a coalescing effect. Using MTGTop8.com data, TNN appears in 24.7% of decks that placed in live tournaments in the past two months. It's the second-most played creature by this measure after DRS.

Absent TNN, some of those decks would play Clique, some would play Knight, some would play Mirran Crusader or Trygon Predator or Geist or Shardless or something else. It would provide a more varied tournament experience and require more thought at the point of deckbuilding.

Of course, even then, the baseline of efficient spells one needs to compile to compete in Legacy still means that many decks would overlap significantly. But that is a much more difficult knob to turn because it is hard to disincentivize playing 1-drops. The last time they tried, well, Mental Misstep wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs, was it?
I think Chalice being legal and played at a decent rate is good to disincentivize just playing a pile of 1 drops, but I don't think the incentive and inconsistency is worth playing the powerful artifact. I thought Prelate would have been enough, but it turns out that getting bricked so easily by shit like True Name makes it borderline unplayable.

[maharis]

I think Chalice being legal and played at a decent rate is good to disincentivize just playing a pile of 1 drops, but I don't think the incentive and inconsistency is worth playing the powerful artifact. I thought Prelate would have been enough, but it turns out that getting bricked so easily by shit like True Name makes it borderline unplayable.

Yep, very good points. Kambal is another card that fights spells that, in addition to being easily removed, isn't any good against TNN. It seems obvious to use Mom as the way around that, but that doesn't stop "cast TNN, attack for 3 every turn until you die." Unless you have the entire D&T house of horrors set up, in which case Prelate is a hammer. But subject to variance.

Of course, all those cards also shut off the controller's ability to use cards like Thoughtseize and STP that are good. A non-symmetrical cantrip hate card that blue decks somehow can't play would be nice. Would have to hit blue specifically or cost like BBB so that the U decks can't play it.

Maybe they'll figure out a way to make Oath of Nissa type effects printable and playable.

[taconaut]

What has worked for me was not playing. Deck building is the best part of the game to me and that basically doesn't exist anymore at a competitive level.

Isn't this more of a problem with the ubiquity and availability of information afforded by the internet than an issue with any particular format? A similar argument could be made for Modern or Standard; it would be extremely unlikely that a single person could come up with a new, unique, powerful deck concept on their own because there are just too many eyes on the cards. No one is going to play brews in a competitive context, by definition, and banning isn't a reasonable way to mediate that. It sounds like you may be more interested in a more casual context, where having the best of everything available isn't the driving motivation.

That being said, I'm sorry that it isn't doing it for you - I believe you that it is frustrating, and it would put me off if I felt similar.

[Claymore]

This was a pretty entertaining rant by Patrick Sullivan on the recent design of Magic cards - focus on Ravenous Chupacabra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=356ilzFF8BE

[Ace/Homebrew]

A similar argument could be made for Modern or Standard; it would be extremely unlikely that a single person could come up with a new, unique, powerful deck concept on their own because there are just too many eyes on the cards.
I believe Modern is the closest thing Magic has to the wild west. Recently Humans became a deck. Previously (as far as I know) a single player brewed a streamlined Scapeshift deck eschewing blue and top 8'd a GP and it is now a DtB. Death's Shadow was a sub par deck until people started working on it and now it's format defining...

I'm not arguing that Modern is a perfect format. The criticism I hear most is that decks are too linear and non-interactive and sideboard cards are too powerful (or game influencing).

I have had fun with Modern when I get burnt out on Legacy. And vice versa. And alternating either with EDH keeps me from getting burnt out on playing competitive matches.

[Humphrey]

for years i advocated to ban brainstorm. in fact i was one of the first on this board and got laughed at. but nowdays i dont think bs is the problem, nor is drs. the problem are fetchlands. they allow for ridicilous synergies and mana bases and also stall the game. so i think fetchlands should be banned.

[Mr. Safety]

What has worked for me was not playing. Deck building is the best part of the game to me and that basically doesn't exist anymore at a competitive level. I have more fun building my deck than when I actually end up playing it whether I win or lose. Every night I leave legacy I feel like I have just wasted my time playing against the same shit I've played against for 4 years. But I always enjoy going home and building a deck before I remember that my deck can't remove a goddamn True Name and I die to random idiot who does everything wrong except play this shit 3 drop Progenitus

Amen to that brother, I 100% agree about the fun in brewing/deckbuilding. Luckily I have a fairly diverse local metagame that plays a couple grixis delver, a couple miracles, at least 2 Chalice/Stompy players, Death and Taxes, at least 2 storm players, 2 off/on Pox players, and a Maverick/Nic Fit player consistently. It makes for a fairly random spread each time I play (with my janky shit, lol.) I do a lot of modern as well. I truly do believe there are potential decks out there to develop, but it has been stagnated lately by 'herp derp' set design that focuses almost solely on Standard. They literally did a set with both pirates and dinosaurs. The closest thing we've gotten lately is As Foretold and Hazoret's Undying Fury, both of which aren't really making any real splash (but I haven't given up on Ruby Storm yet...)

I really think True Name is worse than DRS for the format. The setup for landing a Progenitus (Natural Order) takes effort. A blue three drop? In legacy it's easier than Alex Trebeck's mom. Leovold is also just fucking stupid in terms of what it does.

[Zombie]

NO is also heavily nonblue and a risk to cast at all. NO, Glimpse, Storm and traditional A+B combos usually all require exposing a piece before casting the second. TNN, you're risking one card to get to a stupid gamestate. S&T, you're exposing one card to get to a stupid gamestate.

[morgan_coke]

SnT should go away for the same reason Mystical Tutor did. They're not going to stop printing ever stupider giant monsters, so the card just becomes more and more and more of a problem.
TNN and Leovold should go away for being at the power level of "Big stupider monsters" but costing 3 mana and being blue.

[Crimhead]

They're not going to stop printing ever stupider giant monsters, so the card just becomes more and more and more of a problem.
I think we are pretty close to the asymptote as far as stupid giant monsters that essentially win on the spot.

[Aggro_zombies]

I think OG Emrakul and Griselbrand represent the high water mark for asinine power levels on big monsters. Most of the big splashy monsters they make these days don't do anything that matters in Legacy, so no matter how strong they are on paper they never break out. The format now is all about raw efficiency along some vector, and Emrakul is the best attacking creature while Griselbrand is the best card advantage creature. There's a reason SnT has edged Reanimator out of the format and it's because none of the other fatties people used to cheat into play come anywhere close to touching those two in their respective domains.


Of course, all those cards also shut off the controller's ability to use cards like Thoughtseize and STP that are good. A non-symmetrical cantrip hate card that blue decks somehow can't play would be nice. Would have to hit blue specifically or cost like BBB so that the U decks can't play it.
This card has existed almost since day one in the form of Chains of Mephistopheles. The problem with cards like this is that they preclude you from running your own consistency fixers so over a lot of games, you tend to lose more often than you would if you just ran cantrips and tried to fight Turbo Xerox with Turbo Xerox. It's part of the reason why some variation of UGxy Threshold-ish decks have been viable in Legacy for years while non-blue decks tend to be more flavor of the month.

[Richard Cheese]

What has worked for me was not playing. Deck building is the best part of the game to me and that basically doesn't exist anymore at a competitive level. I have more fun building my deck than when I actually end up playing it whether I win or lose. Every night I leave legacy I feel like I have just wasted my time playing against the same shit I've played against for 4 years. But I always enjoy going home and building a deck before I remember that my deck can't remove a goddamn True Name and I die to random idiot who does everything wrong except play this shit 3 drop Progenitus

4 years? Delver was printed in 2011, Terminus 8 months later, and DRS 5 months after that. Shitty Legacy started 1st grade this year.

*sniff* They grow up so fast!

[Lord Seth]

SnT should go away for the same reason Mystical Tutor did. They're not going to stop printing ever stupider giant monsters, so the card just becomes more and more and more of a problem.Except they did stop printing ever stupider giant monsters. The last time they printed something that was better than what Show and Tell already was running was back in 2012, more than five years ago.

[Echelon]

I never mentioned bans. That's between you and Echelnon.

That ended in me agreeing with Dice, so everything's cool there :laugh:

[kombatkiwi]

quotes:maharis


Absent TNN, some of those decks would play Clique, some would play Knight, some would play Mirran Crusader or Trygon Predator or Geist or Shardless or something else. It would provide a more varied tournament experience and require more thought at the point of deckbuilding.


This is absolutely a fantasy. The suggestion that below TNN there is some egalitarian plateau of 3 drop creatures that are all equally playable is stupid. People will just figure out what the best one is and then use that, c.f. every single other time a card/deck has been banned.


In his Ravenous Chupacabra rant, Patrick Sullivan hit on this point nicely. He said that with every creature providing value as it hits the table, there's no tension in seeing if you get to untap with your bomb. You don't really care what your opponent does because you got your thing. It's a problem across MTG right now, not just Legacy, and hopefully they will find a way to fix it soon.

If you're implying that TNN is analagous to Chupacabra then I feel like you completely missed the point of his argument. In Legacy TNN is far closer to his Baneslayer example.


Or, to rephrase: Putting a 3-drop in your deck that can be removed for no value by a STP is not tenable as long as you have the option not to. Absent TNN, everyone's 3-drops would be vulnerable enough that it would be a fairer fight.
If this is true (that putting non-protection 3 drops in your deck is currently such a huge liability) then getting rid of TNN/Leovold means that people don't play 3 drops anymore, not that Trygon Predator suddenly becomes playable.

[Lemnear]

for years i advocated to ban brainstorm. in fact i was one of the first on this board and got laughed at. but nowdays i dont think bs is the problem, nor is drs. the problem are fetchlands. they allow for ridicilous synergies and mana bases and also stall the game. so i think fetchlands should be banned.

Said this prior to the whole TC & DTT bans already and repeated it since then until the SDT ban and through the usual BS complaints.

None of the haunting engines in Legacy would work without Fetchlands. We would not have 4c goodstuff decks, no BS/Ponder cherrypicking, no DRS menace and no one would have banned all the cards of recent years. The joke is that some players think a ban would hurt their already inferior non-blue decks more than it would fuck over all the blue decks, as if S&T would be able to work properly without the cantrip/fetch cardselection.

