The current state of Magic

[ktkenshinx]

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.
I don't disagree with the brunt of this. The post of mine you quoted even said as much: "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." This isn't about a "sky is falling, Magic is dying" situation. It's that Wizards is pushing hard for a demographic that members of this forum don't really belong to, and it is very possible that our player demographic is not benefited by these changes. Arena is a huge push in that direction and, so far, not a push for Modern/Legacy/Vintage/EDH/etc., i.e. the formats and experiences that enfranchised, vocal spikes prefer. Standard and Limited are part of the Arena experience. This is very clear from all the released material so far, and Spike is definitely part of the Standard/Limited demographic so Spike isn't left behind entirely. But the particular kind of Spike that doesn't play Standard/Limited should not be confident about their prospects if Arena is any indication.

As for EDH vs. Modern, if anyone has any actual numbers or even quotes from reputable sources, I'd love to see them. Without that information, I'm just going to stick with the widely mentioned source material about Modern popularity and avoid speculating on whether or not EDH is more/less popular.

[Barook]

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.
Given that Magic Duels and its ilk were one of the main reasons why Magic's popularity exploded at the beginning of the decade, it certainly makes sense to copy Hearthstone as it destroyed their main way of getting new players into Magic. As a teacher, I see kids playing with Yugioh or Pokemon cards, but not once I've seen anyone play Magic. It just isn't as hip as it once was, at least in terms of Paper recruitment.

[HSCK]

I don't disagree with the brunt of this. The post of mine you quoted even said as much: "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." This isn't about a "sky is falling, Magic is dying" situation. It's that Wizards is pushing hard for a demographic that members of this forum don't really belong to, and it is very possible that our player demographic is not benefited by these changes. Arena is a huge push in that direction and, so far, not a push for Modern/Legacy/Vintage/EDH/etc., i.e. the formats and experiences that enfranchised, vocal spikes prefer. Standard and Limited are part of the Arena experience. This is very clear from all the released material so far, and Spike is definitely part of the Standard/Limited demographic so Spike isn't left behind entirely. But the particular kind of Spike that doesn't play Standard/Limited should not be confident about their prospects if Arena is any indication.

As for EDH vs. Modern, if anyone has any actual numbers or even quotes from reputable sources, I'd love to see them. Without that information, I'm just going to stick with the widely mentioned source material about Modern popularity and avoid speculating on whether or not EDH is more/less popular.


I mean, your source for Modern misses most of the player base, but I'm pretty sure WotC has that kind of data and will use it when making decisions on how to monetize Arena.

[ktkenshinx]

I mean, your source for Modern misses most of the player base, but I'm pretty sure WotC has that kind of data and will use it when making decisions on how to monetize Arena.
All we know is what has been publicly released, and all those signs point to Modern being the most popular constructed format for which we have that information, and according to the organizations stating that publicly. Like I've said in previous posts, there are lots of disclaimers to how accurate/comprehensive that information is. It's just what we have.

This is not to undermine other formats. It's simply to say that Modern is popular and yet it is conspicuously absent from the official Wizards content around Arena. Meanwhile, Standard and Limited are explicitly mentioned. Plus we have a vague reference to a way that Arena will use old Standard cards. All of this should be cause for concern if you are an enfranchised, veteran player who is currently financially/emotionally invested in a non-Standard/Limited constructed format.

[Lord Seth]

Given that Magic Duels and its ilk were one of the main reasons why Magic's popularity exploded at the beginning of the decade, it certainly makes sense to copy Hearthstone as it destroyed their main way of getting new players into Magic. As a teacher, I see kids playing with Yugioh or Pokemon cards, but not once I've seen anyone play Magic. It just isn't as hip as it once was, at least in terms of Paper recruitment.On the other hand, aren't Yugioh and Pokemon aimed much more towards kids? You look at Magic booster packs and they say "12+" whereas Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh products say "6+". They're clearly aimed at a younger crowd (even if older people do also play them), so them being much more popular among kids makes sense.

[Lord Seth]

All we know is what has been publicly released, and all those signs point to Modern being the most popular constructed format for which we have that information, and according to the organizations stating that publicly. Like I've said in previous posts, there are lots of disclaimers to how accurate/comprehensive that information is. It's just what we have.

This is not to undermine other formats. It's simply to say that Modern is popular and yet it is conspicuously absent from the official Wizards content around Arena. Meanwhile, Standard and Limited are explicitly mentioned. Plus we have a vague reference to a way that Arena will use old Standard cards. All of this should be cause for concern if you are an enfranchised, veteran player who is currently financially/emotionally invested in a non-Standard/Limited constructed format.Honestly, I think this may come from two factors.
1) Wizards of the Coast not wanting to commit too much to something. Suppose Magic Arena is a failure? Then they can just retract it. Trying to commit to Modern ahead of time forces them into it.
2) While there's really no excuse for the many bugs of MTGO, I expect that it's harder to program than something like Hearthstone for the simple fact that older cards weren't meant with the modern ruleset in mind and thus have to be incorporated into it, making the base program much more complicated. If they limit themselves to Standard, then the programming will be a heck of a lot easier, but trying to come in with Modern being legal will make it more complicated. As they presumably want to try to not have the many bugs of MTGO, I expect sticking to Standard will help them do that.

[kombatkiwi]

On the other hand, aren't Yugioh and Pokemon aimed much more towards kids? You look at Magic booster packs and they say "12+" whereas Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh products say "6+". They're clearly aimed at a younger crowd (even if older people do also play them), so them being much more popular among kids makes sense.

I've seen a lot of YGO players (teenagers or older) not want to try magic because they have the impression that the playerbase is full of sweaty neckbeards, at least locally I have seen a lot more of them try to start playing pokemon or the new dragonball game.

For much younger players maybe having the TV shows and related things to support the card game makes these other games like Yugioh/Pokemon more appealing

[Phoenix Ignition]

Honestly, I think this may come from two factors.
1) Wizards of the Coast not wanting to commit too much to something. Suppose Magic Arena is a failure? Then they can just retract it. Trying to commit to Modern ahead of time forces them into it.
2) While there's really no excuse for the many bugs of MTGO, I expect that it's harder to program than something like Hearthstone for the simple fact that older cards weren't meant with the modern ruleset in mind and thus have to be incorporated into it, making the base program much more complicated. If they limit themselves to Standard, then the programming will be a heck of a lot easier, but trying to come in with Modern being legal will make it more complicated. As they presumably want to try to not have the many bugs of MTGO, I expect sticking to Standard will help them do that.

This was my take as well; I think they're biting off a lot more than they can chew just promising a client that looks and feels polished while playing and can go from beginner mode to full control mode. I don't think anyone who's seen MTGO thinks they can even pull this off, much less a fully functioning Vintage-Standard + drafts on their first try.

I actually think they will add Modern in eventually, since really Standard and draft just don't have the depth to keep people happy after they know that Modern and more are out there in MTG. Even if they don't add it I wouldn't worry about a new format popping up, Modern-Lite or whatever, unless it was legitimately fun enough to hold people's attention.

[Crimhead]

Like if you had to bet what would still be going in 2020:

-Legacy
-Arena
-Neither

I would bet on neither first, then Legacy.
You would bet that Legacy cease to "go on" within just 2 years? That's wholly alarmist, I think.

[morgan_coke]

You would bet that Legacy cease to "go on" within just 2 years? That's wholly alarmist, I think.

I don't think Legacy is on a 2 year timespan either, but when it goes the way of Vintage, it will happen fast. Any kind of recession, and you'll see a LOT of people start looking at that $20k worth of cardboard and thinking "hmmm..."

I mean, that's what happened with Vintage, to a degree, a large number of the Power 9 left the USA during the last downturn.

[maharis]

You would bet that Legacy cease to "go on" within just 2 years? That's wholly alarmist, I think.

Yikes, that was backwards. Meant Legacy first, then neither. Sorry.

My point was more about Arena, though, and to me it is still very much in show-me mode. As Barook said, the one thing that makes Magic unique is a robust in-person play experience, and almost everything they have done with the brand besides that has not "stuck." Even for all its faults, MTGO has been around for so long that it is practically entrenched in its market. But its initial competitors weren't the kinds of games that Arena is trying to compete with. Arena's competitors have an early-mover advantage; it would be like trying to go up against MTG with a paper card game now. The bet is that MTG's name recognition attached with a more Hearthstone-like play experience will create a hit. But, Hearthstone already exists.

I understand the anxiety and unease around Arena as it relates to entrenched players, but worrying about its impact right now isn't necessary, in my opinion. The biggest fear should be them unplugging MTGO but I think they would be incredibly stupid to do that, as it would be nothing but bad press and would alienate a large base of customers who they need to move on to the next thing in order for it to be anything remotely resembling a success.

You could make the case that four bannings in Standard in 13 months may lead Wizards to the conclusion that supporting a paper game with the effects set in ink is just not a tenable business strategy anymore, and it's just easier to go all digital and errata cards remotely. The money they would lose from no longer selling cards would be made up in lower operating costs, etc. But that's a fundamental re-working of their business model and there are a TON of other people who are affected by that -- not the least the network of game stores. There's going to be a long transition time between MTGO/the paper game and Arena, if there even is a transition, and hopefully they are not too stupid and myopic as to just bet on all new customers. Abruptly pulling support for MTGO and paper, and/or going away from their most popular format by far in Modern, would be a massive strategic error.

[Barook]

On the other hand, aren't Yugioh and Pokemon aimed much more towards kids? You look at Magic booster packs and they say "12+" whereas Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh products say "6+". They're clearly aimed at a younger crowd (even if older people do also play them), so them being much more popular among kids makes sense.
Most of our group started playing at the beginning of the 6th grade (Mirage/Tempest era - good times). I don't see any of those kids start playing Magic anymore. Competition has become alot harder.


I've seen a lot of YGO players (teenagers or older) not want to try magic because they have the impression that the playerbase is full of sweaty neckbeards, at least locally I have seen a lot more of them try to start playing pokemon or the new dragonball game.

For much younger players maybe having the TV shows and related things to support the card game makes these other games like Yugioh/Pokemon more appealing
I just imagined the horror of a Jacetice League cartoon.


Yikes, that was backwards. Meant Legacy first, then neither. Sorry.

My point was more about Arena, though, and to me it is still very much in show-me mode. As Barook said, the one thing that makes Magic unique is a robust in-person play experience, and almost everything they have done with the brand besides that has not "stuck." Even for all its faults, MTGO has been around for so long that it is practically entrenched in its market. But its initial competitors weren't the kinds of games that Arena is trying to compete with. Arena's competitors have an early-mover advantage; it would be like trying to go up against MTG with a paper card game now. The bet is that MTG's name recognition attached with a more Hearthstone-like play experience will create a hit. But, Hearthstone already exists.

I understand the anxiety and unease around Arena as it relates to entrenched players, but worrying about its impact right now isn't necessary, in my opinion. The biggest fear should be them unplugging MTGO but I think they would be incredibly stupid to do that, as it would be nothing but bad press and would alienate a large base of customers who they need to move on to the next thing in order for it to be anything remotely resembling a success.

You could make the case that four bannings in Standard in 13 months may lead Wizards to the conclusion that supporting a paper game with the effects set in ink is just not a tenable business strategy anymore, and it's just easier to go all digital and errata cards remotely. The money they would lose from no longer selling cards would be made up in lower operating costs, etc. But that's a fundamental re-working of their business model and there are a TON of other people who are affected by that -- not the least the network of game stores. There's going to be a long transition time between MTGO/the paper game and Arena, if there even is a transition, and hopefully they are not too stupid and myopic as to just bet on all new customers. Abruptly pulling support for MTGO and paper, and/or going away from their most popular format by far in Modern, would be a massive strategic error.
One of the problems with Arena is that it prevents players from investing into MTGO further, given how non-chalantly the pulled the plug from Duels out of nowhere.

For Arena to succeed, it needs
a) a viable business with reasonable prices instead of maximum player gauging
b) a good, bug-light experience and
c) good Limited formats (very hit-and-miss) and a Standard that doesn't suck (currently not the case, see bannings).

[rufus]

...
a) a viable business with reasonable prices instead of maximum player gauging
....

That made me think of the "What's the biggest challenge facing magic?" question.

[Zombie]

A Standard that doesn't suck

They could just implement Ravnica-Lorwyn era Standards as permanent formats and their job would be done.

[Dice_Box]

They have Garfield leading the next block. Let's see what happens.

Edit:
Is a set, and it's a standalone. First Dom standalone since Homelands... Rough set to follow that one. All those heavy hitters.

[Ace/Homebrew]

They have Garfield leading the next block. Let's see what happens.
It'll probably be a set full of lasagna and without any Mondays...

[taconaut]

It'll probably be a set full of lasagna and without any Mondays...

I mean, I'd draft that.

[Barook]

They have Garfield leading the next block. Let's see what happens.

Edit:
Is a set, and it's a standalone. First Dom standalone since Homelands... Rough set to follow that one. All those heavy hitters.
The last two sets where he was a guest designer were the original Ravnica and Innistrad. I have faith in him. If WotC still manages to fuck this up despite Garfield in the house, then Magic is into deep shit.

On a different note:
Magic: The Gathering Arena Closed Beta Gameplay (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/221987931)

[Ronald Deuce]

If WotC still manages to fuck this up despite Garfield in the house, then Magic is into deep shit.

"Aut inveniam viam aut faciam."

Naw, in all seriousness, that is good news. Hoping for the best.

[Barook]

Numbers are subject to change, but let me get this straight, from what data we got from the video above and some people crunching the numbers on Twitter:

It's highly likely that Tier 1 Standard decks are more expensive to acquire on Arena than MTGO and you can neither resell them nor convert them into resources? :eyebrow:

[morgan_coke]

Numbers are subject to change, but let me get this straight, from what data we got from the video above and some people crunching the numbers on Twitter:

It's highly likely that Tier 1 Standard decks are more expensive to acquire on Arena than MTGO and you can neither resell them nor convert them into resources? :eyebrow:

Yeah, that sounds about right in our current loot box age.

[Lemnear]

Yeah, that sounds about right in our current loot box age.

It's funny, because it's fucking true. I guess Arena will end up a pure P2W environment no way different than all the mobile gatchapon games out there.

[Claymore]

So I guess you have to earn Wildcard boosters (1 mythic, 1 rare, 2 unc, 4 common) by filling up "the Vault". You fill up the Vault by completing quests, opening boosters, or turning in 5th cards. You don't need to turn in only rares to get rare wildcards, you can turn in only commons and still unlock a Wildcard booster. I assume you automatically turn in duplicate 5th cards.

Opening boosters can also have extra wildcards I assume. I haven't gotten to the part of the explanation of why mythic and rare have the same drop rate in a wildcard booster (1 each).

You can redeem a wildcard for any single card of that rarity.

So yeah, ultimately if you still open a bunch of U/W rares, you can't trade those for Mono Red rares.

---

Oh, and you earn coins from quests/winning games, and coins are used to buy boosters. I assume you can buy gems or something straight up to buy boosters.

[Barook]

So I guess you have to earn Wildcard boosters (1 mythic, 1 rare, 2 unc, 4 common) by filling up "the Vault". You fill up the Vault by completing quests, opening boosters, or turning in 5th cards. You don't need to turn in only rares to get rare wildcards, you can turn in only commons and still unlock a Wildcard booster. I assume you automatically turn in duplicate 5th cards.

Opening boosters can also have extra wildcards I assume. I haven't gotten to the part of the explanation of why mythic and rare have the same drop rate in a wildcard booster (1 each).

You can redeem a wildcard for any single card of that rarity.

So yeah, ultimately if you still open a bunch of U/W rares, you can't trade those for Mono Red rares.

---

Oh, and you earn coins from quests/winning games, and coins are used to buy boosters. I assume you can buy gems or something straight up to buy boosters.
From the number crunches posted on Twitter, you can earn roughly 3-4 boosters per week by playing. One Vault takes roughly 23 boosters to charge. The free-2-play aspect is a joke.

[Dice_Box]

The reason I don't play Hearthstone is my inability to buy Singles. Guess I skip this too. Didn't even know it was a thing.

[Barook]

The reason I don't play Hearthstone is my inability to buy Singles. Guess I skip this too. Didn't even know it was a thing.
https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/status/956647300369207297

Hilariously enough, it seems that they've even copied the dust ratios from Hearthstone to fill the Vault - except it's quite possible that you're going to need multiples of the same mythics instead of one legendary each.

[morgan_coke]

https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/status/956647300369207297

Hilariously enough, it seems that they've even copied the dust ratios from Hearthstone to fill the Vault - except it's quite possible that you're going to need multiples of the same mythics instead of one legendary each.

THAT'S the kind of innovative thinking I've come to expect from WotC's digital teams.

[Lord Seth]

They have Garfield leading the next block. Let's see what happens.

Edit:
Is a set, and it's a standalone. First Dom standalone since Homelands... Rough set to follow that one. All those heavy hitters.Is Garfield actually leading design, or is he just on the design team? Lead design would be a major surprise, as while he's been on several design teams since the first sets, I think the last time he was lead designer was Arabian Nights. (of which he was actually the only designer)

[Jerry9]

I suspect the Arena economy was intentionally undershot for the initial reveal. Overshooting and then taking away f2p stuff tends to be hard on pr. That said, these numbers are not even close to sustainable.

[Aggro_zombies]

I highly doubt it was intentionally undershot. I think they just copied the numbers from Hearthstone wholesale. A lot of these ratios were probably decided well in advance and before complaints about HS being ridiculously expensive and incredibly stingy towards new and F2P players became big. In fact, I suspect the monetization aspect probably predated most other elements in the design of the game, and that a big part of the justification for it was, "Blizzard can do it," and, "Players pay a lot of money for paper decks," without any real understanding of the fact that Blizzard is massively far ahead of every other non-mobile games company out there in its ability to build Skinner boxes.

I suspect what will happen is that these ratios will go live and the game will bomb because a ton of people will try it for the IP and realize it's too hard to get traction and build the decks they want, and they'll move to the plethora of other games out there that are more generous, or move back to MTGO to get a Magic experience that's more true to the dynamics of the paper game.

[Barook]

I suspect what will happen is that these ratios will go live and the game will bomb because a ton of people will try it for the IP and realize it's too hard to get traction and build the decks they want, and they'll move to the plethora of other games out there that are more generous, or move back to MTGO to get a Magic experience that's more true to the dynamics of the paper game.
Sounds pretty accurate. If it goes live the current rates, it's going to be a major buzzkill that's going to be hard to recover from, especially if you want to get new players. "That buggy Hearthstone rip-off that's even more expensive than Hearthstone" is probably going to be the sentiment of lots of people.

Let's also not forget that Hasbro has stated multiple times in their shareholder reports that they expect major returns from Arena (probably based on the idea that Hearthstone + Magic = $$$). I wonder what the consequences are going to be if it truely bombs.

[Ronald Deuce]

This might sound tangential, but I think the biggest problem for Arena is likely to be bannings. We've had seven Standard bans in the past year. And these haven't been "curb the dominance of some deck" bannings; they've been "burn everything" bannings. They banned 250%-COSTED BARBARIAN RING. I would've considered it a fluke if the bans had stopped with Marvel, Guardian, and the helicopter, but this is something else entirely, and the fact they've done it twice in a row indicates that it isn't a fluke. Used to be that banned cards were good enough to play in wider, more high-powered formats, and only one of the currently banned cards has made waves anywhere but Standard.

I'm wondering whether there's a sea change going on right now, whereby bans are no longer the last resort. There are tons of implications if this is the case, but I'll stick to Arena.

So we know that Arena is Standard/Limited focused, and that singles are out. A problem for the impact of Arena is that I don't think people are likely to get into Arena if they don't already play paper or online MtG, meaning that it wouldn't be a major path for people to enter Magic; why play Arena when you could play any of its competitors? Sure, there's no major reason NOT to play it, but Wizards is a bit late to the party if they think they'll walk into the digital market and take a big portion of the market share other games/companies already have. But regardless of whether that's true, would enfranchised players want to branch out into another platform when they already have to worry that their paper or MTGO cards could get hit with a ban? Why take an even bigger risk by jumping onto a third platform?

And for people who are discovering Magic through Arena, what's going to happen when their deck gets crushed like Energy just did?

[Phoenix Ignition]

Wait, I don't follow Standard or its bannings at all, but how the hell did Ramunap Ruins warrant a ban? That's so hilariously bad in any other format.

[Dice_Box]

Ramunap Ruins adds a lot of "invisible power" to the deck, often acting as a virtual reduction to the opponent's starting life total. It also provides a high level of inevitability in matchups that go long, such as against the blue-black control decks popular at last year's World Championship (which have since fallen out of favor, in part because of this). Without Ramunap Ruins, the general play pattern of the deck remains largely the same, but the deck will lose some amount of the free win percentage that this land contributed.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-15-2018-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2018-01-15

[Phoenix Ignition]

Wow, so basically they are trying so hard to have a format that has predefined decks in it, to the point where they need a specific color of control that is "supposed to win late game," that they will just ban anything that kills their idea of perfect. I guess their design philosophy is more along the lines of "give them the cookie cutter decks they expect."

[Zombie]

A small note on Ruins: It's not a more expensive Barbarian Ring. It's an engine. You can sacrifice any Desert. You don't get to play four uncounterable Shocks, you get to play 10, 6 of which do other stuff (= 1 more point to the head as ETB or give all Deserts a Relic of Progenitus-esque sac-to-nuke-all-yards ability). That is a lot of low-interactivity reach given how awful land destruction is in the format.

[Phoenix Ignition]

That is a lot of low-interactivity reach given how awful land destruction is in the format.

I swear to god, this is what will ruin magic. They refuse to print decent ways to kill lands, but also print lands that have abilities.

[Dice_Box]

https://img.scryfall.com/cards/large/en/xln/254.jpg?1509310349

[Aggro_zombies]

RE: Frequent Bans

I think this is a major shift in expectations not on the side of Wizards, but the side of players. Players are increasingly getting into card games through digital means, so they're used to balance patches being frequent and hitting lots of things at once, and are developing an expectation that if an environment gets unhealthy, the devs will fix it quickly. One of the perennial complaints people have about Hearthstone is that obviously stilted Ladder environments take months to fix, for example.

Magic can't errata cards, or rather, Magic has (correctly) chosen not to errata cards to affect power level, so the major recourse for unbalanced environments is to ban the shit out of things. I think the scale of the bans is partly a move by Wizards to try to restore consumer confidence by being seen to take aggressive corrective action, but I also think that some of this is that players are quicker to call for said action because of a growing expectation that unfun environments be actively policed.

RE: Land Destruction

Wizards is on record saying that they believe players have more fun when they're able to cast their spells, and having robust manabases is the key to that. Wizards therefore can't print nonbasic land hate that compromises mana fixing. However, the best use of nonbasic land hate is mana denial and to punish greedy splashes, so you end up with all these ineffectual riffs on Ghost Quarter that are all universally less strong than Ghost Quarter because GQ was the most efficient implementation of the "resource exchange" nonbasic hate card. You also end up with Not-Quite-Blood-Moons because actual Blood Moon is a ball-busting card and probably shouldn't exist in a world where people aren't running mono-basics manabases.

[Ronald Deuce]

RE: Frequent Bans

I think this is a major shift in expectations not on the side of Wizards, but the side of players. Players are increasingly getting into card games through digital means, so they're used to balance patches being frequent and hitting lots of things at once, and are developing an expectation that if an environment gets unhealthy, the devs will fix it quickly. One of the perennial complaints people have about Hearthstone is that obviously stilted Ladder environments take months to fix, for example.

Magic can't errata cards, or rather, Magic has (correctly) chosen not to errata cards to affect power level, so the major recourse for unbalanced environments is to ban the shit out of things. I think the scale of the bans is partly a move by Wizards to try to restore consumer confidence by being seen to take aggressive corrective action, but I also think that some of this is that players are quicker to call for said action because of a growing expectation that unfun environments be actively policed.

That's an interesting point, and one I hadn't considered. It feels like they've crossed a line, though; they're not just banning Marvel and Rogue Refiner; they banned 20% of the cards in the deck—in the second round of bannings. I feel like that indicates that it's stopped being a concession to players and has started to be a punitive measure against other players.


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

Their justification was that the card was providing "free wins." 5-cost Shock is providing free wins. Ok, fine, but what is dying to it? What kind of deck is performing well elsewhere but dying to Ramunap Ruins? Does that deck have the right to exist if this is the card that's getting "free wins" against it on turn 17? This isn't Skullclamp. It's not even Fanatic of Mogis. [Dice_Box, thank you for linking the article.]


A small note on Ruins: It's not a more expensive Barbarian Ring. It's an engine. You can sacrifice any Desert. You don't get to play four uncounterable Shocks, you get to play 10, 6 of which do other stuff (= 1 more point to the head as ETB or give all Deserts a Relic of Progenitus-esque sac-to-nuke-all-yards ability). That is a lot of low-interactivity reach given how awful land destruction is in the format.

You're right, though I'd be surprised if one could regularly activate Ruins more than twice in a game. Maybe I'm just out of touch, but in a red deck that doesn't seem likely or optimal.

I guess my point is this: what's happened to the game design when they have to double-nuke a deck, and when the only other banned cards are a) one-half of an infinite combo, and b) a nonbasic land that costs four mana to activate? I was a durdling king when I started playing Magic, and I don't think I'd want to play much more if the deck I built to get into the game disappeared, or if they started banning cards that are comically bad ≥80% of the time. I'd probably quit Arena then and there, and I wouldn't have a thick enough skin to bear losing money on a game because of their own poor design decisions.

[morgan_coke]

That's an interesting point, and one I hadn't considered. It feels like they've crossed a line, though; they're not just banning Marvel and Rogue Refiner; they banned 20% of the cards in the deck—in the second round of bannings. I feel like that indicates that it's stopped being a concession to players and has started to be a punitive measure against other players.



Their justification was that the card was providing "free wins." 5-cost Shock is providing free wins. Ok, fine, but what is dying to it? What kind of deck is performing well elsewhere but dying to Ramunap Ruins? Does that deck have the right to exist if this is the card that's getting "free wins" against it on turn 17? This isn't Skullclamp. It's not even Fanatic of Mogis. [Dice_Box, thank you for linking the article.]



You're right, though I'd be surprised if one could regularly activate Ruins more than twice in a game. Maybe I'm just out of touch, but in a red deck that doesn't seem likely or optimal.

I guess my point is this: what's happened to the game design when they have to double-nuke a deck, and when the only other banned cards are a) one-half of an infinite combo, and b) a nonbasic land that costs four mana to activate? I was a durdling king when I started playing Magic, and I don't think I'd want to play much more if the deck I built to get into the game disappeared, or if they started banning cards that are comically bad ≥80% of the time. I'd probably quit Arena then and there, and I wouldn't have a thick enough skin to bear losing money on a game because of their own poor design decisions.

The problem with Ranumap Red is that all the normal things you'd do to stop a Red deck either suck or are actively countered for free by the cards in it. Like Ferocidon shuts down both lifegain and token plans. Crasher and the 2/1 guy both invalidate blocking, and have haste. So you can't gain life (the lifegain right now sucks anyways, there's nothing close to a Finks or Hierarch or even Baloth out right now), you can't block, and you can't kill their board because the wraths cost 5 and none of the existing removal is instant speed. Plus their dudes have flashback. And I mean counter things? lol @standard.

In a real format Ramunap Red isn't a great deck, it's a bad one trick pony. But they've neutered standard so badly that just curving out with unblockable Haste duders is the best thing going. It's like the debut of Sligh all over again. Every sucks so bad Ironclaw Orcs is a winning play.

By taking away counters, sweepers, instant removal, and leaving manabases completely free from danger, they've taken all the tension out of the game. Their best case scenario at this point is Siege Rhino vs. Siege Rhino.

EDIT: the complete refusal to print a 2 mana Rampant Growth is also a big problem since nobody else can match the speed of red/energy.

[Finn]

They have banned crappy cards before. Squandered Resources is kinda useless, but made for not-fun, non-interactive games when it was in the game’s first combo. There was just no way to fight it in the block. We can complain, but they are still just trying to keep the format fun.

[kombatkiwi]

If you don't actually play standard then probably don't post about it because a lot of what I am reading here seems to be some real chicken little shit


Wow, so basically they are trying so hard to have a format that has predefined decks in it, to the point where they need a specific color of control that is "supposed to win late game," that they will just ban anything that kills their idea of perfect. I guess their design philosophy is more along the lines of "give them the cookie cutter decks they expect."
They want to have a metagame with multiple different decks in it.
1. Energy was clearly the most dominant deck (in terms of results and meta share)
2. In order to make the standard metagame more diverse cards from energy need to be banned (if you're a fan of Attune mirrors then you can disagree with the axiom that the metagame needs to be diverse, in the vein of how I think Brainstorm is fine)
3. If you ban cards to make energy worse and don't do anything else, then based on the current metagame data red aggro decks would become the default best deck and then we are back to square 1 ('unhealthy' metagame again)
4. Therefore something from the red deck needs to be banned as well
That's it
Reading into this any further is like a borderline conspiracy theory...


Their justification was that the card was providing "free wins." 5-cost Shock is providing free wins. Ok, fine, but what is dying to it? What kind of deck is performing well elsewhere but dying to Ramunap Ruins? Does that deck have the right to exist if this is the card that's getting "free wins" against it on turn 17? This isn't Skullclamp. It's not even Fanatic of Mogis. [Dice_Box, thank you for linking the article.]

There is no opportunity cost to putting Ramunap and a couple of Deserts in your mono red deck and it effectively means that against any control opponent you start the game with a free leyline that Lava Axes your opponents face. If there were no other playable aggressive red cards then sure, maybe this wouldn't matter, but there are good cards like Bomat Courier and Hazoret to go alongside it. Bannings matter in context. Thirst for Knowledge is still restricted in vintage even though it's legal x4 in Modern and Legacy and close to unplayable in both of those (not to mention all the other restricted shit that's only viable because of Workshop).


It feels like they've crossed a line, though; they're not just banning Marvel and Rogue Refiner; they banned 20% of the cards in the deck—in the second round of bannings. ... I guess my point is this: what's happened to the game design when they have to double-nuke a deck

It would have been very difficult to predict at the time of the Marvel banning that the format would converge on Energy midrange as being the default best deck because the energy deck with Marvel in it was totally different and created a negative tournament experience for an entirely separate reason. Calling this 2nd ban a double whammy against the same deck is really dumb. (And it's not like actual successive bans against similar decks haven't happened in the past, with DRS getting banned after BBE, or Dig getting banned after Cruise, or Necro getting banned after X Y and Z). Erring in the other direction and definitively obliterating entire 'archetypes' whenever they ban something the first time is probably a much worse philosophy because it a) Is bad optics when they ban many cards at a time, as this thread proves, and b) makes the "I'm quitting magic because they made all my cards unplayable" crowd even more upset


I feel like that indicates that it's stopped being a concession to players and has started to be a punitive measure against other players
What does this even mean

[Ace/Homebrew]

Off the current topic, but still sorta related to 'the current state of Magic'...