[Echelon]

Elves! would still be pretty damn good without fetchlands. I'm up for it :laugh:

[taconaut]

None of the haunting engines in Legacy would work without Fetchlands.

I agree, but an Underground Sea already costs something like three hundred bucks - the incidental damage is unfortunate WRT shuffling, but unless the reserved list goes away, Fetches are also one of the only reasons Legacy as we know it is still playable.



We would not have 4c goodstuff decks, no BS/Ponder cherrypicking, no DRS menace and no one would have banned all the cards of recent years.

I think we would still have 4C Goodstuff decks, their mana would just be slightly worse (and much more expensive). Brainstorm and DRS would definitely get a nerf, but Ponder would still be a good card. I'm actually not sure about the bans; it might've saved them, but perhaps not; it's hard to say.



The joke is that some players think a ban would hurt their already inferior non-blue decks more than it would fuck over all the blue decks.

I'm also not sure about this - I think I still take the cantrip deck over the non-cantrip deck, even in hypothetical fetchless Legacy. Sure, maybe SNT and delver variants get a little worse, but even if you're only working with Ponders and Preordains, there are going to be plenty of games where the blue player finds the right combination of throusand dollar duals and/or combo pieces and their nonblue opponent just doesn't.

Overall, I agree with you, though - if it were possible to do without destroying the already-tenuous economy of the format, I'd love to try it.


Edit: Also, about TNN, maybe I'm biased because I play storm and miracles (and other things that can generally just ignore it) is TNN really that big of a deal? Things you can do to beat it include:

- non-targeting -1/-1 effects (golgari charm, marsh casualties)
- Meddling Mage effects
- Counterspells (even in nonblue, as you can REB/Pyroblast it)
- Council's Judgment
- Edict Effects
- Winning the game faster (Combos, stronger board state, even fliers or something?)

I feel like if the biggest problem with Legacy is, "my opponent sometimes has a Trained Armodon that I JUST CAN'T KILL," we are in a fantastic place. I'm not saying it's not boring, because it's definitely boring, but I can think of at least five things more miserable before getting to it in Legacy.

[Lemnear]

The money for some of the manabases sure is a problem but stuff like Land Tax or Eternal Dragon for manafixing still exists (sorry I am old and lack newer examples). Legacy decks are also long gone from being reasonable affordable for average kids/highschoolers to buy in and I guess we see the effect in the rising age of players. I am not sure the current stalemate of the format in terms of being somewhat solved and ridiculously expensive is able to be solved easily. Prining "snow duals" doesn't fix the stale format of 4c goodstuff, banning fetches to mess with the 4c cantrip orgy just makes the format more expensive and dull.

[morgan_coke]

I support banning fetchlands because it would make Astral Slide viable again, as cycling would be a very strong card selection engine that isn't fetch dependent, at all. YMMV.

[rufus]

...
None of the haunting engines in Legacy would work without Fetchlands. We would not have 4c goodstuff decks, no BS/Ponder cherrypicking, no DRS menace and no one would have banned all the cards of recent years. The joke is that some players think a ban would hurt their already inferior non-blue decks more than it would fuck over all the blue decks, as if S&T would be able to work properly without the cantrip/fetch cardselection.

Banning the fetchlands would certainly change the format. Decks with less reliance on splashes or using alternative land mechanics would be much stronger in that setting. So lands and tribal stuff would be obvious things to consider in that format.

[morgan_coke]

In other news, Kotaku has an article up discussing how the economy works so far in MTG: Arena. The wildcard and vault things seem pretty solid. Only getting cards from packs does not.

https://kotaku.com/how-buying-cards-works-in-magic-the-gathering-arena-1822151318

[Crimhead]

I think without fetchlands even 3 colour decks would be a stretch.

I guess tempo decks can run w/o basics, but fetchlands allow midrange decks to run on just a couple basics and not be easily blown out by Wasteland, Moon, B2B, etc.

As a Lands player, my inclination might be to test replacing 3 fetches with 2x Field Of Ruin and an extra Forest.. But I doubt many decks could afford to run that clunky piece of jank.

I'd be careful what to wish for...

[Megadeus]

Fetch ban would probably kill legacy simply from a priced out stand point. Current prices make it difficult for many. Fetch ban could maybe almost double the price. An average Grixis/ BUG deck already retails for the price of a used car. Just think if that price climbed closer to vintage prices?

[Barook]

In other news, Kotaku has an article up discussing how the economy works so far in MTG: Arena. The wildcard and vault things seem pretty solid. Only getting cards from packs does not.

https://kotaku.com/how-buying-cards-works-in-magic-the-gathering-arena-1822151318
There's supposed to be an article up later this day on the MtG Arena site. It wouldn't suprise me in the slightest if Kotaku broke the NDA for a few cheap clicks.

Edit: There's also going to be a stream on https://www.twitch.tv/magic later today.

[QQQ]

I guess you could still play the Mirage fetches. No cross-color ones, and obviously vulnerable to Waste. But maybe better than nothing? Wouldn't work in Tempo, but should be fine in 4C and Miracles.

[Lemnear]

Fetch ban would probably kill legacy simply from a priced out stand point. Current prices make it difficult for many. Fetch ban could maybe almost double the price. An average Grixis/ BUG deck already retails for the price of a used car. Just think if that price climbed closer to vintage prices?

I'll be bold:

Does it make a big difference for a 14yo showing interrest in the format if a compeditive deck is 1.6k or potentially 2.5k? In my books both are a totally unacceptable barrier to join the physical format. Joke is that MTGO isn't reasonable either. Can't blame people rather playing Hearthstone, Poker, etc from a monetary perspective.

[maharis]

This is absolutely a fantasy. The suggestion that below TNN there is some egalitarian plateau of 3 drop creatures that are all equally playable is stupid. People will just figure out what the best one is and then use that, c.f. every single other time a card/deck has been banned.

...

If this is true (that putting non-protection 3 drops in your deck is currently such a huge liability) then getting rid of TNN/Leovold means that people don't play 3 drops anymore, not that Trygon Predator suddenly becomes playable.

Part of the pressure on the three-drop slot is that TNN can block them which makes their "creature-ness" worthless. Take Ramunap Excavator as an example: What good is it to have an attacking Crucible if you can't attack with it AND it dies to creature removal?

The idea is that without TNN there will be more of a need to be considerate in fair deck construction. There are creatures that are vulnerable to different kinds of removal but have different payoffs for being in play. Decks will be built in a way to maximize that payoff while minimizing the impact of removal.

Then there is the subjective but present "fun" consideration. Completely uninteractive cards aren't fun or interesting. I had two TNNs out and lost to the other guy who had one TNN and a Jitte. Thrilling! All of these contribute to the larger concerns about staleness in Legacy.


If you're implying that TNN is analagous to Chupacabra then I feel like you completely missed the point of his argument. In Legacy TNN is far closer to his Baneslayer example.

It's somewhere in between. TNN doesn't have a comes-into-play effect, but it does make creature removal less meaningful, which is the major complaint about the parade of ETB effects. You still have to untap with it to get value, yes; but it is incredibly likely that you WILL untap with it, because the few things that answer it are too inefficient to include en masse (unless Innocent Blood gets played a bunch, I suppose.)


Edit: Also, about TNN, maybe I'm biased because I play storm and miracles (and other things that can generally just ignore it) is TNN really that big of a deal? Things you can do to beat it include:

- non-targeting -1/-1 effects (golgari charm, marsh casualties)
- Meddling Mage effects
- Counterspells (even in nonblue, as you can REB/Pyroblast it)
- Council's Judgment
- Edict Effects
- Winning the game faster (Combos, stronger board state, even fliers or something?)

I feel like if the biggest problem with Legacy is, "my opponent sometimes has a Trained Armodon that I JUST CAN'T KILL," we are in a fantastic place. I'm not saying it's not boring, because it's definitely boring, but I can think of at least five things more miserable before getting to it in Legacy.

Everything in Legacy can theoretically be answered. You could've made the same arguments about Cruise, Dig, and Top which were the last three cards banned. Gaddock Teeg! Phyrexian Revoker! Graveyard removal! Krosan Grip!

I'm not even really talking about banning here. I'm discussing TNN as a key reason for two of the complaints about the format ITT:

1. Legacy is too homogenized
2. New cards can't impact Legacy

There are many cards that contribute to this fact, but TNN is toward the top of my list. Some may disagree, but it's just a discussion.

[Crimhead]

quotes:maharis
This is absolutely a fantasy. The suggestion that below TNN there is some egalitarian plateau of 3 drop creatures that are all equally playable is stupid. People will just figure out what the best one is and then use that...

I think w/o TNN, Czech and BUG decks probably ramp up the Leotards, while UW Blade decks might opt for Geist or Clique. Fish probably forgoes 3-drops altogether. Delver also probably ditches 3-drops of adopts Leo.

I think we might see more variety in 3 drops just because the next best options have different colour requirements.


Part of the pressure on the three-drop slot is that TNN can block them which makes their "creature-ness" worthless. Take Ramunap Excavator as an example: What good is it to have an attacking Crucible if you can't attack with it AND it dies to creature removal?


With Ramunap I doubt it would see much more play because Maverick already runs it and who else would even want to? Maybe a SB card vs Lands and D&T?

[Crimhead]

Does it make a big difference for a 14yo showing interrest in the format if a compeditive deck is 1.6k or potentially 2.5k? In my books both are a totally unacceptable barrier to join the physical format.

This might be true for the kids, but what about established players?

A lot of us would need to invest a tonne of money to acquire more duals at the newly inflated price-tag. Meanwhile selling out becomes more tempting than ever. I think all but the strongest communities would be in serious danger.

[morgan_coke]

This might be true for the kids, but what about established players?

A lot of us would need to invest a tonne of money to acquire more duals at the newly inflated price-tag. Meanwhile selling out becomes more tempting than ever. I think all but the strongest communities would be in serious danger.

The price trajectory has always been going to annihilate Legacy just as it did Vintage eventually. It's only a matter of when, not if.