Has anyone else been enjoying the Team Constructed coverage from SCG?
I'm mostly happy to occasionally see Legacy being played, but I'm also surprised I don't loathe watching Standard.

[Barook]

RE: Land Destruction

Wizards is on record saying that they believe players have more fun when they're able to cast their spells, and having robust manabases is the key to that. Wizards therefore can't print nonbasic land hate that compromises mana fixing. However, the best use of nonbasic land hate is mana denial and to punish greedy splashes, so you end up with all these ineffectual riffs on Ghost Quarter that are all universally less strong than Ghost Quarter because GQ was the most efficient implementation of the "resource exchange" nonbasic hate card. You also end up with Not-Quite-Blood-Moons because actual Blood Moon is a ball-busting card and probably shouldn't exist in a world where people aren't running mono-basics manabases.
We might see more GQ/Field of Ruin/Blood Sun-type of non-basic hate in the future, as they attack non-basics without reducing the amount of available mana for the opponent (unless they're super-greedy), which was WotC's/Maro's main gripe with land destruction.

Although I wonder why nobody has tried starting to abuse Ramunap Excavator + Field of Ruin yet.

[Dice_Box]

The 2 mana activation cost and there being so few decks that have both Crucible and large amounts of basics.

[Mr. Safety]

Remember the age of Time Spiral, Lorwyn/Morningtide, Zendikar, and Shards of Alara standard? That shit was lit. There were very powerful decks, tons of interaction, viable RDW/agro decks, mid-range, control, and even a few combo decks. Dropping the power level in order to 'level the field', as it seems like they are doing, makes for an environment where the field is just boring. Drop in UB Faeries or Broodmate Dragon Jund from their standard formats and they are almost viable in Modern (bans aside.) I can't remember the last time I thought a Standard deck was even interesting, let alone powerful in the same way those were.

I see more and more players gravitating towards eternal formats at my LGS, whether it be Modern, Legacy, or Commander. They want their cards to be relevant for a long time, not just for a year or so (or however long Standard formats last, IDK, IDC.) I can honestly say that, for me, nothing beats real-life magic with real cards and real human interaction.

Not sure if anyone has seen the video by Tolarian Academy on YouTube about Dominaria yet, but I think he makes some good points. Love him or hate him, I agree that Dominaria is make-or-break for MtG as we know it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ytgeA2Y7A4

EDIT: goddamnit, I can't figure out how to get the video in the actual post...link above

[Zombie]

Remember the age of Time Spiral, Lorwyn/Morningtide, Zendikar, and Shards of Alara standard? That shit was lit. There were very powerful decks, tons of interaction, viable RDW/agro decks, mid-range, control, and even a few combo decks. Dropping the power level in order to 'level the field', as it seems like they are doing, makes for an environment where the field is just boring. Drop in UB Faeries or Broodmate Dragon Jund from their standard formats and they are almost viable in Modern (bans aside.) I can't remember the last time I thought a Standard deck was even interesting, let alone powerful in the same way those were.

A few? Oh, oh no. TS-Lor/Sha-CSnap Standard was a time when you could legit talk about combo as an archetype, not just a deck in the format. One combo in a format? Try six. In Standard. And those are just the actually halfway-sane ones that actually had decks around them at some point or another of the sets' lifespan, not cheeky shit like trying to get four Nettle Sentinels in play for infinite Sprout Swarms (was in the format, btw) or chucking Shivan Meteors at Stuffy Doll.

[Barook]

Not sure if anyone has seen the video by Tolarian Academy on YouTube about Dominaria yet, but I think he makes some good points. Love him or hate him, I agree that Dominaria is make-or-break for MtG as we know it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ytgeA2Y7A4
I'm not too concerned about the power level of Dominaria, given that Garfield is on board. Innistrad and RtR had quite the power in them. I do agree that Dominaria is make-or-break for them. Standard currently isn't doing too hot for them and the card stock issues with bending cards damages the reputation of the game. And when was the last time you saw a Standard decks and thought "Hey, that looks kinda nifty!"?

However, question is whether or not Dominaria can actually live up the hype. 25th anniversary is a pretty big milestone and expectations are really, really high.

[Ronald Deuce]

I was trying not to turn this into the B/R thread, so apologies if that's the way things are going.


There is no opportunity cost to putting Ramunap and a couple of Deserts in your mono red deck and it effectively means that against any control opponent you start the game with a free leyline that Lava Axes your opponents face.

No, it isn't; it's a free card that flashback Firebolts your opponent every turn if you control a Desert once you reach turn 5 if you found the card in the top 12–13 cards in your deck and you've found Deserts enough to expend them on each of those turns. But explain to me how that's the card that's torpedoing the format and why the deck's competitors should exist, either, if they die to that.


If there were no other playable aggressive red cards then sure, maybe this wouldn't matter, but there are good cards like Bomat Courier and Hazoret to go alongside it. Bannings matter in context. Thirst for Knowledge is still restricted in vintage even though it's legal x4 in Modern and Legacy and close to unplayable in both of those (not to mention all the other restricted shit that's only viable because of Workshop).

This gets to the heart of my question; if there are other red cards that are turning everything else on its head, why ban the card that happens to be good in certain matchups when they go long instead of the one that's so unfair? Morgan_coke pointed out how problematic Ferocidon was, so I'll concede that maybe that card deserved a hit. But we're effectively in agreement here—that cards are good or bad because of the cards that surround them. (It also sounds like we feel the same way about Workshop, though I don't play Vintage, either because...I bought a yacht yesterday...I swear...it even had a minibar stocked with, uh, Naragansett....) So my point was that I think design is in a really bad place when, to quote you, "a free leyline that Lava Axes your opponent's face" (not that I agree with that characterization) is the card that gets banned for pushing a deck over the top.


It would have been very difficult to predict at the time of the Marvel banning that the format would converge on Energy midrange as being the default best deck because the energy deck with Marvel in it was totally different and created a negative tournament experience for an entirely separate reason.

OK, that's fair that Marvel decks and Longtusk decks are different enough not to be considered the same. But my point still stands: they banned 12 energy cards out of 60 from the same deck. After they already banned the heavy-hitter energy card in the block. That's not balancing; that's eliminating a mechanic. There once was a time when that was the last thing they wanted to do, like when they banned Sensei's Top in Legacy, y'know, last year.


Erring in the other direction and definitively obliterating entire 'archetypes' whenever they ban something the first time is probably a much worse philosophy because it a) Is bad optics when they ban many cards at a time, as this thread proves, and b) makes the "I'm quitting magic because they made all my cards unplayable" crowd even more upset....What does this even mean

It means exactly what you said; Aggro_zombies said that the new ban philosophy (assuming that's what it is) is much closer in line with the method used by digital-platform companies, when they ban things because of player outrage on a regular basis to provide "balance." I was pointing out that they're not just banning the single design mistake that's making everything else go fully degenerate; they're banning as much of an entire aspect of design as they can get their hands on (and cards that are good in completely different decks) because they made a terrible set, and the people who play with those decks have to bend over backwards for the people who don't. Bans used to be minimally invasive; this is maximally invasive.

[Aggro_zombies]

No, it isn't; it's a free card that flashback Firebolts your opponent every turn if you control a Desert once you reach turn 5 if you found the card in the top 12–13 cards in your deck and you've found Deserts enough to expend them on each of those turns. But explain to me how that's the card that's torpedoing the format and why the deck's competitors should exist, either, if they die to that.
So, the thing with Ruins - and Hazoret, while we're on the subject - is not the efficiency of the cards themselves, it what they do to the play pattern of RDW vs. Durdle Control. Normally, historically, the way these matchups work is that RDW is on a timer, and that timer is the first sweeper control can resolve. Once control resolves a sweeper, chances are pretty good you don't have enough cards to force the remaining damage through control's one-for-ones, and you just kind of lose from there.

Pre-ban RDW was actually about as resilient against Durdle Control as you can get. Hazoret and Ruins both meant that even if you're ripping lands, you're still able to convert them into damage, so control can't just automatically assume that X% of your deck doesn't dome them and decide whether to make risky plays to consolidate their position. Because you're mono-color, there's little opportunity cost to running a small pile of colorless deserts to fuel Ruins, and one of those deserts (Sunscorched Desert) is a damage source itself. This is also on top of the haste guys the deck runs and the Eternalize bear that domes the opponent as an ETB effect. All of those together means the first sweeper very often doesn't stabilize you, unless it exiles (Settle the Wreckage), because there still so many ways to convert lackluster topdecks into damage.

I think Hazoret would have been a better ban than Ruins if that was actually their logic, but there's also more ways in Standard right now to exile a creature than get rid of a land, so...

[kombatkiwi]

This gets to the heart of my question; if there are other red cards that are turning everything else on its head, why ban the card that happens to be good in certain matchups when they go long instead of the one that's so unfair? Morgan_coke pointed out how problematic Ferocidon was, so I'll concede that maybe that card deserved a hit. But we're effectively in agreement here—that cards are good or bad because of the cards that surround them. (It also sounds like we feel the same way about Workshop, though I don't play Vintage, either because...I bought a yacht yesterday...I swear...it even had a minibar stocked with, uh, Naragansett....) So my point was that I think design is in a really bad place when, to quote you, "a free leyline that Lava Axes your opponent's face" (not that I agree with that characterization) is the card that gets banned for pushing a deck over the top.

You seem to have a philosophy that 'If a deck is too good then the only appropriate solution is to ban the strongest card in it.' This is silly. The point of the bans is to create a diverse metagame. If you ban the strongest card in red instead (Hazoret) then the deck basically becomes unplayable and then there is 1 less viable deck available for players. (Not banning expensive mythics is also probably better from a player retention point of view but that's a different argument).


OK, that's fair that Marvel decks and Longtusk decks are different enough not to be considered the same. But my point still stands: they banned 12 energy cards out of 60 from the same deck. After they already banned the heavy-hitter energy card in the block. That's not balancing; that's eliminating a mechanic. There once was a time when that was the last thing they wanted to do, like when they banned Sensei's Top in Legacy, y'know, last year.

Energy is definitely not 'eliminated', I played in a 50+ player PPTQ 3 days ago and at least 2 decks in top 8 (including the winner) were playing Glimmer and Siphoner and Hub and Virtuoso. Even if it was the case that no energy cards were competitive in standard anymore your statement (the bolded part) doesn't really have any meaning. Whats the difference if they eliminate a mechanic or a deck or a card as long as it achieves the stated goal of 'balancing' metagame diversity? Maybe you could elaborate here more because I don't understand the comparison to the Top ban at all


It means exactly what you said; Aggro_zombies said that the new ban philosophy (assuming that's what it is) is much closer in line with the method used by digital-platform companies, when they ban things because of player outrage on a regular basis to provide "balance."
Nearly every time wotc has banned something historically it has been because of "player outrage". What other reason is there to ban a card? Maybe 'outrage' is too emotive of a word (and some of these decisions have been more controversial than others e.g. the Twin ban in modern) but when things like Affinity, Cawblade etc were dominating standard, people didn't enjoy the format so they didn't play. Usually when this happens people are unhappy because that deck makes up too much of the metagame / other strategies aren't competitive. The data shows that this is the case for energy as well.


I was pointing out that they're not just banning the single design mistake that's making everything else go fully degenerate; they're banning as much of an entire aspect of design as they can get their hands on
What is the single design mistake? Is it a particular card you have identified? Or do you think they should have just got rid of every card that uses the energy mechanic? If it's the former then please make a case for whatever card you are thinking of, and it can't be the latter because then you wouldn't complain that currently "they're banning as much of an entire aspect of design as they can get their hands on" by only banning three energy cards. "As much as they can get their hands on" is a meaningless phrase, they are literally the company that controls the game and could have said "in Standard, players cannot get energy counters" or "every card with {E} in the textbox is illegal" if they wanted to.


and the people who play with those decks have to bend over backwards for the people who don't.
So no card should ever be banned because the people who play that card have to "bend over backwards?"


Bans used to be minimally invasive; this is maximally invasive.
This is another meaningless statement. Be specific. Do you mean:
a) Standard was fine and didn't need changes
b) Banning either only Attune or only Refiner was correct, nothing else
c) Both Refiner and Attune bans were correct but banning the red cards was unnecessary
d) Both Refiner and Attune bans were correct and the Ferocidon ban was also correct but banning Ramunap was unnecessary
e) Actually wotc is barking up the wrong tree with these 4 bans, they should have banned something else entirely
f) All the bans were correct and I'm frustrated that WotC can't design cards in a way that doesn't require standard bans

If it's anything A through E then actually make a clear case for whatever one of these positions you support and if it's option F then fine, I'm also relatively disappointed in the frequency of bans (I still think that every recent ban from copter onwards has made the format more enjoyable) but in that case it makes no sense for your take on this situation to be "OH my GOD all it takes for my cards to be BANNED is for random John Doe to TWEET at Mark Rosewater" or whatever it is that you seem to be trying to say

[Ronald Deuce]

So, the thing with Ruins - and Hazoret, while we're on the subject - is not the efficiency of the cards themselves, it what they do to the play pattern of RDW vs. Durdle Control. Normally, historically, the way these matchups work is that RDW is on a timer, and that timer is the first sweeper control can resolve. Once control resolves a sweeper, chances are pretty good you don't have enough cards to force the remaining damage through control's one-for-ones . . . . I think Hazoret would have been a better ban than Ruins if that was actually their logic, but there's also more ways in Standard right now to exile a creature than get rid of a land, so...

Largely, I think you're right, though I'd also mention that having access to a strong finisher is the other way control decks often take the game. I played Standard back when Aetherling was around, and miserable though that was, it allowed decks running overcosted Nu Control cards to succeed. I don't think that's a bad thing. I question whether what the recent bans have done is anything but prop up a mediocre archetype to maintain the illusion of "balance" in the format, when the deck upon which those control decks ostensibly would prey was (is?) still beating most other things and the control build wasn't a major contender for the top slots. [EDIT: For the sake of clarity, was the control build that Wizards claims would've had a stronger matchup against Ramunap Red without the Ruins performing well in the field otherwise? If so, why was Ramunap Red a problem?]


You seem to have a philosophy that 'If a deck is too good then the only appropriate solution is to ban the strongest card in it.' This is silly. The point of the bans is to create a diverse metagame.

My point isn't that you should ban "the strongest card;" it's that I can't get behind the argument that an overcosted long-game effect was the reason for the deck's dominance. Posters are citing cards that make/made Ramunap Red inordinately good, and only one of those cards appears to have been Ruins, and only in niche matchups.


Energy is definitely not 'eliminated', I played in a 50+ player PPTQ 3 days ago and at least 2 decks in top 8 (including the winner) were playing Glimmer and Siphoner and Hub and Virtuoso. Even if it was the case that no energy cards were competitive in standard anymore your statement (the bolded part) doesn't really have any meaning. Whats the difference if they eliminate a mechanic or a deck or a card as long as it achieves the stated goal of 'balancing' metagame diversity? Maybe you could elaborate here more because I don't understand the comparison to the Top ban at all

Energy's still viable? Good. I'm a bit surprised, but good. I don't see why my bold text was meaningless; again, 20% of the dominant deck was banned. That's extreme. Maybe it was necessary, and that would speak to my point, but it's still extreme, and I don't think it bodes well for the future of the game if that's the kind of solution to which Wizards is becoming accustomed.


Nearly every time wotc has banned something historically it has been because of "player outrage". What other reason is there to ban a card?

Perhaps my choice of words was poor.

There's a threshold certain decks cross whereby their dominance cannot be answered. I don't see a problem with banning something when that happens, but the last two rounds of Standard bans strike me as being very impulsive and slipshod. Maybe because I principally play Legacy I'm used to the idea that pain is fleeting and life is long, and maybe that's not the case with Standard. But I think that these bans are an admission that the current Standard environment was poorly designed. Even in the Mirrodin days, when there was at least as distinct a precipice off which anything that wasn't Affinity or EchoingRuin.dec would fall, people adapted to that with Elf and Nail. My point is that today, if the tools aren't there, that speaks ill of Standard and of the last several sets' designers.


What is the single design mistake? Is it a particular card you have identified? Or do you think they should have just got rid of every card that uses the energy mechanic? If it's the former then please make a case for whatever card you are thinking of, and it can't be the latter because then you wouldn't complain that currently "they're banning as much of an entire aspect of design as they can get their hands on" by only banning three energy cards.

Indeed, what is the single design mistake? Is it Ramunap Ruins? Is it Captain ETB? When it's both, plus five other cards, that's symptomatic of bad design, and solving that problem this way will drive people away from the game.

I think I already answered the rest of what you asked, but by all means, debate me. I'm not trying to needle anyone with this stuff; I'm concerned that the philosophy governing bans these days has taken a left turn, and I don't think banning this many cards without re-examining the current approach to game design is defensible.

[kombatkiwi]

I'm glad that you're willing to discuss this because I think it's an interesting topic


Largely, I think you're right, though I'd also mention that having access to a strong finisher is the other way control decks often take the game. I played Standard back when Aetherling was around, and miserable though that was, it allowed decks running overcosted Nu Control cards to succeed. I don't think that's a bad thing.
You might also recall in that format control decks had access to both Sphinx's Revelation and Snapcaster Mage


I question whether what the recent bans have done is anything but prop up a mediocre archetype to maintain the illusion of "balance" in the format, when the deck upon which those control decks ostensibly would prey was (is?) still beating most other things and the control build wasn't a major contender for the top slots. [EDIT: For the sake of clarity, was the control build that Wizards claims would've had a stronger matchup against Ramunap Red without the Ruins performing well in the field otherwise? If so, why was Ramunap Red a problem?]...My point isn't that you should ban "the strongest card;" it's that I can't get behind the argument that an overcosted long-game effect was the reason for the deck's dominance. Posters are citing cards that make/made Ramunap Red inordinately good, and only one of those cards appears to have been Ruins, and only in niche matchups.
The argument from Wizards' position is this
1) Energy is too good
2) Control decks should in theory have a favored matchup vs Energy (and this is the case G1, as shown by the data), but they are not favored in a full match (as shown by the data), because Energy is too good
3) We have to ban something from Energy, because energy is too good
4) When we make Energy worse, a deck which previously had a bad matchup against Energy (Red) will become stronger vs Energy
5) Red already has a favoured matchup vs control
6) Due to point 4 and 5, if we only nerf energy then we are simply installing Red as the new default top deck
7) To prevent point 6 from happening, we will also nerf Red in a way that makes it worse against control decks

Nobody is arguing Ramunap "was" the reason for Red's "dominance", nobody is even saying Red was dominant at all. In the format where Attune and Refiner were legal Red was not dominant, Energy was. Hitting Ramunap is a pre-emptive measure because they expect that with the Energy bans alone, Red decks become the obvious best deck and then the standard metagame is basically back to square 1 in a bad situation again.


Energy's still viable? Good. I'm a bit surprised, but good. I don't see why my bold text was meaningless;
The bolded text ("That's not balancing; that's eliminating a mechanic") is meaningless because there is no argument from your end for why eliminating a mechanic doesn't count as 'balancing', or why eliminating a mechanic is necessarily bad. (Assuming that energy even was 'eliminated', which it doesn't seem to have been). To understand your position on this I wanted you to explain what you meant about the Top ban, because I don't understand that comparison at all.


again, 20% of the dominant deck was banned. That's extreme. Maybe it was necessary, and that would speak to my point, but it's still extreme, and I don't think it bodes well for the future of the game if that's the kind of solution to which Wizards is becoming accustomed.
So if banning multiple cards is still 'extreme' even when it is 'necessary', you believe that if Standard sucks they should just leave it alone and wait for the cards to rotate out? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth but you are being so vague about what the problems and solutions are that you're forcing me to read between the lines here


There's a threshold certain decks cross whereby their dominance cannot be answered. I don't see a problem with banning something when that happens, but the last two rounds of Standard bans strike me as being very impulsive and slipshod. Maybe because I principally play Legacy I'm used to the idea that pain is fleeting and life is long, and maybe that's not the case with Standard. But I think that these bans are an admission that the current Standard environment was poorly designed. Even in the Mirrodin days, when there was at least as distinct a precipice off which anything that wasn't Affinity or EchoingRuin.dec would fall, people adapted to that with Elf and Nail. My point is that today, if the tools aren't there, that speaks ill of Standard and of the last several sets' designers.

A ban, by default, is an admission that something was poorly designed. That's not an interesting or alarming or novel thought.


Indeed, what is the single design mistake? Is it Ramunap Ruins? Is it Captain ETB? When it's both, plus five other cards, that's symptomatic of bad design, and solving that problem this way will drive people away from the game.
Not banning anything and leaving standard as a battleground of Attune mirrors for at least the next few months will also drive people away from the game. It would be great if the cards that put the players and WotC in this situation weren't printed in the first place but R&D can't just hop in a time machine and go and retroactively fix them all, so maybe some things need to be banned.


I think I already answered the rest of what you asked, but by all means, debate me. I'm not trying to needle anyone with this stuff; I'm concerned that the philosophy governing bans these days has taken a left turn, and I don't think banning this many cards without re-examining the current approach to game design is defensible.

My problem with what you are saying is that it seems to boil down to "bans suck, wizards should just design their cards better", which is not an attitude that helps us decide what to do in an environment where the problematic cards have already been printed. We all want wizards to make great sets of new cards, that goes without saying. The hard part is deciding what to do when they make a mistake.

Obviously they are re-examining their approach to design. Even without any evidence to support this assertion, after this amount of standard bans you would have to assume R&D totally have their heads in the sand to believe otherwise. In fact there is concrete evidence that they have made changes in development to improve balance i.e. the introduction of the Play Design team

[Moosedog]

Perhaps we ask R&D to do too much:

Design new ‘worlds’
Try and not regurgitate the same cards over and over
Create new mechanics
Have the new cards interact well with existing cards
Have it all make sense together in a coherent story
Do all this with limited time and resources
O yea and keep all of it secret.

(And I’m sure I’m missing a handful)

I really wonder if they threw away the story aspect completely how much better the card design could be. (Strictly from a game-play angle)

[ThomasDowd]

Story sells packs, they can't throw it away, it would actively hurt their sales.

[Barachai]

Perhaps we ask R&D to do too much:

Design new ‘worlds’
Try and not regurgitate the same cards over and over
Create new mechanics
Have the new cards interact well with existing cards
Have it all make sense together in a coherent story
Do all this with limited time and resources
O yea and keep all of it secret.

(And I’m sure I’m missing a handful)

I really wonder if they threw away the story aspect completely how much better the card design could be. (Strictly from a game-play angle)

Not too much, story-meaningful characters have been around since forever. What changed is that they decided story-relevant characters should actually be competitively playable, which has caused a few headaches in recent years.

[rufus]

Not too much, story-meaningful characters have been around since forever. What changed is that they decided story-relevant characters should actually be competitively playable, which has caused a few headaches in recent years.

Competitive viable story cards like Eron the Relentless and Ihsan's Shade made Homelands a successful set, right?

They don't just want them to be competitively playable, they want them to be format driving. Though I do wonder how much of it is them pushing the chase cards, and how much of it is them cutting back on the other stuff.

Regardless of how lame I think their current story push is, they're always going to have pushed cards, and competitive players don't really care whether every third card has Jace, Chandra or Bolas in the name. Rather, I think their fundamental mistake vis-a-vis standard has been making consistent cards too strong relative to the power level they want the format to have. (Originally I thought it was 'strong threats/weak answers' but the discussion about Rampaging Ferocidon made me think the issue was a bit different than that.)

[Barook]

Perhaps we ask R&D to do too much:

Design new ‘worlds’
Try and not regurgitate the same cards over and over
Create new mechanics
Have the new cards interact well with existing cards
Have it all make sense together in a coherent story
Do all this with limited time and resources
O yea and keep all of it secret.

(And I’m sure I’m missing a handful)

I really wonder if they threw away the story aspect completely how much better the card design could be. (Strictly from a game-play angle)
A few points:

- We don't need new worlds for every set. See the hype around Dominaria. Plus, they're going to change that anyway and stay on a plane as long as necessary in the future.
- But they're already regurgitating cards over and over again. They just slap :1: or :2: extra cost on many cards and just call it a day. This is also a reason why Standard sucks so much - old cards, just with more suck added.
- I could pass on alot of crap they shit out, e.g. Devoid or Ingest. Like Lemnear would say, most new mechanics are just kicker with a fancy name. And they don't get most old mechanics right either since they're so nerfed to the ground. When the best Landfall card (Tireless Tracker) is not in the Landfall block, you're doing it wrong.

[Dice_Box]

My issue is they keyword everything and then don't use the fucking Keywords. Tireless Tracker and Inventors Fair come to mind.

[rufus]

My issue is they keyword everything and then don't use the fucking Keywords. Tireless Tracker and Inventors Fair come to mind.

I don't think they have a clear idea of what they want keywords to do in the game and that the inconsistent application of keywords is a consequence. There are many examples of WotC going back and forth with keywords in the history of the game.

If WotC thinks that putting 'metalcraft' and 'landfall' on cards in the first place was a mistake, then putting those words on new cards might be seen as compounding that mistake.

[morgan_coke]

Competitive viable story cards like Eron the Relentless and Ihsan's Shade made Homelands a successful set, right?

They don't just want them to be competitively playable, they want them to be format driving. Though I do wonder how much of it is them pushing the chase cards, and how much of it is them cutting back on the other stuff.

Regardless of how lame I think their current story push is, they're always going to have pushed cards, and competitive players don't really care whether every third card has Jace, Chandra or Bolas in the name. Rather, I think their fundamental mistake vis-a-vis standard has been making consistent cards too strong relative to the power level they want the format to have. (Originally I thought it was 'strong threats/weak answers' but the discussion about Rampaging Ferocidon made me think the issue was a bit different than that.)

I'd like to point out that in a world where removal consisted solely of Terror variants, Lightning Bolt, and Swords to Plowshares, Ihsan's Shade was actually a very good finisher because nothing except Wrath of God back then could kill it.

[morgan_coke]

I don't think they have a clear idea of what they want keywords to do in the game and that the inconsistent application of keywords is a consequence. There are many examples of WotC going back and forth with keywords in the history of the game.

If WotC thinks that putting 'metalcraft' and 'landfall' on cards in the first place was a mistake, then putting those words on new cards might be seen as compounding that mistake.

They won't use keywords outside of the set the keyword was used in to avoid "confusion" for new players. I'm pretty sure this is the real reason "Tribal" died instead of being something cool and useful. Either that or they realized making 40% of new creatures "Human" broke the entire Tribal concept in half.

[Barook]

ZOMG, MAGIC IS DYING! (http://investor.hasbro.com/static-files/6339159c-4633-4549-8153-14dd601696e0)

Kidding aside, that's the first yearly revenue drop in ages. Looks like the fat years are actually over. Makes you wonder if they're going to cut tournament support again in reaction to this.

[Lemnear]

ZOMG, MAGIC IS DYING! (http://investor.hasbro.com/static-files/6339159c-4633-4549-8153-14dd601696e0)

Kidding aside, that's the first yearly revenue drop in ages. Looks like the fat years are actually over. Makes you wonder if they're going to cut tournament support again in reaction to this.

Assuming that their proclaimed yearly growth isn't pure bollocks to begin with. Them handing out contradicting infos in regards to that growth and active playerbase let me think so for a while

[Barook]

Assuming that their proclaimed yearly growth isn't pure bollocks to begin with. Them handing out contradicting infos in regards to that growth and active playerbase let me think so for a while
I don't think Hasbro lying regarding their revenue numbers (wouldn't that also be illegal?). WotC has significantly increased the number of products per year to keep the revenue growth going, to the point where they shat out 4 sets in 4 months (EMA, Eldritch Moon, Conspiracy 2, KLD) or the general flood of Masters sets.

The contradicting player numbers also don't come from WotC alone - we do know from Hasbro that they had 12 million active players in 2012. The 20 million number in 2015 is only educated guess work based on their record revenue growth in the following years since it's very unlikely that the average Joe suddenly spends 67% more money on Magic. The only thing that's actual bollocks is that haven't lost a metric shitton of players since their record years - stable 12 million player numbers my ass.

[morgan_coke]

There are many things which are necessary for a stable and interactive game like Magic which Timmy hates. They killed all of those, and they've been completely unable to create balanced formats ever since. This, combined with the absolute shitshow that is their digital department, has done more than anything else to hurt the game long term.

[Lemnear]

The contradicting player numbers also don't come from WotC alone - we do know from Hasbro that they had 12 million active players in 2012. The 20 million number in 2015 is only educated guess work based on their record revenue growth in the following years since it's very unlikely that the average Joe suddenly spends 67% more money on Magic. The only thing that's actual bollocks is that haven't lost a metric shitton of players since their record years - stable 12 million player numbers my ass.

Makes sense. Thanks for pointing out.

[Barook]

There are many things which are necessary for a stable and interactive game like Magic which Timmy hates. They killed all of those, and they've been completely unable to create balanced formats ever since. This, combined with the absolute shitshow that is their digital department, has done more than anything else to hurt the game long term.
Their current card stock being a bending nightmare certainly doesn't help the case, either. Nobody likes cards that self-destruct.

As for balancing, I loathe them for abandoning 1 CMC mana dorks. It worked for the game for 20+ years and suddenly it's broken? Maybe the game around it changed too much into garbage instead. :rolleyes:

It's rather telling that they have to ban cards in Standard left and right while neither of those cards make a big splash in Eternal formats because they're too weak. Compare that to stuff like SFM or JMS which are Eternal staples.

[Barook]

Sorry for the double post, but this is a rather interesting post that might explain why card quality went to hell recently.

Summary without all the off-topic shit in the OP (https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/7whfra/long_post_regarding_card_stock_issues_diminished/du1m86p/)

tl;dr: WotC can't have access to their old paper anymore and tariffs prevent them getting cheap quality paper from China, so they've apparently settled with cheapest garbage paper from the US, which also explains the increased number of misprints.

[maharis]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/announcing-battlebond-2018-02-14

Set designed to be drafted but....