[taconaut]

Part of the pressure on the three-drop slot is that TNN can block them which makes their "creature-ness" worthless. Take Ramunap Excavator as an example: What good is it to have an attacking Crucible if you can't attack with it AND it dies to creature removal?

The idea is that without TNN there will be more of a need to be considerate in fair deck construction. There are creatures that are vulnerable to different kinds of removal but have different payoffs for being in play. Decks will be built in a way to maximize that payoff while minimizing the impact of removal.

It's somewhere in between. TNN doesn't have a comes-into-play effect, but it does make creature removal less meaningful, which is the major complaint about the parade of ETB effects.


If TNN is blocking, it's not killing you; doesn't that allow for some space to do busted things with lands from the bin? Also, at least in this comparison, how is TNN different from, say, a Gurmang Angler or a sufficiently large Tarmogoyf that is being Mazed?

I think the payoff for TNN is that it is very narrowly answerable - Ramunap Excavator may not be as hard to answer, but it can also allow you to do different degenerate things. It may very well be the most powerful thing a creature can be asked to do in Legacy is be both durable and unblockable (and certainly that is a boring role) but that ultimately doesn't really seem banworthy (which you acknowledged).



You still have to untap with it to get value, yes; but it is incredibly likely that you WILL untap with it, because the few things that answer it are too inefficient to include en masse (unless Innocent Blood gets played a bunch, I suppose.)

Everything in Legacy can theoretically be answered. You could've made the same arguments about Cruise, Dig, and Top which were the last three cards banned. Gaddock Teeg! Phyrexian Revoker! Graveyard removal! Krosan Grip!

I'm not even really talking about banning here.

I actually think the answers to TNN are more broad and maindeckable in general than the answers to Treasure Cruise, Dig, and Top, but that's just a matter of degrees; I also wouldn't have banned Top, though, so maybe it's not for me to say. I'm just saying, if the issue is that a given deck just can't beat a sulfuric vortex for three or a hexproof darksteel myr, maybe it needs to make the concession of a couple of edict effects or something. That being said, I basically never play fair decks, so I might just not get the frustration on a gut level. I also think that Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time might just actually be on a different level in terms of power, answerable or not (ancestral recall versus arbitrary dude).

[Crimhead]

The price trajectory has always been going to annihilate Legacy just as it did Vintage eventually. It's only a matter of when, not if.
The difference is the size of the established player base.

Legacy is fairly healthy (talking size, attendance), and only needs enough new players to counter the players who are dying or quitting.

[Crimhead]

That being said, I basically never play fair decks, so I might just not get the frustration on a gut level.

I think I am in a similar boat. Then again, fair deck players are rarely sympathetic when their hate-bears frustrate our more narrow strategies.

It's not always easy for us to see past our own perspectives. I play Lands, and the meta looks rich and diverse. All my matches are different, interesting, and fun.
But maybe this is a very boring time to be playing fair-deck vs fair-deck Legacy.

Also, eg, I might think that if I can tolerate Sneak Show playing Lands, why are people playing FoW decks complaining? But maybe when you're not kicking the snot out of (almost) every fair deck in the field, S&T is a harder oil to swallow?

[morgan_coke]

The difference is the size of the established player base.

Legacy is fairly healthy (talking size, attendance), and only needs enough new players to counter the players who are dying or quitting.

Once upon a time that sentiment applied to Type I too. Matter of time man.

[Lemnear]

This might be true for the kids, but what about established players?

A lot of us would need to invest a tonne of money to acquire more duals at the newly inflated price-tag. Meanwhile selling out becomes more tempting than ever. I think all but the strongest communities would be in serious danger.

As morgan_coke already hinted at, the end is inevitable with rising prices and the Legacy community getting constantly older and barely new, young players picking it up.

At some point local events die and people sell out. Happened to me with Vintage. I remember when we had weekly events in Munich with 50+ players FOR VINTAGE. Good old days

[Richard Cheese]

As morgan_coke already hinted at, the end is inevitable with rising prices and the Legacy community getting constantly older and barely new, young players picking it up.

At some point local events die and people sell out. Happened to me with Vintage. I remember when we had weekly events in Munich with 50+ players FOR VINTAGE. Good old days

I fixed a minor plumbing problem without making things worse last night! I practically got one foot in the grave over here! Won't be long before I sell the collection to pay for applesauce and adult diapers.

[Crimhead]

At some point local events die and people sell out. Happened to me with Vintage. I remember when we had weekly events in Munich with 50+ players FOR VINTAGE. Good old days
Anecdotes aside, are you actually saying Vintage once had as large a player base as Legacy has now?

[Dice_Box]

I had this conversation the other day.

Standard sucks. Banning after banning, people will want to leave. They will move to Modern. But Modern will catch them and keep them. Your not going to move from a place where your deck costs a grand to where 3 cards in your mana base do. Your not going to find an easy time justifying that move.

People are moving into Modern, people are not moving out of it. Why would they? The scene is vibrant, they have no loyalty to Legacy and the idea that your lands don't hurt you is not worth the money it costs to play in our sand pit.

[Megadeus]

I had this conversation the other day.

Standard sucks. Banning after banning, people will want to leave. They will move to Modern. But Modern will catch them and keep them. Your not going to move from a place where your deck costs a grand to where 3 cards in your mana base do. Your not going to find an easy time justifying that move.

People are moving into Modern, people are not moving out of it. Why would they? The scene is vibrant, they have no loyalty to Legacy and the idea that your lands don't hurt you is not worth the money it costs to play in our sand pit.

I'm very seriously considering getting out of legacy into modern. For the price of like 2 decks in legacy I can probably build almost any deck in modern.

[Misersoneof]

I'm very seriously considering getting out of legacy into modern. For the price of like 2 decks in legacy I can probably build almost any deck in modern.

As someone who migrated to Legacy from Modern I gotta say that I would never consider selling my legacy deck to buy back into it. The games are so dependent on who you get matched up with and whether you draw your SB that skill doesn't feel like a factor. The formats don't even compare at this point. Legacy is way more fun.

[Claymore]

Agree there, it's not uncommon to see Modern players trying to see how they can port their deck to Legacy. Modern is much more of a coin flip format, no matter how much CFB constantly puts out articles saying otherwise.

[Stuart]

Modern's nowhere near as bad as Legacy players crack it up to be, and Legacy's not quite as skilltesting or amazing as its playerbase claims. That's not to say that Modern's gameplay is quite as good as Legacy's, but when you factor in price and availability of games, ditching Legacy for Modern isn't the worst idea. The main reason I'd advise against it is you'd be selling out of the Reserved List and buying into regularly reprinted cards.

[Crimhead]

As someone who migrated to Legacy from Modern I gotta say that I would never consider selling my legacy deck to buy back into it. The games are so dependent on who you get matched up with and whether you draw your SB that skill doesn't feel like a factor. The formats don't even compare at this point. Legacy is way more fun.

You and I know that, but too many kids these days think of Legacy as a degenerate format of turn one wins. :rolleyes:

[Megadeus]

Modern's nowhere near as bad as Legacy players crack it up to be, and Legacy's not quite as skilltesting or amazing as its playerbase claims. That's not to say that Modern's gameplay is quite as good as Legacy's, but when you factor in price and availability of games, ditching Legacy for Modern isn't the worst idea. The main reason I'd advise against it is you'd be selling out of the Reserved List and buying into regularly reprinted cards.

Agreed completely here. The more I've played modern it's fine. Legacy isn't super interesting right now and I think in Modern you can do more off the wall stuff right now, though the top decks besides Death's Shadow do tend to try to be linear and ignore the opponent which is annoying. The whole selling RL stuff for non RL stuff is definitely the biggest factor in being hesitant. I'll still keep a deck for legacy, but meh. The format has passed me by. When I was actually top 8ing opens I paid way more attention to the format than I do now. Time to just build my one true love Deadguy again and ride away in the sunset

[Dice_Box]

The debate about if Legacy is better than Modern misses the point, I am sure we would all rather play Legacy than Modern. Modern though is the catchment and landing that Legacy once was. Gone are the days where you could buy a few hundred dollars of cards and port your Extended deck to Legacy. The role Legacy once played its now taken up by Modern.

Think about it this way. Your riding public transport for a year, you get sick of it and decide to buy a car. Now sure, that XR8 is better than the Honda Jazz your looking at but there is a 4 to one price difference and they are both going to do roughly the same job.

Think of that from a Standard players point of view, the choice basicly looks the same. Add to that difference priorities for newer players. Different wants. People dislike it when I Stax them out in Legacy but they accept it. It's a part of life. People actively hate me and make a point of letting me know that when I play Lantern in Modern. The player base has different levels of what they will accept. Now throw in a newer Standard player looking at that... Modern often looks more appealing.

[Echelon]

Yup. When starting out on Magic I would've gone WTF as well when facing ANT/TES. Nowadays I just think "Yup, serves me right for not playing blue". Your perception of what is fair (or, rather, acceptable) in Magic changes over the years.

Newbies sometimes get upset when their creature (or whatever) eats a removal/counter spell, we purposely play creatures in a specific order to bait out those spells (and are bummed out when our opponent doesn't fall for it) b/c we see it as an integral part of the game.

I also once overheard one newbie say to another 1/1's were useless and they should never play them. Two tables over I was piloting Elves!, smashing a Maverick player :laugh:.

On another occasion I overheard a EDH player ask his opponents who wanted to be milled for 3 cards that particular turn with the seriousness of a Belcher player trying to count to 7 while I was on the next table piloting Manaless Dredge vs. UR Delver. If you're going to mill someone it should be yourself, dammit :laugh:. And not 3 measly cards, but your entire friggin' deck in a single go!

[Crimhead]

People actively hate me and make a point of letting me know that when I play Lantern in Modern.

This is the most compelling comment I've ever heard. Not even kidding. Looking at a Modern thread now...

[Lemnear]

Anecdotes aside, are you actually saying Vintage once had as large a player base as Legacy has now?

No, never. I am merely refering to the development the format has taken when prices made it unaccessible, local scenes died and older players sold their cards.