"although the Limited gameplay experience is Two-Headed Giant, we knew that the cards needed to have a life outside of that format. As a result, many of the cards in the set are designed specifically with formats like Commander, Cube, and Legacy in mind!"

[CptHaddock]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/announcing-battlebond-2018-02-14

Set designed to be drafted but....

"although the Limited gameplay experience is Two-Headed Giant, we knew that the cards needed to have a life outside of that format. As a result, many of the cards in the set are designed specifically with formats like Commander, Cube, and Legacy in mind!"

My body is eagerly awaiting TNN 2.0 and 3.0, hopefully they're both in the same set.

[morgan_coke]

If it's "sports themed" I would expect a Veteran Bodyguard style "Blocker" card that protects you, your walkers, and your partner. Perhaps wearing a football helmet?

[Claymore]

Oh good, blue was lacking in OP legacy warping cards.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Oh good, blue was lacking in OP legacy warping cards.

Maybe for once they can just print a bunch of powerful cards that aren't blue/don't slot right into blue decks. Or maybe world peace will happen tomorrow. I figure those two outcomes are about as likely.

[Dice_Box]

Just print Strip Mine with an activation cost of 1 colourless. Fair and balanced.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Just print Strip Mine with an activation cost of 1 colourless. Fair and balanced.

Really all I want is a Volcanic Fallout with "damage from [this] can't be prevented" or a Sulfur Elemental for blue creatures. That's all I ask.

[Barook]

Maybe for once they can just print a bunch of powerful cards that aren't blue/don't slot right into blue decks. Or maybe world peace will happen tomorrow. I figure those two outcomes are about as likely.
Conspiracy 2 definitely had a hardcore fan of D&T on the team, otherwise the deck wouldn't have gotten so many goodies in one set. Sure, Leovold was dumb, but oh well.

There were also more announcements today:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWBLLs4U0AAp8Tl.jpg:large

FTV is dead and gets replaced by more Jacetice League garbage. :rolleyes: And they vomit out even more product to combat sinking revenues.

[Brainstorm Ape]

Countdown until Black mana no longer has skulls on it starts right now.

To be fair, though, making a product for the largest growing marketplace in the world to grow the brand is the smartest thing I've seen WotC do in a long while. Maybe they'll even think of price discrimination for sealed product in countries where US$4 a pack is excessive and do a good job making Magic a global brand.

Then we'll all be rich selling our shitcards that spike in value due to a massive playerbase growth. Like paper crypto...to the Blood Moon!

[Barook]

Countdown until Black mana no longer has skulls on it starts right now.

To be fair, though, making a product for the largest growing marketplace in the world to grow the brand is the smartest thing I've seen WotC do in a long while. Maybe they'll even think of price discrimination for sealed product in countries where US$4 a pack is excessive and do a good job making Magic a global brand.

Then we'll all be rich selling our shitcards that spike in value due to a massive playerbase growth. Like paper crypto...to the Blood Moon!
Why would they replace the skulls? Magic seems to be doing fine despite China's laws against the depiction of human skeletons. Only cards like Macabre Waltz had to be censored in the past.

And this is nothing new. Remember Portal 3?

[Crimhead]

If it's "sports themed" I would expect a Veteran Bodyguard style "Blocker" card that protects you, your walkers, and your partner. Perhaps wearing a football helmet?
MTG: Blood Bowl edition. <3

[Lord Seth]

Why would they replace the skulls? Magic seems to be doing fine despite China's laws against the depiction of human skeletons. Only cards like Macabre Waltz had to be censored in the past.

And this is nothing new. Remember Portal 3?I think the claim that there are laws against human skeletons is mostly a myth, if this article (https://www.techinasia.com/china-doesnt-censor-skeletons-the-truth-about-game-censorship-in-the-middle-kingdom) is correct.

[H]

I think the claim that there are laws against human skeletons is mostly a myth, if this article (https://www.techinasia.com/china-doesnt-censor-skeletons-the-truth-about-game-censorship-in-the-middle-kingdom) is correct.

That seems even worse than an actual law, because absolutely no one has any real idea what would be allowed or not though.

[kombatkiwi]

Conspiracy 2 definitely had a hardcore fan of D&T on the team, otherwise the deck wouldn't have gotten so many goodies in one set. Sure, Leovold was dumb, but oh well.

There were also more announcements today:

FTV is dead and gets replaced by more Jacetice League garbage. :rolleyes: And they vomit out even more product to combat sinking revenues.

Nobody liked FTV anyway
How insane would it be if the 19.99 box had JTMS in it (0.001% chance of this happening lol but still)

Otherwise the battlebond thing is just the next Conspiracy and then we have another commander set, seems to be a similar release schedule to what they have had previously

[Barook]

Nobody liked FTV anyway
I could have been more liked if they didn't use the shitty foiling process and kept card quality up like in the first two FTV sets instead printing FTV: Garbage and FTV: More Garbage year after year.

[Barook]

SCG completely dropped Standard from the second half of this year's Open schedule (except for Team Events, of course). That's a rather interesting (but not really suprising) move:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DX3FUMKWsAEvtKS.jpg:large

On a different note:
Valve has hired Richard Garfield to work on the digital trading card game Artifact (https://twitter.com/pcgamer/status/971942583789264896)

Even more importantly, within the announcement video, they also said that they'll use Valve's market place for booster and card trading. Given that they'll take a cut with each transaction, they're going to make insane amounts of money from that unless the game totally flops. The monetization aspect alone might draw in a huge crowd (see PUBG having millions of Chinese entering the fray) and could probably put alot of pressure on both MTGO and especially Arena.

[Vissah]

Dropped Standard but not enough Legacy and to much Modern. I get that Modern is the most popular for some reason.

[ironclad8690]

Dropped Standard but not enough Legacy and to much Modern. I get that Modern is the most popular for some reason.

It has the variety of legacy for way less money. I guess people aren't really afraid of their deck getting banned at this point in time.

silently cries while looking at birthing pods while heart of the ocean from the Titanic soundtrack plays in the background

[Vissah]

It has the variety of legacy for way less money. I guess people aren't really afraid of their deck getting banned at this point in time.

silently cries while looking at birthing pods while heart of the ocean from the Titanic soundtrack plays in the background


It was more sarcatic I forgot a smiley or something. I know people see it as a stronger Standard/weaker Legacy.

I think more in the beginnign people were seeing it a Legacy Light but when they figured out that you can get blown out by unfair things they started to cry and Wizards turned it into a Standard Plus for them. When that change happened they got all happy.

[Lord Seth]

It was more sarcatic I forgot a smiley or something. I know people see it as a stronger Standard/weaker Legacy.

I think more in the beginnign people were seeing it a Legacy Light but when they figured out that you can get blown out by unfair things they started to cry and Wizards turned it into a Standard Plus for them. When that change happened they got all happy.Modern is not even close to "Standard Plus." In fact, it's really never been that.

Granted, it's not Legacy Light either, but quite frankly it's considerably closer to being Legacy Light than it is to being Standard Plus.

[Brainstorm Ape]

That SCG schedule must be a wakeup call for Wizards; the two formats they promote most, Standard and Limited, are sidelined or completely absent. Given that SCG is interested in making money, and thus caters to the demands of the (competitive/Spikey) playerbase, it shows how little the more hardcore segment wants to play the formats WotC is most interested in selling.

[Zombie]

CFB expanded their Pauper events from a single high prizes event on Sunday to have events on both days, too, so safe to assume attendance has been good on that front, too.

[Crimhead]

That SCG schedule must be a wakeup call for Wizards...
...it shows how little the more hardcore segment wants to play the formats WotC is most interested in selling.
Go figure. WotC have promoted a stale environment for years now (fun policing) because they thought casual and new gamers where more important than hardcore players. You reap what you sow.

[CptHaddock]

Go figure. WotC have promoted a stale environment for years now (fun policing) because they thought casual and new gamers where more important than hardcore players. You reap what you sow.

Do you really think the people who actively go to GPs to finish well spend more money on this game than folks that buy up boosters and any other supplemental products?

[Barook]

That SCG schedule must be a wakeup call for Wizards; the two formats they promote most, Standard and Limited, are sidelined or completely absent. Given that SCG is interested in making money, and thus caters to the demands of the (competitive/Spikey) playerbase, it shows how little the more hardcore segment wants to play the formats WotC is most interested in selling.
How popular is Limited anyway? All I know is that whenever Limited is on screen, it nukes the viewerbase on Twitch.

And Standard is only "popular" because it has the most tournament support, not because it's actually the "best" format. A lot of good will is gone now with their low power bullshit, continued bannings and all the other fuck-ups in recent years, all while Modern is in a pretty good place now.

[Crimhead]

Do you really think the people who actively go to GPs to finish well spend more money on this game than folks that buy up boosters and any other supplemental products?
By "hardcore players", I don't mean grinders. I mean engaged, enfranchised players everywhere who are turning to Pauper or Modern instead of Limited or Standard because they actually enjoy good strategy games.

[ironclad8690]

How popular is Limited anyway? All I know is that whenever Limited is on screen, it nukes the viewerbase on Twitch.

And Standard is only "popular" because it has the most tournament support, not because it's actually the "best" format. A lot of good will is gone now with their low power bullshit, continued bannings and all the other fuck-ups in recent years, all while Modern is in a pretty good place now.

For those of us unfamiliar with all of the new cards, you can't tell what the fuck is going on. They don't bring up enough cards. That's why I don't watch limited.

[Lord Seth]

How popular is Limited anyway? All I know is that whenever Limited is on screen, it nukes the viewerbase on Twitch.I'm pretty sure Limited is fairly popular to play, but it's not popular at all to watch. I used to be really into playing Limited but was never interested in actually watching coverage of it.

[Darkenslight]

Dropped Standard but not enough Legacy and to much Modern. I get that Modern is the most popular for some reason.

Modern makes an asston of money for the secondary market, simply because of the bulk cost. Legacy, Vintage and Commander make chunks of money per card, but you can't beat small profits from a wide range of items for being a decent business strategy.

[Megadeus]

Looks like at least in part chalice is starting to catch up to all the greed. Apparently top 4 of Team Grand Prix (team so it's somewhat skewed) it's two moon stompy, eldrazi, and Greedy 4 Color Pile

[Moosedog]

Modern is not even close to "Standard Plus." In fact, it's really never been that.

Granted, it's not Legacy Light either, but quite frankly it's considerably closer to being Legacy Light than it is to being Standard Plus.

and why is it not legacy light?

[Crimhead]

and why is it not legacy light?
I don't really play Modern, but Legacy is defined by a lot of strong, generic answers that make for very interactive games.
Modern is missing strong, generic answers and relies more on haymaker SB cards to balance the matches. At least that's what I hear.

I think Pauper might end up claiming the title of Legacy Lite...

[Mr. Safety]

I don't really play Modern, but Legacy is defined by a lot of strong, generic answers that make for very interactive games.
Modern is missing strong, generic answers and relies more on haymaker SB cards to balance the matches. At least that's what I hear.

I think Pauper might end up claiming the title of Legacy Lite...

I think you may be right on Pauper. It's getting a lot of attention, and it's becoming incredibly popular.

Your take on Modern is mostly correct. Legacy is by far the more interactive format, even with all the broken combos, but that is largely due to the ability to have a true control deck in the format. Jace is helping on that front in Modern, and I think Search for Azcanta is doing more for that type of strategy than people realize. Yes, matchups are polarized more in Modern, especially in tiers 1-2 of the format. It's diverse, but much more swingy in nature, if that makes sense. Even mid-range slug-fests are becoming more centered around card advantage, mostly due to JTMS/BBE for obvious reasons, that tip the scales quickly once introduced.

The one part that I think is a little off is that Modern does indeed have strong, generic answers. It just doesn't have strong, generic decks that fit the mold to attack with them. Modern's decks attack from unique angles that don't overlap as much as Legacy. In Legacy your storm answer (Ethersworn Canonist) also happens to work against Elves. Your grave hate for Dredge (Leyline of the Void) also happens to hose Br reanimator, and also just happens to do some damage against Storm. In modern, the overlap is much smaller. The lack of overlap actually helps keep diversity alive, but makes Modern more swingy. Legacy, in my opinion, has more overlap so diversity is stifled (just play the best deck in the section of the metagame you want to take advantage) but has more interaction because the number of decks you can account for with main/side is easier to manage. Add to all that a faster format with Legacy and your answer doesn't need to work forever, just long enough to do your own broken thing. That lets your hate cards overlap and still work.

Just my opinion.

[Vissah]

I don't really play Modern, but Legacy is defined by a lot of strong, generic answers that make for very interactive games.
Modern is missing strong, generic answers and relies more on haymaker SB cards to balance the matches. At least that's what I hear.

I think Pauper might end up claiming the title of Legacy Lite...

You`re right there mate. I played Modern for 5 years straight before I started playing Legacy.

In Modern the questions are strong but the answers are not as strong as the questions.
In Legacy the questions are very stroing but the answers are also very strong.
This is why I like Legacy better and I think makes Legacy the more interactive format.

[Crimhead]

The one part that I think is a little off is that Modern does indeed have strong, generic answers. It just doesn't have strong, generic decks that fit the mold to attack with them. Modern's decks attack from unique angles that don't overlap as much as Legacy. In Legacy your storm answer (Ethersworn Canonist) also happens to work against Elves. Your grave hate for Dredge (Leyline of the Void) also happens to hose Br reanimator, and also just happens to do some damage against Storm. In modern, the overlap is much smaller.
I guess by "generic" answers I mean answers that can be used against a multitude of strategies.

In Legacy we have (MD) Wasteland and Counter-spells that are effective against a wide range of decks. I believe (suspect) answers like this are what Modern would need to become "Legacy Lite".

[morgan_coke]

The Closed Beta NDA on Arena drops on the 22nd. I'll throw up a post summary about it then and answer questions for anyone who has any.

[Mr. Safety]

I guess by "generic" answers I mean answers that can be used against a multitude of strategies. In Legacy we have (MD) Wasteland and Counter-spells that are effective against a wide range of decks. I believe (suspect) answers like this are what Modern would need to become "Legacy Lite".

I'll admit the answers are slower, and the real problem with the format is there isn't even a genuine Counterspell, the closest is Deprive, let alone a Force of Will/Daze. The wasteland is Field of Ruin/Ghost Quarter, which attacks non-basic lands but doesn't stifle tempo. I think we agree more than we disagree on this.

[easysantiago]

I think Pauper might end up claiming the title of Legacy Lite...

I second this. The comparison is apt.

[Humphrey]

to me it feels the days of competitve magic are numbered. at least in my region the casual edh crowd has taken over all magic places. limited on fnm is more or less the only format firing irregular. legacy is dead for years now, modern and standard is only played by the 2 grinders left.

[easysantiago]

to me it feels the days of competitve magic are numbered. at least in my region the casual edh crowd has taken over all magic places. limited on fnm is more or less the only format firing irregular. legacy is dead for years now, modern and standard is only played by the 2 grinders left.

Perhaps you are right, but the trend you have described is region dependent, and far as I know, there isn’t a larger data set out there to analyze. My experience is different (and probably an exception). EDH is a healthy part of the two regions I play in, but Legacy, Modern, Standard, and even Pauper are also doing well. Drafts fire every second day.

[TheKingslayer]

It's also interesting to note that SCG no longer gets to handle gps, and that it has been monopolized by CFB.

[Barook]

to me it feels the days of competitve magic are numbered. at least in my region the casual edh crowd has taken over all magic places. limited on fnm is more or less the only format firing irregular. legacy is dead for years now, modern and standard is only played by the 2 grinders left.
I wouldn't be suprised if that was part of the decision to make Brawl (aka Standard Commander, we get more infos on it today, probably in tandem with the MtG Arena NDA drop as those might be related). WotC might have fucked with Standard too much for it to fully recover, if ever, and they need other sources of revenue that are sustainable.

[kombatkiwi]

I wouldn't be suprised if that was part of the decision to make Brawl (aka Standard Commander, we get more infos on it today, probably in tandem with the MtG Arena NDA drop as those might be related). WotC might have fucked with Standard too much for it to fully recover, if ever, and they need other sources of revenue that are sustainable.

Brawl was announced with 0 associated products, and no tournament support (it's officially a casual format).
Without either of these two things it hardly seems like much of a money-spinner for wizards, especially seeing as you only need 1 copy of each card.
I expect that with no tournament support people are going to forget about it pretty quickly, like Tiny Leaders

"Standard has been fucked with too much to ever recover" just seems like a really dumb thing to say
There are 2 more sets before late this year, then Kaladesh and Amonkhet block rotate out
Any of these things can change standard a lot, and even since the Attune ban there haven't been any ubiquitous complaints about the format anyway

[Mr. Safety]

There may not be ubiquitous complaints, but the last few times I've made it to FNM to play Legacy there has been *zero* people there for Standard. Twenty for Legacy, none for Standard. This is the first year I've seen that since Legacy has been an FNM format. It might just be a colloquial tidbit, but if it begins to die at the local level and it only survives at the GP/Pro level, then it will eventually die completely. I actually think Barook's comment is quite valid. No there isn't a 'product' that has been made specifically for Brawl...because it already has a product with the current Standard legal sets available. In my opinion, this is the most blatant attempt to make Standard relevant in quite some time.

Honestly, I think the overall player base may be shrinking (don't have data) but once the future of Standard is in jeopardy it's only a logical step to buckle down and play the older cards that will be around forever, rather than keep throwing your lot into the Money Pit of standard. Standard has been a fucking shit-show for the past year+, bannings coming more frequently and Modern becoming more popular. I used to think Legacy was the dying breed, but I think the pendulum is shifting subtly towards Standard. Players no longer dumping money into Standard might just find that the $200 they saved would be better invested in Modern/Legacy.

[Barook]

There may not be ubiquitous complaints, but the last few times I've made it to FNM to play Legacy there has been *zero* people there for Standard. Twenty for Legacy, none for Standard. This is the first year I've seen that since Legacy has been an FNM format. It might just be a colloquial tidbit, but if it begins to die at the local level and it only survives at the GP/Pro level, then it will eventually die completely. I actually think Barook's comment is quite valid. No there isn't a 'product' that has been made specifically for Brawl...because it already has a product with the current Standard legal sets available. In my opinion, this is the most blatant attempt to make Standard relevant in quite some time.
What is the biggest giveaway that they try to cash in on Commander being popular is having the same banlist in Brawl as in Standard. That one struck me as rather odd, given the nature of the format.

Whether or not this format is going to succeed is up in the air. The rather limited card pool, especially after rotations, makes me rather sceptical.

[kinda]

I think yall are over thinking this a bit, it seems to me that they are just trying to monetize the popularity of commander. My guess is someone pointed out that commander is popular....then someone pointed out it doesn't drive much revenue growth...then someone said OK let's do this but with only standard...then someone made a powerpoint and here we are.

[morgan_coke]

WotC has just honestly screwed up things too much for me to have any long term faith in their ability to recover. I mean, one of THE most requested cards for Modern for forever has been Astral Slide.. and they just did a cycling block without reprinting it. This is a personal pet peeve example, but they've done that a LOT of times to a lot of people so it kind of adds up.

Also, we've seen most of Dominaria now, and it doesn't look like the kind of set that gets people jumping back into MTG at all. It's pretty clearly not another Innistrad or Ravnica. More importantly, for the first time in, well, ever, WotC is facing a large amount of competition that is, unlike them, very competent. Hearthstone, Gwent, Slay the Spire, probably Artifact... they're not just fighting against Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh and a bunch of copycats that have to pay them royalties anymore.

Combine this with their atrocious management of standard, and complete inability to do functional set design anymore - they had a three set format for like, two decades, then all of a sudden it wasn't "sustainable" so they did a two set format, and now they're down to one set for each location? Their standard rotation policy changes basically every year now, and their banlist is a giant fucking joke that's spelled "we got rid of creature kill, counterspells, and LD, but left creature power levels at where they were when we were pumping up dumb duders to counteract the risk of playing critters when there was creature kill, counterspells, and LD".

I mean, if I want to smash value duders into each other with no counters and no creature kill and safe perfect mana, I'll go play Hearthstone, that's literally what it's for.

Hasbro did good forcing a semi-competent CEO on WotC, but they honestly just need to clean fucking house, Rosewater included, and let some new people who don't have 20 years of bad habits ingrained take over.

[Mr. Safety]

What is the biggest giveaway that they try to cash in on Commander being popular is having the same banlist in Brawl as in Standard. That one struck me as rather odd, given the nature of the format.

Whether or not this format is going to succeed is up in the air. The rather limited card pool, especially after rotations, makes me rather sceptical.

It will drive pack sales up, simply because you only need singletons for this format. Everyone knows buying singles is the best way to get sets of cards, but if you crack 5 packs with a friend and pull Walk the Plank, Never/Return, and Vanquish the Weak you can use them alongside your Fatal Push's. It makes more cards relevant and easier to obtain. It's actually quite smart...until it becomes more popular than Standard, which I predict will happen quickly considering the more budget-friendly nature of this new format. EDH/Commander started as a casual format, and now it is a 1v1 competitive format. I see the same happening with Brawl, within 2 years.

Everyone will be playing Brawl or non-Standard formats within the next 2 years. Fight me.

[NeckBird]

It will drive pack sales up, simply because you only need singletons for this format. Everyone knows buying singles is the best way to get sets of cards, but if you crack 5 packs with a friend and pull Walk the Plank, Never/Return, and Vanquish the Weak you can use them alongside your Fatal Push's. It makes more cards relevant and easier to obtain. It's actually quite smart...until it becomes more popular than Standard, which I predict will happen quickly considering the more budget-friendly nature of this new format. EDH/Commander started as a casual format, and now it is a 1v1 competitive format. I see the same happening with Brawl, within 2 years.

Everyone will be playing Brawl or non-Standard formats within the next 2 years. Fight me.

The fact it's backed by WotC means that Brawl actually has legs unlike some garbage like Tiny Leaders. People are complaining about Brawl, but it seems like a decent idea to at least try.

The sad thing about all this is that Standard actually looks really fun right now with the exception of The Scarab God. If I had the time, I'd be playing it.

[taconaut]

I actually think Brawl would've been pretty fun for me back when I did weekly drafts - I don't think I would go out of my way to specifically build a Brawl deck the way I would an EDH deck, but if I just had a pile of draft stuff sitting around, I'd throw together some sort of unsleeved nonsense and battle.

Recently, I haven't been making it out every Friday to draft, but if I take that approach again, it doesn't strike me as the worst idea.

[Barook]

Hasbro did good forcing a semi-competent CEO on WotC, but they honestly just need to clean fucking house, Rosewater included, and let some new people who don't have 20 years of bad habits ingrained take over.
The only competent thing I've seen from Chris Cocks so far is firing Worth Wolpert and that was like a decade overdue. Sadly, firing Rosewater is bad PR due to rapid fanboys, so chances for that are extremely low. And with the GDS 3, they're only looking for more of the same.

[Lemnear]

the whole fucking truth

Preach, mate! So on-board with all said here

[Claymore]

I think a lot of people like the concept of Brawl a lot, and it's a natural follow up to a bunch of Limited - you get to use the same garbage cards you drafted the past few weeks and build a fun singleton deck. However, it's a casual rotating format...that makes absolutely no sense. What casual player will accept that their fun deck isn't legal anymore?

I wouldn't really expect it to drive a ton of revenue other than giving players additional reasoning to actually play Limited.

I don't see it combining with Standard very much at all. The two concepts are pretty far apart.

I think a new Commander format based on Origins-forward would make more sense for Wizards, but likely was shot down because, again, didn't drive people to buy the latest packs.

[Brainstorm Ape]

Shit, I'm gonna take the unpopular road and go to bat for Rosewater.

He's one of the last of his kind, a person who comes from a background that isn't Magic-related or some "geek culture"...thing. Rosewater had a real job in the real world that gave him a perspective that a lot of the folks they hire nowadays lack. WotC disproportionately pulls from the (pro) Magic scene in their hiring process and this results in a monoculture within the company; a bunch of people who grew up on on Magic and Magic-related media, who have no idea what it must be like to not be immersed in the game. This leads to inbred thinking, that's out of touch with average folks ($10 packs, crazy-rotation scheme switchups), and can't satisfy established players because of corporate/marketing priorities ("new players HATE interaction...our market research allows us to draw this specious conclusion!").

Just compare Unstable to pretty much anything else released in the last five years of Magic. It's fun, light-hearted, imaginative, mechanically deep, complex, and all Rosewater's baby. Much better than the derivative, simplistic, and focus-grouped shit they've been shoveling into Standard packs for quite awhile now. Not really excited to bust packs of more NWO-compliant "draft-focused" sets full of boring, garbage cards and linear strategies signposted by multicolor uncommons. Y'know, like every set since Origins.

Magic, and WotC, have a lot of problems, but I don't think MaRo's one of them.

[thecrav]

Their standard rotation policy changes basically every year now, and their banlist is a giant fucking joke that's spelled "we got rid of creature kill, counterspells, and LD, but left creature power levels at where they were when we were pumping up dumb duders to counteract the risk of playing critters when there was creature kill, counterspells, and LD".


I looked at the stats on this last banning. The most striking conclusion I reached was this: Assuming all cards currently banned in Standard remain banned for their entire lifetime in Standard, this will be the longest Standard has ever gone with a non-zero number of cards banned.

And here's some history:

https://i.imgur.com/xCixXLJ.png

[Lord Seth]

WotC has just honestly screwed up things too much for me to have any long term faith in their ability to recover. I mean, one of THE most requested cards for Modern for forever has been Astral Slide.. and they just did a cycling block without reprinting it. This is a personal pet peeve example, but they've done that a LOT of times to a lot of people so it kind of adds up.I can understand not reprinting Astral Slide itself. What puzzles me is why they didn't print anything like it. They could've easily put the effect at 4 mana if they wanted to be careful, which would still allow people to try it out, even if it's weaker.


Also, we've seen most of Dominaria now, and it doesn't look like the kind of set that gets people jumping back into MTG at all. It's pretty clearly not another Innistrad or Ravnica. More importantly, for the first time in, well, ever, WotC is facing a large amount of competition that is, unlike them, very competent. Hearthstone, Gwent, Slay the Spire, probably Artifact... they're not just fighting against Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh and a bunch of copycats that have to pay them royalties anymore.I don't know, I think Dominaria actually looks kind of cool. Wizards tribal could be fun.

Honestly though, I think they need to take a look at Modern and notice how all the things they've kept out of Standard are there, but people like the format more than Standard. Part of that is of course it being nonrotating, but people are clearly not having issues playing a format where cards like Blood Moon and Stone Rain are legal, or where combos can consistently kill you on turn 4, or where your huge creature can get exiled for 1 mana, or where any number of things that supposedly aren't fun or too powerful for Standard are legal. Is there complaining about some of these things? Sure, but note how people will complain but keep playing Modern, whereas in Standard people would complain and stop playing.

Maybe someone can say "well, Modern is for more experienced players who are okay with that sort of thing. Newer players to constructed would prefer a format without those." The thing is, at least at my store, I'm seeing players new to constructed start out in Modern. Granted, this might be because Standard fires less frequently so they turn to Modern so they have something to play, but the point is that they're clearly okay with playing in such a format.

By the way, there's something interesting I also noticed. From Return to Ravnica through Khans of Tarkir, they notably printed some expensive Modern staples into Standard. The shocklands in RTR block, Mutavault in a core set, Thoughtseize in Theros, and of course the fetchlands in Khans of Tarkir. During this time period, Standard was experiencing growth. They stopped doing this after Khans of Tarkir. After Khans of Tarkir was the point when Standard attendance started declining.

Obviously, there were a lot of other factors that affected Standard's popularity, but I can't help but find that correlation to be amusing.


Combine this with their atrocious management of standard, and complete inability to do functional set design anymore - they had a three set format for like, two decades, then all of a sudden it wasn't "sustainable" so they did a two set format, and now they're down to one set for each location? Their standard rotation policy changes basically every year now, and their banlist is a giant fucking joke that's spelled "we got rid of creature kill, counterspells, and LD, but left creature power levels at where they were when we were pumping up dumb duders to counteract the risk of playing critters when there was creature kill, counterspells, and LD"."One set for each location" is incorrect. What they did was change it so that rather than being locked into a particular number of sets for a location, they can be variable. For one location, they can have one set. For another, they could have three sets. Or they could have 4+ sets for one location if they think it's right. This allows them to have the right number of sets so that they don't have to stretch out mechanics over more sets than can sustain it or have to leave out some ideas due to having to squeeze it into just one or two sets. Granted, we'll see how good a judge they are of deciding how many sets to devote to any location, but the idea at least makes sense. You're misunderstanding them if you came away with the idea of just one set per location.

[Barook]

Shit, I'm gonna take the unpopular road and go to bat for Rosewater.

He's one of the last of his kind, a person who comes from a background that isn't Magic-related or some "geek culture"...thing. Rosewater had a real job in the real world that gave him a perspective that a lot of the folks they hire nowadays lack. WotC disproportionately pulls from the (pro) Magic scene in their hiring process and this results in a monoculture within the company; a bunch of people who grew up on on Magic and Magic-related media, who have no idea what it must be like to not be immersed in the game. This leads to inbred thinking, that's out of touch with average folks ($10 packs, crazy-rotation scheme switchups), and can't satisfy established players because of corporate/marketing priorities ("new players HATE interaction...our market research allows us to draw this specious conclusion!").

Just compare Unstable to pretty much anything else released in the last five years of Magic. It's fun, light-hearted, imaginative, mechanically deep, complex, and all Rosewater's baby. Much better than the derivative, simplistic, and focus-grouped shit they've been shoveling into Standard packs for quite awhile now. Not really excited to bust packs of more NWO-compliant "draft-focused" sets full of boring, garbage cards and linear strategies signposted by multicolor uncommons. Y'know, like every set since Origins.

Magic, and WotC, have a lot of problems, but I don't think MaRo's one of them.
1) R&D is inbred exactly because Rosewater and his buddies (aka "the gang" like glassdoorreviews likes to call them) surround themselves with asskissers and Yes-sayers. Of course nothing good can come out of this echo chamber.

2) Unstable was Maro's pet project and it turned out to be a success. Thing is, energy was also one of Maro's pet projects and the fallout surrounding it was massive.