Mind that we talk a time period when I was able to buy Revised Mox Ruby & Mox Emerald for 160€, which pretty much equals a blue dual these days. We might face a similar problem Vintage had when Duals hit the the 300$.

P.S.: On format migration. Going from Vintage to Legacy is quite a smooth transition unlike Legacy to modern or modern to Legacy. The gap of how Modern/Legacy play out is too big

[taconaut]

I feel like the real tragedy in Modern though is that it used to be good - back in the day, you could play:

Twin
Pod (Kiki or Melira)
Storm
Tron (U or GR)
Affinity
Loam
Scapeshift
Junk/Jund
WUR Control/Tempo (with colonnades or geists)
Infect


Plus some weird shit like:

Eggs (!)
Gifts
Ad Nauseam
Martyr
Tezz
Mill
Restore Balance

The decks felt uniquely "Modern," and had diverse and interesting strategies - for instance, Pod, Twin, Scapeshift, and UR Storm were all powerful, real, flexible, unique decks in Modern, that had cards and lines that you couldn't get in standard, but wouldn't have quite cut it for Legacy. It felt like they had their own particular texture and interplay that gave Modern an identity.

Then, Wizards banned:

Seething Song
Bloodbraid Elf
Birthing Pod
Splinter Twin
Second Sunrise
etc

So many of those uniquely modern decks went away. Some still exist in one or another form, but I can't help but feel like I'm playing "with the kids gloves on" every time I sleeve up for a Modern event - a lot of the decks are either super linear but janky (most of combo) or boring goodstuff, and even the unique things (shadow, Lantern) are kinda meh.

I guess I just feel like they banned the soul out of the format.

Don't get me wrong, I'd pick Modern over no Magic or playing Standard, but I'd almost never pick it over Legacy, and rarely over draft.

[kombatkiwi]

Twin - Probably would be fine with them unbanning this
Pod (Kiki or Melira) - You can still play Chord decks with Kiki/Vizier
Storm - Still a Top deck
Tron (U or GR) - Green is still a top deck and U is about as good as it ever was (i.e. not very), now there is even a mono-brown version
Affinity - Still exists in basically the exact same form
Loam - Was never a deck
Scapeshift - Still good
Junk/Jund - Slightly worse from twin ban and all the random bullshit of modern making reactive midrange decks worse but basically still the same
WUR Control/Tempo (with colonnades or geists) - Still good
Infect - Was probably too good before probe ban


Eggs (!) - Agreed this is a cool deck imo, not sure I agree with the reasons for banning
Gifts - About as good as it ever was (i.e. not very)
Ad Nauseam - Still a deck
Martyr - Still a (bad) deck
Tezz - Actually has got better as the format progressed due to sword unban and whir printing
Mill - Still as good as it ever was (ie. fringe pet deck status)
Restore Balance - Got better over time due to inclusion of e.g. Nahiri and other different 3+ drops


a lot of the decks are either super linear but janky (most of combo) or boring goodstuff, and even the unique things (shadow, Lantern) are kinda meh.
You're literally impossible to please
- Linear combo decks = Jank
- Midrange/Interactive/Goodstuff decks = Boring
- None of the above = Meh

Your entire argument boils down to 'modern = twin and pod', Pod-style decks still are playable in the form of the various Chord/Company shells and Twin made the format far less fun for a lot of people. I do get that some liked the 'cat and mouse', interactive, tempo-ish gameplay of twin and being sad that it's gone is fine but 90% of what you wrote is like a red herring

[Claymore]

I had a lot of fun in Modern, playing various Junk decks and getting to do cool stuff like Evolutionary Leap with Lingering Souls, KotR as an attrition engine with Arena etc.

I ended up leaving Modern due to coin flip matches like Affinity and Tron, which were completely unwinnable for my archetype unless you drew into your sideboard pieces, and then the nuts resiliency of the Combo Mid range Splinter Twin and Pod. The last match I actually played was against a friend on Pod, where I opened T1 discard, T2 Removal, T3 creature, and was holding one or two pieces of removal and he still killed me on turn 4.

You can still do fun stuff and I imagine be alright with a Tier 2 deck, but the bad match ups in Modern were just way too lopsided to bother with anymore.

[taconaut]

You're literally impossible to please
- Linear combo decks = Jank
- Midrange/Interactive/Goodstuff decks = Boring
- None of the above = Meh


I can see how it could be read that way without context from my other posts, but what I really mean is that, compared to similar archetypes in other formats, the modern versions feel watered down. I actually like Legacy a lot, because it feels meaningfully different from that - for instance, in Legacy, combo decks aren't as janky as they are in modern (compare ANT in Legacy to Ad Nauseam in Modern). Modern feels like "leftovers" to me - now that we've banned all the good stuff, what can we still do?

I do think it's something they could change if they wanted to, though - Modern is absolutely a few good printings and a few unbannings away from being both really cool/fun and accessible to a large playerbase, due to it not having the looming shadow of the reserved list. I think if they printed:

- A decent counterspell (maybe not literal counterspell, but sure)
- A way to hate on nonbasic lands that is somewhere between ghost quarter/tec edge and wasteland in terms of power level
- A "not actually Force of Will but kinda like Force of Will" way to interact with degenerate combo

and then unbanned some stuff, Modern could actually be pretty sweet. I think the thing that hamstrings them is the same thing that has made recent standards difficult to balance: they're unwilling to let players touch other player's stuff (removal, counterspells, reasonable interaction in general) so if something is good, banning is usually the most straightforward way of approaching it, and until they do, people just play linear strategies and blowout sideboard cards to beat other linear strategies.

I didn't mean to sound so down on Modern, I more wanted to come off like a parent, you know - "Modern, I'm not mad, I'm just...disappointed. You could do so much more!" :tongue::laugh:

Edit: I also didn't address your assessments of the decks, most of which I agree with, but for me, one thing that's emblematic is the UR storm: yes, it's technically still a top deck, but now you have to play like eight electromancers and gifts and stuff, and it just feels like, look, what's so wrong with wanting to play just like, rituals, ascensions, and grapeshot? I get that Wizards hates everything I love about Magic, but it just felt like getting kicked while you were down every time they banned another ritual, and I hate losing game one of a match with my storm deck because my opponent had like, fatal push or lightning bolt. I get that this is also somewhat contradictory to my previous statements about interaction, but I am large and contain multitudes, so this edit is more of a personal beef than a rational critique of the format, in contrast to the previous.

[Dice_Box]

Modern has its issues, sure, but that's not the point. A good Modern deck costs a grand. That's really what matters. That is what a 15 year old can make with a summer job. So what do you think is going to grow?

Legacy has lost its shine. Not to us no, but to those who would have once joined our ranks. I have seen more people sell out of Legacy in the past 12 month then ever before. Hell even I have to a point. I basicly own Lands, Stax, Goblins and Elves now. Nothing else. Even that I will likely cut down on.

Who, as they get older, have kids, need house repayments, a new car or a set of school uniforms for the kids are really going to pick cardboard over life? We a tenacious bunch sure, but nothing lasts forever. And as we slowly fade who's really coming up to replace us? Fewer and fewer people will since Modern is a cheaper and good enough alternative for ones amusement.

Oh and something else to think about, as we sell who buys? Really? EDH players want duals too. What happens the day more EDH players are using our cards than we are?

[Fjaulnir]

I ended up leaving Modern due to coin flip matches like Affinity and Tron, which were completely unwinnable for my archetype unless you drew into your sideboard pieces,

Don't you play Enchantress in Legacy though? How do you feel about the Storm matchup? :tongue:

[morgan_coke]

Biggest problem with Modern right now is they don't have Astral Slide, and the counterspells and nonbasic hate aren't quite good enough. Fix those three things and it's basically a perfect format.

[maharis]

Modern has its issues, sure, but that's not the point. A good Modern deck costs a grand. That's really what matters. That is what a 15 year old can make with a summer job. So what do you think is going to grow?

Legacy has lost its shine. Not to us no, but to those who would have once joined our ranks. I have seen more people sell out of Legacy in the past 12 month then ever before. Hell even I have to a point. I basicly own Lands, Stax, Goblins and Elves now. Nothing else. Even that I will likely cut down on.

Who, as they get older, have kids, need house repayments, a new car or a set of school uniforms for the kids are really going to pick cardboard over life? We a tenacious bunch sure, but nothing lasts forever. And as we slowly fade who's really coming up to replace us? Fewer and fewer people will since Modern is a cheaper and good enough alternative for ones amusement.

Oh and something else to think about, as we sell who buys? Really? EDH players want duals too. What happens the day more EDH players are using our cards than we are?

When I moved here and showed up for the first Legacy night, the other players were like "wow, a 6th person to play sanctioned Legacy!" Now Legacy regularly fires twice a week here with 15-20 players on average. That's in less than two years. I play against kids younger than the cards all the time. Major-tournament Legacy support is creeping up as well; even SCG is running more Sunday tournaments after their departure from the open series touched off the Legacy-is-dying mania.

I don't see a need to be so melodramatic I guess. Sometimes people get so down on MTG I feel like playing makes me stupid. On the other hand I actually do have kids and a job and a house and it kind of irritates me when people say that you can't have that and also play Magic. I'm posting here on work downtime and I play on weekday evenings with the very occasional weekend tournament that I plan for. Am I supposed to be grouting my tub at 8pm on Tuesday? Am I supposed to be setting a fantasy football lineup instead with my leisure time?

Obviously there are structural issues, and gameplay issues, but that's true across the game right now. I'm happy to enjoy what I can and pop up here to discuss the format's issues with intelligent people. But overall, I still have a lot of fun playing Legacy, and my local scene is vibrant/growing, so I don't see a reason to panic/pack it in just yet.

[Claymore]

Don't you play Enchantress in Legacy though? How do you feel about the Storm matchup? :tongue:

I think that's the other Claymore1, haha. I do play Nic Fit, Rock, Jund, and yeah Storm is awful, but with a little bit of luck and some lock pieces you can get there sometimes.