Honestly though, I think they need to take a look at Modern and notice how all the things they've kept out of Standard are there, but people like the format more than Standard. Part of that is of course it being nonrotating, but people are clearly not having issues playing a format where cards like Blood Moon and Stone Rain are legal, or where combos can consistently kill you on turn 4, or where your huge creature can get exiled for 1 mana, or where any number of things that supposedly aren't fun or too powerful for Standard are legal. Is there complaining about some of these things? Sure, but note how people will complain but keep playing Modern, whereas in Standard people would complain and stop playing.
People are drawn to powerful things. Of course people prefer to play the original Lightning Bolt over some shitty 3 mana knock-off (same applies to everything else where they slap a casual +:2: on the manacost). When the return of fucking Llanowar Elves to Standard is a reason to celebrate, you know that something went wrong. Very wrong.

It's sad how disconnected WotC is from the playerbase sometimes. Return sets in general miss the mark because they nerf or dismiss what made the original block good in the first place. E.g.:
- RTR's guilds having barely mechanical connections to the original guilds and then WotC acts suprised when people complain about Forecast and Detain having nothing in common about.
- BFZ: People loved the adventure feel of Zendikar and got an Eldrazi war instead. At least they brought popular mechanics back - except the new Allies are garbage for the most part and Landfall was so nerfed that there was only one good card in the entire block (the blue enchantment for the Knightfall combo). The best landfall card, Tireless Tracker, wasn't even in the same block!
- SOI: People loved the the gothic horror, got eldritch abominations instead.

Maybe their market research is as incompent as the rest of the company. It wouldn't be that farfetched, even.

[phonics]

I looked at the stats on this last banning. The most striking conclusion I reached was this: Assuming all cards currently banned in Standard remain banned for their entire lifetime in Standard, this will be the longest Standard has ever gone with a non-zero number of cards banned.

And here's some history:



Interesting that the other times there were mass bannings, they were over really powerful or busted cards like Academy, Windfall, Earthcraft, Time Spiral, Memory Jar, Recurring Nightmare, Dream Halls, Ravager, Skullclamp and Artifact lands, whereas the most recent one I would say has nothing even close to the same individual card power level, so they basically everything else was just so underpowered that energy was the only really strong thing you could do in the format.

[Lord Seth]

2) Unstable was Maro's pet project and it turned out to be a success. Thing is, energy was also one of Maro's pet projects and the fallout surrounding it was massive.Energy was a great idea. It's development's fault for not including any reasonable answers to it.


People are drawn to powerful things. Of course people prefer to play the original Lightning Bolt over some shitty 3 mana knock-off (same applies to everything else where they slap a casual +:2: on the manacost). When the return of fucking Llanowar Elves to Standard is a reason to celebrate, you know that something went wrong. Very wrong.Actually, I question whether this is a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I generally have no problem with Llanowar Elves or similar effects being in Standard, but doing it in the exact same set as a GGG 5/4 that can't be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less? (Seems rather risky.

It seems like the Golgari Grave-Troll being banned in Modern: Year after year they declined to unban a card that wouldn't be a problem at all. Then when they finally did unban it, they did it with cards like Prized Amalgam and Cathartic Reunion coming down the pipeline. A card is considered too powerful to be in a format when it would've been okay, then they finally decide to return it in the same set as Steel Leaf Champion.


It's sad how disconnected WotC is from the playerbase sometimes. Return sets in general miss the mark because they nerf or dismiss what made the original block good in the first place. E.g.:
- RTR's guilds having barely mechanical connections to the original guilds and then WotC acts suprised when people complain about Forecast and Detain having nothing in common about.
- BFZ: People loved the adventure feel of Zendikar and got an Eldrazi war instead. At least they brought popular mechanics back - except the new Allies are garbage for the most part and Landfall was so nerfed that there was only one good card in the entire block (the blue enchantment for the Knightfall combo). The best landfall card, Tireless Tracker, wasn't even in the same block!
- SOI: People loved the the gothic horror, got eldritch abominations instead.

Maybe their market research is as incompent as the rest of the company. It wouldn't be that farfetched, even.I don't remember much in the way of complaints about Forecast and Detain not having that much in common. In fact, I actually thought Detain was a pretty cool mechanic. I think Return to Ravnica did do a pretty good job recapturing what people liked about the original Ravnica, even if Dragon's Maze was pretty mediocre.

Also, I wasn't really playing Standard then, but wasn't Scars of Mirrodin fairly well liked, Caw-Blade aside?

[Barook]

Energy was a great idea. It's development's fault for not including any reasonable answers to it.
I disagree with the sentiment that energy was a great idea (even though I'm a sucker for alternate resource systems). Energy was flawed by design due to being extremely parasitic. While most cards also provided energy while using it, that fact doesn't change. Energy being counters on players, making it nigh impossible to interact with it, is a design flaw. Development's main faults are a) not properly costing the mechanic and b) not recognising the need of answers.


Actually, I question whether this is a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I generally have no problem with Llanowar Elves or similar effects being in Standard, but doing it in the exact same set as a GGG 5/4 that can't be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less? (Seems rather risky.

It seems like the Golgari Grave-Troll being banned in Modern: Year after year they declined to unban a card that wouldn't be a problem at all. Then when they finally did unban it, they did it with cards like Prized Amalgam and Cathartic Reunion coming down the pipeline. A card is considered too powerful to be in a format when it would've been okay, then they finally decide to return it in the same set as Steel Leaf Champion.
The main problem is that they brought themselves into a position where Llanowar Elves could be considered "too good" in the first place. That should have never happened. Whether or not Steel Leaf Champion might be problematic depends entirely on the format having proper removal or not.

[Lemnear]

Llanowar & Steel Leaf would never be a problem if the counters & removal would not suck ass. I have the impression that the misbalance between threats and solutions gets worse every Standard season

[Lord Seth]

I disagree with the sentiment that energy was a great idea (even though I'm a sucker for alternate resource systems). Energy was flawed by design due to being extremely parasitic. While most cards also provided energy while using it, that fact doesn't change. Energy being counters on players, making it nigh impossible to interact with it, is a design flaw. Development's main faults are a) not properly costing the mechanic and b) not recognising the need of answers.I don't agree with this. You claim that it's a design flaw that it's "nigh impossible" to interact with, but the whole reason it was so hard to interact with was development not including answers to it. All development had to do to fix energy, really, was to make Solemnity into an artifact so anyone could play it, have it remove all counters from players when it enters the battlefield, and cantrip. Done. This would also have the benefit of giving us a long-overdue way of removing poison counters that isn't awful (Leeches).

I'll concede it is parasitic, but I don't think that's a problem in and of itself, particularly because, as you note, the cards that provided it generally used it.

[morgan_coke]

I don't know if any of you are in the Beta, but the beta-only boards are fucking hilarious right now. Like, before the NDA wipe and changes to progression, like 90-95% of the posts were about how the economy sucked and suggestions on how to improve it.

WotC made the economy worse with the NDA wipe (like, significantly worse) and now 100% of the posts are flame wars about how much the economy sucks and how stupid WotC is for making it worse. It's honestly impressive that they managed to form a circular firing squad out of a single company.

It's also pretty funny that the beta players, who are the most likely to be super-pro magic, have turned against Arena already.

[Barook]

I don't know if any of you are in the Beta, but the beta-only boards are fucking hilarious right now. Like, before the NDA wipe and changes to progression, like 90-95% of the posts were about how the economy sucked and suggestions on how to improve it.

WotC made the economy worse with the NDA wipe (like, significantly worse) and now 100% of the posts are flame wars about how much the economy sucks and how stupid WotC is for making it worse. It's honestly impressive that they managed to form a circular firing squad out of a single company.

It's also pretty funny that the beta players, who are the most likely to be super-pro magic, have turned against Arena already.
This sounds hilarious. To gauge how bad shit really is, even Reddit (who loves to kiss WotC's ass and beg for more) are currently breathing fire and brimstone regarding Arena. Meanwhile, Hearthstone makes its quests better. (https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/hearthstone/21534739/the-year-of-the-raven-soars-ahead)

What really puzzles me is how anyone with half a brain could think that copying Hearthstone's economy (which was already critizied for being too expensive) was good idea. Hearthstone requires less epics and legendaries are limited to 1 card per deck, while MtG often requires multiple mythics of the same card and tons of rares. And then WotC went and double downed by making an already bad system significantly worse - twice. :eyebrow:

Guess who's in charge of the economy of Arena, and to no suprise, it's Lee Sharpe (who's also responsible for MTGO). He has ZERO economical background (his qualifictions are some kind of math degree and one Top 8 in a PT ages ago), so the economy being a clusterfuck of incompetence and greed isn't all that suprising.

This makes me wonder how Papa Hasbro is going to react if Arena bombs since they've invested millions into its development and they expect big returns from it according to shareholder reports.

[morgan_coke]

This sounds hilarious. To gauge how bad shit really is, even Reddit (who loves to kiss WotC's ass and beg for more) are currently breathing fire and brimstone regarding Arena. Meanwhile, Hearthstone makes its quests better. (https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/hearthstone/21534739/the-year-of-the-raven-soars-ahead)

What really puzzles me is how anyone with half a brain could think that copying Hearthstone's economy (which was already critizied for being too expensive) was good idea. Hearthstone requires less epics and legendaries are limited to 1 card per deck, while MtG often requires multiple mythics of the same card and tons of rares. And then WotC went and double downed by making an already bad system significantly worse - twice. :eyebrow:

Guess who's in charge of the economy of Arena, and to no suprise, it's Lee Sharpe (who's also responsible for MTGO). He has ZERO economical background (his qualifictions are some kind of math degree and one Top 8 in a PT ages ago), so the economy being a clusterfuck of incompetence and greed isn't all that suprising.

This makes me wonder how Papa Hasbro is going to react if Arena bombs since they've invested millions into its development and they expect big returns from it according to shareholder reports.

I'd guess by cleaning house. But who knows. Fucking up the launch of Arena is a MASSIVE risk for them. There's plenty of competition, and once it gets set in people's heads that it's bad, it becomes an incredibly hard impression to reverse. Devoting only 1/5th of the total screen space to the play area (I measured) doesn't help them either.

[Von]

Arena will bomb in the Asian market...

Blizzard has the Asian market in it's pocket, then can put out a Farmville game with World of Warcraft characters in it and have it be a best seller overnight. WOTC does not have that kind of pull. The majority of Asia will choose Hearthstone over Arena or invest in both games...which I doubt.

[morgan_coke]

Did my Arena "chores" today, realized how much I hated them, logged into the Beta Forums to write an "I'm quitting this bullshit until the economy gets fixed" post, and discovered that's like, more than half the front page of the gameplay feedback forum.

Jesus, they really are trying to stillbirth this thing. I mean, the clock is absolutely ticking on how much longer they can go without some kind of announcement to address this garbage.

Oh, and apparently they're trying to cover by giving the biggest streamers extra packs, which just "magically" contain all great stuff. Fucking incredible.

EDIT: this is what I wrote there, it's not dissimilar from what many others have posted.

"Thread title pretty much says it all. I don't need to log in and do chores every day for nothing.

Look, I have, several times, bought into MTG and spent thousands of dollars doing so. Every time, I ended up selling out years later when I needed a break. I can't sell out of Arena. There is no way on god's green earth I will pay the kind of money into this game the current system requires me to pay to even field a moderately competitive standard deck.

This beta is frankly a waste of everyone's time. The game is dead at launch if it has anything like this kind of setup. Either the economy gets radically, by several orders of magnitude improved, or this game will be DoA and it won't matter how many bugs are running rampant in it.

You know, it really sucks, as great as the front page redesign was, we can't even talk to the devs about all the problems with the gameplay interface because we're stuck repeating the exact same thing we have been for the last several months about how utterly garbage the economy is. Except they've gone and actively made the economy worse.

If you're going to hear a unanimous complaint from your players about a huge problem with the game, why even have a Beta if your response to that is to make that exact problem significantly worse? The Beta testers are providing WotC a valuable service, we're supposed to get paid back in "fun". There is no fun here right now, and I don't work for free.

Peace."

[thecrav]

The Beta testers are providing WotC a valuable service, we're supposed to get paid back in "fun". [/I]

Nah. They gave you a streamer pack. You're getting paid in exposure!

[MechTactical]

I’m not well informed about magic in general, so my thinking could be completely wrong here, BUT… I can’t begin to comprehend that a company like Hasbro can’t offer a contemporary online experience for all levels of play (including eternal formats), and why it did not do so years ago? Especially, because of the large sums of money mtg fans around the world are willing (and some already do) spend on “worthless” online cardboard. If a couple of rogue mages can make xmage playable, why can’t Hasbro make a product that’s 1000x better? I’d be happy to pay to play, but I would expect such an expensive digital card game (mtgo) to at least run on my mac without having to do workarounds not mentioning other very disappointing issues I heard/read about mtgo. Wouldn’t they make shitloads of money if they offered such a product, wouldn’t it more than cover the development costs? I would buy into it ASAP. As it stands now, I can’t buy their product even if I want to because mtgo currently looks like a huge scam and arena looks like something that’s being developed for children, and besides, why would a legacy only player like myself buy arena in the first place? It’s such a disappointment that the game we all love (or hate and can’t divorce it :laugh: ) doesn’t have the online support it deserves it’s Anno Domini MMXVIII for Christ's sake!

Anyways, my question regarding the “economy” is why not simply transfer all mtgo collections into their new program/product that would support all levels of play and all world regions equally?

[Von]

I’m not well informed about magic in general, so my thinking could be completely wrong here, BUT… I can’t begin to comprehend that a company like Hasbro can’t offer a contemporary online experience for all levels of play (including eternal formats), and why it did not do so years ago? Especially, because of the large sums of money mtg fans around the world are willing (and some already do) spend on “worthless” online cardboard. If a couple of rogue mages can make xmage playable, why can’t Hasbro make a product that’s 1000x better? I’d be happy to pay to play, but I would expect such an expensive digital card game (mtgo) to at least run on my mac without having to do workarounds not mentioning other very disappointing issues I heard/read about mtgo. Wouldn’t they make shitloads of money if they offered such a product, wouldn’t it more than cover the development costs? I would buy into it ASAP. As it stands now, I can’t buy their product even if I want to because mtgo currently looks like a huge scam and arena looks like something that’s being developed for children, and besides, why would a legacy only player like myself buy arena in the first place? It’s such a disappointment that the game we all love (or hate and can’t divorce it :laugh: ) doesn’t have the online support it deserves it’s Anno Domini MMXVIII for Christ's sake!

Anyways, my question regarding the “economy” is why not simply transfer all mtgo collections into their new program/product that would support all levels of play and all world regions equally?

I think Hasbro has always believed that paper Magic was their money maker, thats why all the Duels games were put out to lure you into playing paper Magic. This them in panic mode after seeing the huge success of Hearthstone which probably ate up a chunk of the pop (including pros like Brian Kiebler) and having Artifact on the way. I feel like Arena is so rushed the it will take alot of work to make it actually appealing.

[Barook]

I’m not well informed about magic in general, so my thinking could be completely wrong here, BUT… I can’t begin to comprehend that a company like Hasbro can’t offer a contemporary online experience for all levels of play (including eternal formats), and why it did not do so years ago? Especially, because of the large sums of money mtg fans around the world are willing (and some already do) spend on “worthless” online cardboard. If a couple of rogue mages can make xmage playable, why can’t Hasbro make a product that’s 1000x better? I’d be happy to pay to play, but I would expect such an expensive digital card game (mtgo) to at least run on my mac without having to do workarounds not mentioning other very disappointing issues I heard/read about mtgo. Wouldn’t they make shitloads of money if they offered such a product, wouldn’t it more than cover the development costs? I would buy into it ASAP. As it stands now, I can’t buy their product even if I want to because mtgo currently looks like a huge scam and arena looks like something that’s being developed for children, and besides, why would a legacy only player like myself buy arena in the first place? It’s such a disappointment that the game we all love (or hate and can’t divorce it :laugh: ) doesn’t have the online support it deserves it’s Anno Domini MMXVIII for Christ's sake!