[Ronald Deuce]

P.S.: On format migration. Going from Vintage to Legacy is quite a smooth transition unlike Legacy to modern or modern to Legacy. The gap of how Modern/Legacy play out is too big

This is huge. I keep finding myself looking at Modern and debating going back to it (while still staying with Legacy), but then I notice two things: the cards are underpowered (more on that in a minute), and the banlist has so thoroughly divorced the two formats that I, having been practically unemployed for some time, can't afford staples for Modern.

I think there are three major problems for the game going forward. The first is that Legacy and Vintage prices are too high and the company's not interested in changing that. I picked up my two "heavily played" Undergrounds for $164 a pop in late 2015/early 2016—and that price was a steal. I would have absolutely no problem with their prices returning to that level. I had to move cards to get my duals, and I have nothing close to a full set. I'm already (for practical purposes) priced out of Legacy, but over the years, I'd lucked into a collection of arbitrarily valuable cards—a Candelabra that I got out of a repack around 2001, three Chalices (incl. a foily one), about six Aether Vials, and a playset of Cryptic Commands—that I could unload for the cards I'd always wanted. Most people don't have that option, and I count myself supremely lucky.

The second problem is that there's a widening gap between Standard-Modern and the eternal formats. Not only is it really hard for people to dig into Legacy for financial reasons, the format doesn't play anything like Modern or Standard. It's really a very different game, and without anything to bridge the gap (except maybe hatebears, Eldrazi, Dredge, and Storm), I think people who grew up on Standard or Modern won't feel the same attraction to Legacy that I did when I first saw a degenerate combo list and thought, "I want to DO that!" People are getting accustomed to the "vanilla and ETB guys and 3-cmc Green card advantage" model, and that's why people write off the older formats as degenerate. (Curiously, a lot of those people play Commander, which is much more degenerate than Legacy and has both the enforced slow clock of Modern and a lower pricetag than Legacy.)

The third problem is with the game's design trends and policing. There have been seven cards banned in Standard in the last year. None of those cards comes anywhere close to constituting the disasterpiece that was Mirrodin Affinity. This indicates less that the cards aren't as powerful (though that's pretty painfully apparent) than that Wizards hasn't been tightening up the design for new sets. Since 2016, we've seen Eldrazi crash through the game like a freight train full of tentacles, then immediately we've seen three blocks' worth of nothing—but the Standard metagame has been so narrow (because of the cards' low power) that bans have reached the high-water mark. That's bad design in action. The reprinting of commons in consecutive sets in the same block is embarrassingly lazy. If anything's going to be the death-blow, I'll go out on a limb and say that it's that. I find it hard to believe that the designers are really working that hard to make balanced sets when ETB guys are too powerful for Standard and they're filling blank spaces with cards people can already pull out of packs. And if they are really giving it their all, they need to acknowledge that their design paradigm is way too narrow because there's such a large gap between the best 2–3 cards in Standard and all the others.

I was going to say something about 5Lotus.dec in Vintage, but I've probably said it all before.

[Lemnear]

Moderns issues started day 1 with their YOLO banlist followed by 2 more mass-bannings shortly after to neuter all viable control decks and then they starting to chop the heads off of every combo/engine which is able to win before Tarmogoyf can.

Joke is that viable control decks would keep all the combos/engines in check if WOTC wouldn't have decided to cripple them since day 1 and double downed by moving sweepers to 5 mana

[ESG]

People are moving into Modern, people are not moving out of it. Why would they? The scene is vibrant, they have no loyalty to Legacy and the idea that your lands don't hurt you is not worth the money it costs to play in our sand pit.

At least in Seattle, we've had a stream of Modern players join Legacy. This might be because there's a weekly Modern tournament held on the same night as a Legacy tournament, so people can walk around the room and see both formats in action. Also, a good number of people here play both formats and simply switch between the two based on their weekly preference. I met someone last night who plays mostly limited, and even he said he plays both Legacy and Modern. He simply plays decks he can port between the two formats.

I think the money argument is overstated. Beyond borrowing and sharing cards between formats, there are budget versions of almost everything. I saw someone playing Glacial Fortress a few nights ago instead of a fourth Tundra. He could have sat out Legacy until his deck was considered ideal, but why do that? The difference between three Tundras and four Tundras is much smaller than people make it out to be, and his list was arguably superior because it's better against Choke, which has been seen a lot here.

Most people can't jump into a new format immediately, but once the desire is there, they'll get there eventually. Not everyone needs Underground Seas and Tabernacles to play, and not everyone wants them.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Moderns issues started day 1 with their YOLO banlist followed by 2 more mass-bannings shortly after to neuter all viable control decks and then they starting to chop the heads off of every combo/engine which is able to win before Tarmogoyf can.

Joke is that viable control decks would keep all the combos/engines in check if WOTC wouldn't have decided to cripple them since day 1 and double downed by moving sweepers to 5 mana

I love how this comment perfectly encapsulates someone who is trying to make up arguments against something they know nothing about. Jeskai control is huge in modern right now, with the finals of the last SCG open being a mirror match, while Tarmogoyf is rarely found in any lists in the top 8, which has brought goyf's price down to an all time low in 6 years.

[Jesture]

I love how this comment perfectly encapsulates someone who is trying to make up arguments against something they know nothing about.

Not that I'm 100% sold on Lemnear's assessment of modern, but I think you might've misinterpreted the points he was trying to make.


Moderns issues started day 1 with their YOLO banlist followed by 2 more mass-bannings shortly after to neuter all viable control decks and then they starting to chop the heads off of every combo/engine which is able to win before Tarmogoyf can.

Joke is that viable control decks would keep all the combos/engines in check if WOTC wouldn't have decided to cripple them since day 1 and double downed by moving sweepers to 5 mana


Jeskai control is huge in modern right now, with the finals of the last SCG open being a mirror match, while Tarmogoyf is rarely found in any lists in the top 8, which has brought goyf's price down to an all time low in 6 years.

UW based control decks only make up 4-6% of the modern meta in the last 2-8 weeks. Definitely a flavor of the month deck based on the most recent SCG result that you cited, but I wouldn't call this "huge in modern" by any definition of the phrase.

The beater of choice is largely moot, his second point about Tarmogoyf is a reference to WotC's de facto "Turn 4 kill" rule. Replace "Tarmogoyf" with Death's Shadow or any of the beaters in Humans/Affinity/fair deck, I don't think he's making an argument about the meta presence of our favorite green, vanilla, 2 drop beater.

Edited for clarity

[Phoenix Ignition]

Good point, if you change every point in his argument with something else it becomes better.

[Lemnear]

UW based control decks only make up 4-6% of the modern meta in the last 2-8 weeks. Definitely a flavor of the month deck based on the most recent SCG result that you cited, but I wouldn't call this "huge in modern" by any definition of the phrase.

The beater of choice is largely moot, his second point about Tarmogoyf is a reference to WotC's de facto "Turn 4 kill" rule. Replace "Tarmogoyf" with Death's Shadow or any of the beaters in Humans/Affinity/fair deck, I don't think he's making an argument about the meta presence of our favorite green, vanilla, 2 drop beater.

Edited for clarity

Modern is 7 years old and it's quite hard to pack such a time full of printings/bannings into a few sentences to frame the formats development. It had an issue with lacking control elements thanks to the bannings which resulted in combo being rampant and more bannings. It took years for the format to slightly grew out of its limitations even if it did not in terms of Lightning Bolt, Thoughtseize & Co. backing the kill condition of choice within the 4 turn rule of which Tarmogoyf was an anecdote. It's not too different to Legacy actually with most people running the same cantrip & fetch Galore with their kill condition of choice and little essential difference if its now a 3/2 flier or a 7/7 lifelinker.

[Misersoneof]

Legacy has lost its shine. Not to us no, but to those who would have once joined our ranks. I have seen more people sell out of Legacy in the past 12 month then ever before. Hell even I have to a point. I basicly own Lands, Stax, Goblins and Elves now. Nothing else. Even that I will likely cut down on.

Who, as they get older, have kids, need house repayments, a new car or a set of school uniforms for the kids are really going to pick cardboard over life? We a tenacious bunch sure, but nothing lasts forever. And as we slowly fade who's really coming up to replace us? Fewer and fewer people will since Modern is a cheaper and good enough alternative for ones amusement.


I think all of this has to do with priorities. I have a couple of legacy decks built as well and if I ever felt the need to sell them in order to finance a house or pay for my kids braces then I will. I only get to play with the cards 1-2 times a month and to be honest that is enough for me at this time in my life. I know full well that my kids won't be small forever and that when they become old enough and think I'm boring as shit then I'll need to find a hobby. Thankfully I already have one.


When I moved here and showed up for the first Legacy night, the other players were like "wow, a 6th person to play sanctioned Legacy!" Now Legacy regularly fires twice a week here with 15-20 players on average. That's in less than two years. I play against kids younger than the cards all the time. Major-tournament Legacy support is creeping up as well; even SCG is running more Sunday tournaments after their departure from the open series touched off the Legacy-is-dying mania.

I don't see a need to be so melodramatic I guess. Sometimes people get so down on MTG I feel like playing makes me stupid. On the other hand I actually do have kids and a job and a house and it kind of irritates me when people say that you can't have that and also play Magic. I'm posting here on work downtime and I play on weekday evenings with the very occasional weekend tournament that I plan for. Am I supposed to be grouting my tub at 8pm on Tuesday? Am I supposed to be setting a fantasy football lineup instead with my leisure time?


After I moved to a rural area I basically created my own legacy scene at my LGS. Before no one was playing it but I asked the members if it was possible. Now I loan out all of my decks and I have gotten all of the modern players interested in building their own. They understand the uphill battle but I am more than willing to lend them decks and cards until they can get there. Several of them have started buying Forces and duals.

Also as a father of two who doesn't have too much spare time for MTG, I relish the opportunities I can play. Perhaps it would make sense to sell my collection and spend that time drafting instead. However, I look forward to the day in which I can teach my children how to play with the cards I have carefully collected over the years. Maybe they won't be interested but it's worth a shot.


At least in Seattle, we've had a stream of Modern players join Legacy. This might be because there's a weekly Modern tournament held on the same night as a Legacy tournament, so people can walk around the room and see both formats in action. Also, a good number of people here play both formats and simply switch between the two based on their weekly preference. I met someone last night who plays mostly limited, and even he said he plays both Legacy and Modern. He simply plays decks he can port between the two formats.

I think the money argument is overstated. Beyond borrowing and sharing cards between formats, there are budget versions of almost everything. I saw someone playing Glacial Fortress a few nights ago instead of a fourth Tundra. He could have sat out Legacy until his deck was considered ideal, but why do that? The difference between three Tundras and four Tundras is much smaller than people make it out to be, and his list was arguably superior because it's better against Choke, which has been seen a lot here.

Most people can't jump into a new format immediately, but once the desire is there, they'll get there eventually. Not everyone needs Underground Seas and Tabernacles to play, and not everyone wants them.

Different locations make for different experiences. It's not all bad.

[Crimhead]

Mind that we talk a time period when I was able to buy Revised Mox Ruby & Mox Emerald for 160€, which pretty much equals a blue dual these days. We might face a similar problem Vintage had when Duals hit the the 300$.

I think somebody may have been peddling fake cards. :tongue:

In seriousness, the big difference here is that you don't need 9 blue duals to play a competitive deck. Vintage never really had viable budget options, except maybe Dredge.

The RL is a big problem for Legacy, but not to the extent that it was for Vintage. If nothing else, Legacy will dwindle much, much more slowly I think.

[ktkenshinx]

The debate about if Legacy is better than Modern misses the point, I am sure we would all rather play Legacy than Modern. Modern though is the catchment and landing that Legacy once was. Gone are the days where you could buy a few hundred dollars of cards and port your Extended deck to Legacy. The role Legacy once played its now taken up by Modern.

Think about it this way. Your riding public transport for a year, you get sick of it and decide to buy a car. Now sure, that XR8 is better than the Honda Jazz your looking at but there is a 4 to one price difference and they are both going to do roughly the same job.

Think of that from a Standard players point of view, the choice basicly looks the same. Add to that difference priorities for newer players. Different wants. People dislike it when I Stax them out in Legacy but they accept it. It's a part of life. People actively hate me and make a point of letting me know that when I play Lantern in Modern. The player base has different levels of what they will accept. Now throw in a newer Standard player looking at that... Modern often looks more appealing.
I have not posted on the Source in a long time, but as many of you know, I've had a lot of investment in Modern over the years. But despite this investment, I totally agree with Dice here. Most Modern players would have gleefully played Legacy back when Modern was first announced. They just wanted a supported, non-rotating format which was relatively accessible and widely played at all tournament levels. If that had been Legacy, we would have been happy. Now that Modern is here, however, I don't believe many of those players would accept a shift to Legacy. Nor do I believe newer players interested in non-rotating sets will drift to Legacy when Modern is so prominent. Modern is currently the non-rotating way of the future just because of its sheer momentum, other pros and cons aside. As SCG, Wizards, Hareruya, CF, and other major tournament providers and product/content vendors have attested to, it is Modern that always draws the views, crowds, clicks, and conversation.

That said, I think Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and maybe even EDH/Pauper are imperiled by the direction suggested by Arena. We know that Wizards' staff have hinted at newer non-rotating formats, especially ones they have more market and metagame control over. Arena would be a clean starting point to that, as is already suggested by one of the FAQ entries on the Arena site. Sadly, Arena being a clean starting point for a new format would be a messy declining point for lots of other things: Modern, Legacy, non-rotating/eternal formats generally, MTGO, secondary market influence, etc. This isn't to say these things will abruptly go extinct. Rather, they will gradually fade away simultaneously, as most of them are connected in some way. This may be a good long-term business move for Hasbro and Wizards, but it will hurt players like those on this forum and others (i.e. knowledgeable, enfranchised Magic veterans).

All of this is independent of the relatively trivial Modern vs. Legacy debate. This is a more existential threat to the Magic reality most of us know. And again, I'm not saying this is going to be some instant apocalypse that happens over night. This is just another slip down a slope that leads to major changes for all players like us.

[Lemnear]

I think somebody may have been peddling fake cards. :tongue:

Classic brainfart. Of course Unlimited. :p

[maharis]

That said, I think Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and maybe even EDH/Pauper are imperiled by the direction suggested by Arena. We know that Wizards' staff have hinted at newer non-rotating formats, especially ones they have more market and metagame control over. Arena would be a clean starting point to that, as is already suggested by one of the FAQ entries on the Arena site. Sadly, Arena being a clean starting point for a new format would be a messy declining point for lots of other things: Modern, Legacy, non-rotating/eternal formats generally, MTGO, secondary market influence, etc. This isn't to say these things will abruptly go extinct. Rather, they will gradually fade away simultaneously, as most of them are connected in some way. This may be a good long-term business move for Hasbro and Wizards, but it will hurt players like those on this forum and others (i.e. knowledgeable, enfranchised Magic veterans).

All of this is independent of the relatively trivial Modern vs. Legacy debate. This is a more existential threat to the Magic reality most of us know. And again, I'm not saying this is going to be some instant apocalypse that happens over night. This is just another slip down a slope that leads to major changes for all players like us.

Are you talking about this?

Q. What happens when my cards rotate out of Standard?

A. The focus of MTG Arena will be on Standard card sets. We're working on fun ways for players to play with cards once they rotate out of Standard. We'll talk more about this later in the year.

I think this is more about trying not to bite off more than they can chew with Arena. They are trying a whole new economy, still working with a complex rules engine, trying to shed their reputation as a terrible digital company, etc. etc. Their goal seems to be to get some momentum behind Arena by hitting the ground running with what they can control, while they know they still have revenue streams from enfranchised players coming in via the paper and MTGO markets. They just need a minimum viable product for launch and Standard is plenty for that.

I don't think there's any conclusions worth drawing today. Honestly, if they wanted to make the most money they would stop printing paper cards and just hope to become a video game company.

[Barook]

Are you talking about this?

Q. What happens when my cards rotate out of Standard?

A. The focus of MTG Arena will be on Standard card sets. We're working on fun ways for players to play with cards once they rotate out of Standard. We'll talk more about this later in the year.

I think this is more about trying not to bite off more than they can chew with Arena. They are trying a whole new economy, still working with a complex rules engine, trying to shed their reputation as a terrible digital company, etc. etc. Their goal seems to be to get some momentum behind Arena by hitting the ground running with what they can control, while they know they still have revenue streams from enfranchised players coming in via the paper and MTGO markets. They just need a minimum viable product for launch and Standard is plenty for that.

I don't think there's any conclusions worth drawing today. Honestly, if they wanted to make the most money they would stop printing paper cards and just hope to become a video game company.
The whole thing looks like a disaster in the making. They're trying to rip off Hearthstone, but have no idea what the hell they're doing. The current business model looks abyssal if you're planning to play Constructed on Arena and the secrecy behind the numbers for the Vault/wild cards should be a clear warning sign. Whenever WotC tries to hide that kind of stuff, expect it to be FUBAR.

[ktkenshinx]

Are you talking about this?

Q. What happens when my cards rotate out of Standard?

A. The focus of MTG Arena will be on Standard card sets. We're working on fun ways for players to play with cards once they rotate out of Standard. We'll talk more about this later in the year.

I think this is more about trying not to bite off more than they can chew with Arena. They are trying a whole new economy, still working with a complex rules engine, trying to shed their reputation as a terrible digital company, etc. etc. Their goal seems to be to get some momentum behind Arena by hitting the ground running with what they can control, while they know they still have revenue streams from enfranchised players coming in via the paper and MTGO markets. They just need a minimum viable product for launch and Standard is plenty for that.

I don't think there's any conclusions worth drawing today. Honestly, if they wanted to make the most money they would stop printing paper cards and just hope to become a video game company.
When one reads a quote like that, there are far more negative conclusions we can draw than positive ones. Modern (let alone Legacy/Vintage/EDH/etc.) discussion is conspicuously absent from all the Wizards-generated Arena content. That really worries me. It is especially worrisome in light of quotes like the one in the FAQ. Arena is clearly Wizards' big play, and we should not be happy that existing non-rotating formats are conspicuously absent from that discussion. Standard certainly isn't. We see that word "Standard" in all kinds of Arena press. The other formats, however, are missing. It also seems very unlikely that Wizards will want to maintain and fund two products that do effectively the same thing. Their track record with that has been terrible, as we've seen many digital MTG games fall by the wayside.

The potential salvation of MTGO is that it remains profitable for Wizards despite Arena being the client of choice. Maybe it just doesn't require that much upkeep and its margins are pretty good. If that happened, we would still see MTGO as the non-rotating format client, even if Arena was all about Standard and Limited. MTGO would still soldier on and the non-rotating formats we enjoyed would stay viable for longer. This is definitely possible. But I think it's not very likely that Legacy, Modern, and other non-rotating formats currently feature prominently in Wizards' vision of Arena.

[ye_old_storm_boy]

I have talked about this to many people and I think that if the reserved list was abolished and Dual lands where reprinted at the rarity of masterpeices (or slightly less rare) in masters sets, they wouldnt kill the value, but it would open up a lot of ways to get new players.

[porcupinetreeman]

The whole thing looks like a disaster in the making. They're trying to rip off Hearthstone, but have no idea what the hell they're doing. The current business model looks abyssal if you're planning to play Constructed on Arena and the secrecy behind the numbers for the Vault/wild cards should be a clear warning sign. Whenever WotC tries to hide that kind of stuff, expect it to be FUBAR.

Its actually the opposite, Hearthstone ripped off Magic. They stole pretty much every concept from MTG.

[Crimhead]

I have talked about this to many people and I think that if the reserved list was abolished and Dual lands where reprinted at the rarity of masterpeices (or slightly less rare) in masters sets, they wouldnt kill the value, but it would open up a lot of ways to get new players.
They don't even need to abolish it. They can modify it to exclude the duals. It wouldn't be the first time cards were removed from the list (Sol Ring, etc), and it wouldn't be the first time duals were given a special exemption (old extended). There are a couple reasonsxwhy this might make sense right now:

1) Massive revenues at a time when Standard is on life support and they are keener than ever to sell Legacy staples in Masters sets.

2) It's a great way to squeeze money out of Modern players who already have their Modern Staples but would buy into Legacy if they could get duals for closer to $100 than $300 each.

I am predicting WotC comes up with a dual land solution of some sort for the 25th anniversary. Admittedly I am an optimist, so there's that I guess.

[Barook]

When one reads a quote like that, there are far more negative conclusions we can draw than positive ones. Modern (let alone Legacy/Vintage/EDH/etc.) discussion is conspicuously absent from all the Wizards-generated Arena content. That really worries me. It is especially worrisome in light of quotes like the one in the FAQ. Arena is clearly Wizards' big play, and we should not be happy that existing non-rotating formats are conspicuously absent from that discussion. Standard certainly isn't. We see that word "Standard" in all kinds of Arena press. The other formats, however, are missing. It also seems very unlikely that Wizards will want to maintain and fund two products that do effectively the same thing. Their track record with that has been terrible, as we've seen many digital MTG games fall by the wayside.

The potential salvation of MTGO is that it remains profitable for Wizards despite Arena being the client of choice. Maybe it just doesn't require that much upkeep and its margins are pretty good. If that happened, we would still see MTGO as the non-rotating format client, even if Arena was all about Standard and Limited. MTGO would still soldier on and the non-rotating formats we enjoyed would stay viable for longer. This is definitely possible. But I think it's not very likely that Legacy, Modern, and other non-rotating formats currently feature prominently in Wizards' vision of Arena.
Modern easily rivals Standard in popularity now, but WotC can't push the format as much as it's popular because they can't monetize it properly. And the current business model just isn't compatible with acquiring the cards for a Modern deck. That alone is going to cause massive problems for Arena in the near future, at latest once the first rotation kicks in. But Arena isn't allowed to fail because Hasbro pumped millions into the project to get those sweet Hearthstone bucks.


Its actually the opposite, Hearthstone ripped off Magic. They stole pretty much every concept from MTG.
No arguing with that. WotC still stole the entire way of presentation/UI after having over 15 years to get their shit together. Just look at the garbage fire they call a UI that is MTGO V4.

[Lemnear]

They don't even need to abolish it. They can modify it to exclude the duals.

~snip~

I am predicting WotC comes up with a dual land solution of some sort for the 25th anniversary. Admittedly I am an optimist, so there's that I guess.

They won't meddle with the reserved list. They stated that many times pretty clearly and double downed with the "spirit of the RL" crap ruling out "snow Duals" as well.

WOTC has a very comfortable position of just letting Legacy/Vintage die in favor of a more profitable Modern format, while claiming their hands are tied to do anything against that, pointing to the strawmen of "collectors" and "integrity".

The last but mayor issue is that WOTC has an unhealthy relation with the big vendors handing them insider Infos for years to fuel their profits in exchange for running their official events. WOTC will not crash the value of the stores stock of cards by suddenly abolishing the RL and printing new Duals.

[Dice_Box]

I would bet you good money all the major vendors want that list gone. It offers more money long term to sell 20 cards at 40 dollars compared to one card at 300.

[Lemnear]

I would bet you good money all the major vendors want that list gone. It offers more money long term to sell 20 cards at 40 dollars compared to one card at 300.

Of course, but only after CF & Co doing a sellout of their Legacy stock :p

[kombatkiwi]

I recently met with one of the wotc employees (one of the people who designs the cards, I won't say who in case he wants to be anonymous but he didn't say this was confidential info that I couldn't repeat anywhere). He was very keen to answer questions on any aspect of what they do at wizards so I asked him about the RL.

What he said was:

- Basically every single person at WotC would gladly abolish the reserved list if they were allowed to, because:
a) Some kind of masters set or any product with RL cards in it would obviously be very popular (not only for people interested in Legacy/Vintage but also for commander players)
b) The RL restricts their ability to design new sets, for example they are simply not allowed to print basic limited fillers like '1WW 2/2 Flying First Strike' (While a lot of the cards on the reserved list are pretty weird and unique there are several straightforward cards like this that are reserved, e.g. Aeolipile).

He seemed surprisingly emphatic about the second point but I guess he's passionate about game design, employed to make new sets and everything else is a secondary concern for him.

The reason he gave for why WotC doesn't print cards on the RL is that:
a) Their legal staff (apparently different people that have been employed separately by WotC and Hasbro have looked at it) say that it would open them up to litigation
b) The last time they used the promo loophole (with Karn/Negator) somebody did actually try to sue them

I don't honestly think there is some grand conspiracy to phase out eternal formats but it seems like they are just doomed to die at some point unless the law changes.

[Barook]

I recently met with one of the wotc employees (one of the people who designs the cards, I won't say who in case he wants to be anonymous but he didn't say this was confidential info that I couldn't repeat anywhere). He was very keen to answer questions on any aspect of what they do at wizards so I asked him about the RL.

What he said was:

- Basically every single person at WotC would gladly abolish the reserved list if they were allowed to, because:
a) Some kind of masters set or any product with RL cards in it would obviously be very popular (not only for people interested in Legacy/Vintage but also for commander players)
b) The RL restricts their ability to design new sets, for example they are simply not allowed to print basic limited fillers like '1WW 2/2 Flying First Strike' (While a lot of the cards on the reserved list are pretty weird and unique there are several straightforward cards like this that are reserved, e.g. Aeolipile).

He seemed surprisingly emphatic about the second point but I guess he's passionate about game design, employed to make new sets and everything else is a secondary concern for him.

The reason he gave for why WotC doesn't print cards on the RL is that:
a) Their legal staff (apparently different people that have been employed separately by WotC and Hasbro have looked at it) say that it would open them up to litigation
b) The last time they used the promo loophole (with Karn/Negator) somebody did actually try to sue them

I don't honestly think there is some grand conspiracy to phase out eternal formats but it seems like they are just doomed to die at some point unless the law changes.
They could print something like


Thundersaurus :1::w::w:
Creature - Dinosaur
Flying, first strike
2/2

and it would be functionally different. This whole "Spirit of the Reserve List" is quite frankly horseshit, unless they had to sign some secret NDA in the wake of a ligation that doesn't allow them to print cards that are somewhat similiar or better.

They could easily print something like


"Commander Tundra"
Land - Plains Island
Whenever you cast your commander from your command zone, you gain 1 life.

But they choose not to. But then again, would we really want Neo-Duals on cardboard that self-destructs after contact with air like the current cards do? :really:

[Lemnear]

basically every single person at WotC would gladly abolish the reserved list if they were allowed to

If they would they would not have double downed the RL in regards to functional reprints and promos which were previously fine. That's literally the strawman I talked about.



a) Their legal staff (apparently different people that have been employed separately by WotC and Hasbro have looked at it) say that it would open them up to litigation
b) The last time they used the promo loophole (with Karn/Negator) somebody did actually try to sue them.

It misses the important information that no one suceeded to actually file a case because there is no way to proof how the promo loophole (or an abolishment of the list itself) would damage them, which is mandatory.

Edit:

This whole "Spirit of the Reserve List" is quite frankly horseshit, unless they had to sign some secret NDA in the wake of a ligation that doesn't allow them to print cards that are somewhat similiar or better.

Just this. There is no legal restriction preventing them to print "snow duals" at all. They just choose to do not and justify it with the "spirit of the RL" nonsense. No one forced them to double down the RL list, but they did so themselves

[Dice_Box]

somebody did actually try to sue them
I wonder how far this got. Because I would love to see those filings.

[Lemnear]

I wonder how far this got. Because I would love to see those filings.

I bet it didn't make it beyond the status "angry tweet"

[morgan_coke]

I bet it didn't make it beyond the status "angry tweet"

No, there are actual big money investors in M:TG cards weirdly enough. Those guys have $$ and LOVE teh RL. They would absolutely sue because they have such an absurd $$ amount of cardstock that's only valuable because of RL.

[maharis]

When one reads a quote like that, there are far more negative conclusions we can draw than positive ones. Modern (let alone Legacy/Vintage/EDH/etc.) discussion is conspicuously absent from all the Wizards-generated Arena content. That really worries me. It is especially worrisome in light of quotes like the one in the FAQ. Arena is clearly Wizards' big play, and we should not be happy that existing non-rotating formats are conspicuously absent from that discussion. Standard certainly isn't. We see that word "Standard" in all kinds of Arena press. The other formats, however, are missing. It also seems very unlikely that Wizards will want to maintain and fund two products that do effectively the same thing. Their track record with that has been terrible, as we've seen many digital MTG games fall by the wayside.

The potential salvation of MTGO is that it remains profitable for Wizards despite Arena being the client of choice. Maybe it just doesn't require that much upkeep and its margins are pretty good. If that happened, we would still see MTGO as the non-rotating format client, even if Arena was all about Standard and Limited. MTGO would still soldier on and the non-rotating formats we enjoyed would stay viable for longer. This is definitely possible. But I think it's not very likely that Legacy, Modern, and other non-rotating formats currently feature prominently in Wizards' vision of Arena.

I don't think your interpretation of the situation is incorrect, but I just disagree that it's something to worry about right now. Everything around Arena is still very questionable. Like if you had to bet what would still be going in 2020:

-Legacy
-Arena
-Neither

I would bet on neither first, then Legacy. Arena is still a huge gamble and Wizards, as you've said, is not historically adept with digital -- or finding alternative avenues to monetize MTG, for that matter. (That boardgame they put out a while ago was on sale for $10 at Target in less than six months.)


No, there are actual big money investors in M:TG cards weirdly enough. Those guys have $$ and LOVE teh RL. They would absolutely sue because they have such an absurd $$ amount of cardstock that's only valuable because of RL.

Hasbro is a global, publicly traded corporation that deals with international licensing and supply chain management, as well as the massive liability exposure that comes with selling toys. Their legal department surely can tangle with the big boys if needed. And I doubt there are any true big money players that are long MTG cards and care all that much about the reserved list protecting their investment. The kind of person that would actually be a threat to Hasbro legally could, or should, know of much better investment vehicles than a stack of Beta duals.

To the extent that they "fear" that breaking the reserved list would lead to a lawsuit, I would guess that Hasbro simply does not believe dealing with the small-potatoes lawsuits is worth their time. I doubt they worry that a finding against them would exceed the revenue benefits from reprinting and selling RL cards.

[Miscanthus]

reserved list and lawsuit stuff...

What if wizards were to print a cycle like this?

Blighted Isle
Land - Island Swamp
T: Add B or U to your mana pool.
Blighted Isle comes into play tapped unless you control two or fewer other lands.

I would imagine this might be good enough for legacy use. Many decks (Delver and Storm builds, for instance) very rarely have or want more than three lands in play.
This would therefore be a viable budget option for those looking to enter the format. At the same time, it is clearly inferior to the original dual lands, and it does not violate the "spirit" of the reserved list.

Print a cycle like this a few times (and maybe a similar sort of cycle geared toward more controllish decks that do want more than four lands in play), and the demand (and by extension the price) for reserved list duels might well drop off a bit...ultimately bringing in more players and breathing more life into the format.

[Barook]

I would bet on neither first, then Legacy. Arena is still a huge gamble and Wizards, as you've said, is not historically adept with digital -- or finding alternative avenues to monetize MTG, for that matter. (That boardgame they put out a while ago was on sale for $10 at Target in less than six months.)
Let's be realistic here - Magic, as a franchise, doesn't really have legs outside the actual card game. That's why all Magic movies have ended up in development hell and if one ever comes out, it will bomb. If I want to play Magic, I'll play Magic and not some shitty game that rips off the original with rehashed ideas. Cobbler, stick to your last.

[Lemnear]

What if wizards were to print a cycle like this?

Blighted Isle
Land - Island Swamp
T: Add B or U to your mana pool.
Blighted Isle comes into play tapped unless you control two or fewer other lands.

They could have done that any time, just like they did functional reprints of Fork for years. They just have no interrest in supporting Legacy/Vintage and when they got hinted at that they do it (functional reprints) for Fork but not cards people care for, they came up with the "spirit of RL" bullshit and started claiming their hands are tied.

[Misersoneof]

When one reads a quote like that, there are far more negative conclusions we can draw than positive ones. Modern (let alone Legacy/Vintage/EDH/etc.) discussion is conspicuously absent from all the Wizards-generated Arena content. That really worries me. It is especially worrisome in light of quotes like the one in the FAQ. Arena is clearly Wizards' big play, and we should not be happy that existing non-rotating formats are conspicuously absent from that discussion. Standard certainly isn't. We see that word "Standard" in all kinds of Arena press. The other formats, however, are missing. It also seems very unlikely that Wizards will want to maintain and fund two products that do effectively the same thing. Their track record with that has been terrible, as we've seen many digital MTG games fall by the wayside.

The potential salvation of MTGO is that it remains profitable for Wizards despite Arena being the client of choice. Maybe it just doesn't require that much upkeep and its margins are pretty good. If that happened, we would still see MTGO as the non-rotating format client, even if Arena was all about Standard and Limited. MTGO would still soldier on and the non-rotating formats we enjoyed would stay viable for longer. This is definitely possible. But I think it's not very likely that Legacy, Modern, and other non-rotating formats currently feature prominently in Wizards' vision of Arena.

Could someone ELIF, why is it that modern/legacy/vintage wouldn't be profitable in a digital game? I thought that the whole idea behind MTGO was that accessibility made the paper game difficult for some players to get into but a digital version would make it much more accessible? Other than the fact that they are crap at making a digital product (which really has no excuse), why can't they design a digital game that has a subscription, allows players to buy whichever cards they want at fixed prices and gives them the ability to play ad infinitum? I would gladly pay $100 up front plus $15 a month if it meant I could play legacy whenever I wanted.

EDIT:Grammar

[Jerry9]

Once upon a time, MODO did not have proper Legacy or Vintage formats. Wizards was absolutely terrified of competing with their paper selves. We are just seeing the same thing again with Arena.

Older formats could be viable in Arena, but Wizards has backend themselves into a corner. Over time, MODO has become the worst of all worlds. Its buggy, hard to maintain, hard to use, and not very accessable when compared to other digital games. It needs to be replaced. However, people and vendors have dumped thousands of dollars into it. Announcing a full replacement would likely cause a panic and kill the program overnight. If Arena flops, they will have nothing left to fall back on. I think Wizards is aware of their own history of digital shortcomings. They do not want to go all in on Arena before its proven to be viable (UI, maintainability, profitability, etc), so they will play this noncommittal song and dance for a few years.

[HSCK]

When one reads a quote like that, there are far more negative conclusions we can draw than positive ones. Modern (let alone Legacy/Vintage/EDH/etc.) discussion is conspicuously absent from all the Wizards-generated Arena content. That really worries me. It is especially worrisome in light of quotes like the one in the FAQ. Arena is clearly Wizards' big play, and we should not be happy that existing non-rotating formats are conspicuously absent from that discussion. Standard certainly isn't. We see that word "Standard" in all kinds of Arena press. The other formats, however, are missing. It also seems very unlikely that Wizards will want to maintain and fund two products that do effectively the same thing. Their track record with that has been terrible, as we've seen many digital MTG games fall by the wayside.

The potential salvation of MTGO is that it remains profitable for Wizards despite Arena being the client of choice. Maybe it just doesn't require that much upkeep and its margins are pretty good. If that happened, we would still see MTGO as the non-rotating format client, even if Arena was all about Standard and Limited. MTGO would still soldier on and the non-rotating formats we enjoyed would stay viable for longer. This is definitely possible. But I think it's not very likely that Legacy, Modern, and other non-rotating formats currently feature prominently in Wizards' vision of Arena.

Not sure why Wotc should care about Modern on Arena, they should focus on bringing EDH. It's easily the actual most popular constructed format and would mesh well with how cards are earned in the game and it'll create good viewing by having legends to follow for gameplay.

[Misersoneof]

Once upon a time, MODO did not have proper Legacy or Vintage formats. Wizards was absolutely terrified of competing with their paper selves. We are just seeing the same thing again with Arena.

So WOTC doesn't want digital games to take money away from paper games? That seems shortsighted and like standing on the wrong side of history. My dad founded a new trade magazine company back in 2005 and a few years later it was gone. He didn't see how digital print forms would overtake paper and he lost everything. If I were WOTC I would slowly move away from paper and focus on digital.

[ktkenshinx]

Could someone ELIF, why is it that modern/legacy/vintage wouldn't be profitable in a digital game? I thought that the whole idea behind MTGO was that accessibility made the paper game difficult for some players to get into but a digital version would make it much more accessible? Other than the fact that they are crap at making a digital product (which really has no excuse), why can't they design a digital game that has a subscription, allows players to buy whichever cards they want at fixed prices and gives them the ability to play ad infinitum? I would gladly pay $100 up front plus $15 a month if it meant I could play legacy whenever I wanted.

EDIT:Grammar
I think those formats are profitable in digital games, and I think your example is a great monetization idea. I would certainly pay something like that up front with a reasonable $15/month fee to maintain an account. There are also plenty of ways Wizards could add cards to Arena in a way that supports older formats. The problem is that they aren't doing any of this and none of their early buzz around the game mentions it. Indeed, it's conspicuously absent. Standard and Limited experiences are explicitly named. Modern/Legacy/EDH/Pauper/etc. are never explicitly mentioned and there are even vague references to possible alternatives coming in the future. This creates much more worry than it does confidence. I expect this is because Wizards is trying to tap into a more casual market than the veteran, vocal, enfranchised community all of us represent. This may be good for business and might even be better for the game as a whole. But it's probably not good for players like us.

Not sure why Wotc should care about Modern on Arena, they should focus on bringing EDH. It's easily the actual most popular constructed format and would mesh well with how cards are earned in the game and it'll create good viewing by having legends to follow for gameplay.
I have never seen any numbers to suggest EDH is a popular constructed format outside of personal anecdotes. It probably is at a local, game-group level. When it comes to major events, however, Modern is the clear frontrunner. Multiple gaming organizations, including Wizards, SCG, CF, and others, have gone on record admitting that Modern is currently the most popular format by views and attendance. To be clear, I'm not saying Modern is the "best" format: only that it is the most popular by tracked views and attendance numbers of the major organizations. Unfortunately, I think Wizards doesn't view Modern (or Legacy/EDH/etc.) as profitable formats the same way they do Limited and Standard. This is why Arena has explicitly mentioned these formats and has yet to acknowledge the impact for other format players. This should be cause for concern.

[HSCK]

I think those formats are profitable in digital games, and I think your example is a great monetization idea. I would certainly pay something like that up front with a reasonable $15/month fee to maintain an account. There are also plenty of ways Wizards could add cards to Arena in a way that supports older formats. The problem is that they aren't doing any of this and none of their early buzz around the game mentions it. Indeed, it's conspicuously absent. Standard and Limited experiences are explicitly named. Modern/Legacy/EDH/Pauper/etc. are never explicitly mentioned and there are even vague references to possible alternatives coming in the future. This creates much more worry than it does confidence. I expect this is because Wizards is trying to tap into a more casual market than the veteran, vocal, enfranchised community all of us represent. This may be good for business and might even be better for the game as a whole. But it's probably not good for players like us.

I have never seen any numbers to suggest EDH is a popular constructed format outside of personal anecdotes. It probably is at a local, game-group level. When it comes to major events, however, Modern is the clear frontrunner. Multiple gaming organizations, including Wizards, SCG, CF, and others, have gone on record admitting that Modern is currently the most popular format by views and attendance. To be clear, I'm not saying Modern is the "best" format: only that it is the most popular by tracked views and attendance numbers of the major organizations. Unfortunately, I think Wizards doesn't view Modern (or Legacy/EDH/etc.) as profitable formats the same way they do Limited and Standard. This is why Arena has explicitly mentioned these formats and has yet to acknowledge the impact for other format players. This should be cause for concern.

Except tournament Magic is at best, 10% of the game? They want to increase their market share and appeal to as many as possible, catering to that casual crowd is way more important. EDH had to easily be a much larger part of that than Modern. Spikes always overvalue how important they are, and when it comes to our forum it's no exception.