Anyways, my question regarding the “economy” is why not simply transfer all mtgo collections into their new program/product that would support all levels of play and all world regions equally?
- As far as I know, Hasbro is just as technically impaired as WotC when it comes to online things. Hasbro Suits were probably happy that MTGO printed money until Hearthstone came along and showed them how much more could be possible (e.g. 250 million revenue from Paper + Online combined vs Hearthstones 440 million revenue out of nowhere). That's why Arena is so heavily copied from Hearthstone - greed and no idea what the fuck they're doing.

- Why can't WotC make a good online experience? Well, if you pay significantly less than the industry standard, you can only attract below average talent. And even then, you have massive mismanagement from the higher ups and many people get fired after a year to avoid further obligations. That's the reason why sometimes the same card works differently between sets because they were programmed differently by different people. tl;dr: They're cheap bastards and it shows.

- WotC/Hasbro are chasing the Hearthstone money. Programming 15k+ cards with all kind of weird interactions is counterproductive to that. They also assume that people are willing to buy in multiple times.

[Matsu]

Hasbro has to do just one thing. Replace non competent people with competent.
Most of the time you have to replace 30% to 50% of the staff, most of them with a senior position in the company.
This is the only way to secure grow in the incoming decade.

With Artifact and the growing influence of the internet. Paper Magic will become a relic of the pass.
With the community becoming old and having less and less time.

I personally dropped MtG for a year to play Hearthstone, because it was free to play and I could do this after I put the kids in to bed.
MTGO was an option, but I did not want to spend my money twice for the same cards and the software is not user friendly.

This is just strange that people in the same company do not talk and cooperate. This is another signal the management is doing something wrong. Pokemon TCG Online is a thing and I heard it is working pretty well. You can buy a physical packs and have the same cards online, because there is a redeemed code inside the booster pack.
The same company produce both games in the same building. Just different people.

Can someone clarify Pokemon Online, maybe I do not understand it properly?

[Barook]

The same company produce both games in the same building. Just different people.

Can someone clarify Pokemon Online, maybe I do not understand it properly?
The Pokemon TCG hasn't been handled by WotC since 2003 because Nintendo didn't renew their license. By doing it in-house, they keep more for themselves.

MTGO also has an option for promo codes - which has been used for like two free promos and completely forgotten afterwards.

Given how they dropped Duels out of the blue, I'm not going to put money into MTGO again. The risk is just too high that they're going to nuke collections again. I wouldn't put it past Wizards to stop supporting MTGO if Arena was failing, simply to promote Arena. It wouldn't be the first stupid business decision they've made.

[Lord Seth]

Hasbro has to do just one thing. Replace non competent people with competent.
Most of the time you have to replace 30% to 50% of the staff, most of them with a senior position in the company.
This is the only way to secure grow in the incoming decade.

With Artifact and the growing influence of the internet. Paper Magic will become a relic of the pass.
With the community becoming old and having less and less time.

I personally dropped MtG for a year to play Hearthstone, because it was free to play and I could do this after I put the kids in to bed.
MTGO was an option, but I did not want to spend my money twice for the same cards and the software is not user friendly.

This is just strange that people in the same company do not talk and cooperate. This is another signal the management is doing something wrong. Pokemon TCG Online is a thing and I heard it is working pretty well. You can buy a physical packs and have the same cards online, because there is a redeemed code inside the booster pack.
The same company produce both games in the same building. Just different people.

Can someone clarify Pokemon Online, maybe I do not understand it properly?I don't believe Pokemon was ever produced by Wizards of the Coast. They simply published the already-existing game in the US (possibly some other countries as well); the cards themselves were designed and developed back in Japan.

However, Wizards of the Coast no longer publishes it either, as Nintendo took back the license some time ago. Nowadays it's published in Europe and the United States by The Pokemon Company International. Wizards of the Coast has nothing to do with the Pokemon TCG.

You're slightly off in regards to the redeemed codes, however. You don't get the same cards as were in the booster pack. What happens if you get the same kind of booster pack, but the cards inside it will be random (as is generally the case for booster packs) and thus not necessarily the exact same cards you opened in the physical booster pack. Note that you aren't obligated to open it once redeemed, you can keep it in your account and try to trade it for something else.

Actually, booster packs are basically the currently in the Pokemon TCG Online, because you can't use money to make trades. But you can trade booster packs, so you can offer those up in trade for cards. You can actually buy unredeemed booster pack codes from various sources online like Cool Stuff Inc. or Troll and Toad.

[Lemnear]

Oh, and apparently they're trying to cover by giving the biggest streamers extra packs, which just "magically" contain all great stuff. Fucking incredible.

Is that shit even legal? Not only it's blatant false advertising in regards to odds (topic: lootbox, gambling, etc) but also would mean they manipulate the whole thing at will and for certain accounts.

[morgan_coke]

Is that shit even legal? Not only it's blatant false advertising in regards to odds (topic: lootbox, gambling, etc) but also would mean they manipulate the whole thing at will and for certain accounts.

That's literally how WotC has always operated in regards to the pros and the bigger stores. It's not illegal, and it's far, far, far, far, far, far from new. And yes, of course they can manually manipulate specific accounts. Would be a complete shit system if they couldn't.

[Lemnear]

That's literally how WotC has always operated in regards to the pros and the bigger stores. It's not illegal, and it's far, far, far, far, far, far from new. And yes, of course they can manually manipulate specific accounts. Would be a complete shit system if they couldn't.

For me it's a predictable meltdown in the making if WotC is rising odds for youtubers, stores, pros & co, while slaps abyssmal rates onto packs for average joe, just to blame RNG later like its industry standard for lootbox games and their devs. Imo it would be a ticking bomb to mess with odds and players thst way

[Barook]

New MTG logo (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/venturing-outward-new-magic-logo-2018-03-27?) - I don't get why they have to shove their ugly Planeswalker logo everywhere.


Is that shit even legal? Not only it's blatant false advertising in regards to odds (topic: lootbox, gambling, etc) but also would mean they manipulate the whole thing at will and for certain accounts.
Who cares? It can and will be mathed out regardless. Pretty much everybody is shitting on them for their abyssal economy and social media spread the word rather effectively. It might have the opposite effect, actually - people are pissed that they have to play against streamers that got a headstart by getting free shit. If people concede to lower their rankings to avoid Scarab God decks, you should probably revisit your system as a dev. Chances are that it isn't going to happen because WotC is going to do WotC things as usual. Dropping the NDA with the shitshow they call an economy is a clear indication for that. I'm keeping the popcorn ready since this is going to be one hell of an amazing trainwreck in the making.

[PirateKing]

New MTG logo (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/venturing-outward-new-magic-logo-2018-03-27?) - I don't get why they have to shove their ugly Planeswalker logo everywhere.
♫Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the original Magic card back from me ♫

[rufus]

...
You can't take the original Magic card back from me[/I] ♫

Don't worry, the all-transform set is coming.

[Claymore]

What happens if they change the card back? Can they finally get the Reserved List white whale, or would the card back just be the signal of the end as the game collapses and burns to the ground?

[Darkenslight]

Can someone clarify Pokemon Online, maybe I do not understand it properly?

The key thing that Pokemon does, that almost every other TCG with a paper presence doesn't is unify card packs. So, for every Pokemon booster you buy, you can enter the code and obtain that particular pack. Those online cards can then be traded in-game for cards that you need etc.

Now, don't get me wrong - I have issues with the way that TCG plays, but they have the online experience absolutely spot-on. The Professor over at TCC had a video where he changed mid-stream from MTGO to the Pokemon TCG, and sent it to the guys over at Wizards.

This is absolutely on Hasbro and Wizards, and it would be a shame to see the game die because the companies couldn't embrace the online game variants.

[Ahab]

The key thing that Pokemon does, that almost every other TCG with a paper presence doesn't is unify card packs. So, for every Pokemon booster you buy, you can enter the code and obtain that particular pack. Those online cards can then be traded in-game for cards that you need etc.

Now, don't get me wrong - I have issues with the way that TCG plays, but they have the online experience absolutely spot-on. The Professor over at TCC had a video where he changed mid-stream from MTGO to the Pokemon TCG, and sent it to the guys over at Wizards.

This is absolutely on Hasbro and Wizards, and it would be a shame to see the game die because the companies couldn't embrace the online game variants.

You get another booster pack with the codes, but not the same pack.

[Lord Seth]

You get another booster pack with the codes, but not the same pack.Depends on exactly how someone is defining "the same pack." If they mean "the same pack" as in you'll get a booster pack from the same set, then yes (e.g. a code from a Guardians Rising pack will get you a virtual Guardians Rising booster). If they mean the same pack as in the contents will be exactly the same, then no, because they're randomized for booster packs.

Though if you buy a non-randomized product, like a theme deck, the code in that product will give you the exact same virtual cards as found in that product.

[kombatkiwi]

The online Pokemon TCG is actually pretty good
The only downsides are from like a hardcore grinder point of view (and this is just my understanding, I could be wrong about these):
- I don't think you can really profit off of it (e.g. if you are really good at MODO you can sell surplus tix/chests to people, I don't think there is any pokemon equivalent of this because the prize product is locked to your account
- There is no pokemon Online Championships / PTQ / Worlds-slot equivalent (i.e. it doesn't have any tie-in with the real-life game, which compounds the above point)

In terms of bugs I think all the cards work properly (it's a much more simple game than MTG, no action on the opponent's turn etc) but I have seen the occasional lockup/freeze/crash on streams and I think you have to abandon the game when that happens (it's not like MTGO where you can reconnect to the gamestate you were at)

Otherwise all the aesthetics and functionality are solid (but again, worth repeating that it is a much more simple game than MTG for getting it to work properly, and I have no idea about the economy comparisons because I have never considered seriously getting into PTCGO, but the pack-redemption thing seems like a no-brainer good idea)

[ktkenshinx]

Maybe this has been discussed before, but I didn't see it when searching the threads:

I'm assuming the RL isn't going anywhere for a variety of reasons. I'm also assuming Wizards is not going to do things like print better versions of RL cards. I'm further assuming that basically every creative workaround to printing RL cards or removing the policy itself is off the table.

Given this, why not advocate for an X+ "proxy" Legacy? And by "proxy," I really am just shorthanding "playtest card" per Wizards' definition (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/proxies-policy-and-communication-2016-01-14). I am 100% not referring to fakes, counterfeits, or other similar cards. This Legacy playtest card allowance would enable players to enjoy the format and slowly build decks while not worrying about the most expensive, non-reprintable cards. This would not violate any element of the RL and would simply require a modification of tournament rules to allow X+ playtest cards in Legacy decks. Has anyone pushed for this and found pushback from Wizards? Conflicts with policies that can't be resolved? A policy like this might lead to some secondary issues with the value of RL cards, an increase in counterfeits who are capitalizing on a reinvigorated Legacy, etc. But these secondary issues aren't necessarily strikes against the primary policy change of allowing playtest cards in Legacy decks.

[kombatkiwi]

Maybe this has been discussed before, but I didn't see it when searching the threads:

I'm assuming the RL isn't going anywhere for a variety of reasons. I'm also assuming Wizards is not going to do things like print better versions of RL cards. I'm further assuming that basically every creative workaround to printing RL cards or removing the policy itself is off the table.

Given this, why not advocate for an X+ "proxy" Legacy? And by "proxy," I really am just shorthanding "playtest card" per Wizards' definition (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/proxies-policy-and-communication-2016-01-14). I am 100% not referring to fakes, counterfeits, or other similar cards. This Legacy playtest card allowance would enable players to enjoy the format and slowly build decks while not worrying about the most expensive, non-reprintable cards. This would not violate any element of the RL and would simply require a modification of tournament rules to allow X+ playtest cards in Legacy decks. Has anyone pushed for this and found pushback from Wizards? Conflicts with policies that can't be resolved? A policy like this might lead to some secondary issues with the value of RL cards, an increase in counterfeits who are capitalizing on a reinvigorated Legacy, etc. But these secondary issues aren't necessarily strikes against the primary policy change of allowing playtest cards in Legacy decks.

It doesn't appear to be in the interest of WotC to allow proxy cards in sanctioned tournaments
Perhaps it would be appealing to them in that it would enable more people to play magic (legacy/vintage) thereby potentially creating demand for non-RL cards

I think the tournament logistics of this would be extremely unappealing
Like if you just have a sharpied basic then it looks shit on coverage and it can also be hard for players to follow what's going on (fuck your handwriting)
But if you have a printout of the entire card face and sleeve it then you have to be concerned about each sleeved card being marked for having different thicknesses etc

The funniest shit would be if the loophole actually is:
-> Here is a bunch of gold bordered power and duals, not breaking the reserved list because not tournament legal btw
-> Oh by the way proxy cards now legal in tournaments if you use opaque sleeves or w/e

But I can't see that ever happening

[Darkenslight]

You get another booster pack with the codes, but not the same pack.

Yeah, I should have been clearer that it's the same set rather than an individual pack.

[Von]

I think WOTC would make a new non-rl Legacy format before they allow proxies.

[Mr. Safety]

I think WOTC would make a new non-rl Legacy format before they allow proxies.

Yeah, maybe even call it something smart, like Vintage? J/K, I know what you meant. The only real option for a non-RL legacy format, one that would get the amount of support it needs to thrive, would be so close to Modern that I think it might falter heavily. There are already format variants that allow for a different card pool that plays on a different spin on set choices: 92/93, Pauper, EDH, Tiny Leaders, and even a newer variant I just heard about called pre-Modern (only sets pre-8th edition, I think with Legacy banlist.)

Watching which formats have been successful due to community support, I'm fairly certain Modern and EDH will eventually supercede Legacy, causing it to go the way of Vintage.

Look at the bright side, if Legacy becomes like Vintage all of us old dudes can get together, drink whiskey, and smoke cigars while we play the gentleman's format. Like an MtG speak-easy.

[Dice_Box]

I honestly feel if Wizards ever started looking at supporting Pauper that format would take over. It's (relatively) cheep, it's full of busted cards and it has a great identity.

[ironclad8690]

I honestly feel if Wizards ever started looking at supporting Pauper that format would take over. It's (relatively) cheep, it's full of busted cards and it has a great identity.

Yeah, and the fact that it doesn't have planeswalkers makes it feel a little like how old magic used to in the days before Jace.

[menloe]

I honestly feel if Wizards ever started looking at supporting Pauper that format would take over. It's (relatively) cheep, it's full of busted cards and it has a great identity.

It's also easy for them to introduce new cards to the format using regular or masters sets. Back when I played a lot of Pauper it seemed like the format got a smattering of new, impactful cards every year with new printings in regular sets or downshifting in the masters sets. That adds up to a lot of novelty and diversity in the top tier.

The only issue with formal support is the format will get more expensive. I may be misremembering this, but I recall I got about $10 richer right about the time CFB started running Pauper side events at GPs :cool:

[menloe]

Given this, why not advocate for an X+ "proxy" Legacy? And by "proxy," I really am just shorthanding "playtest card" per Wizards' definition (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/proxies-policy-and-communication-2016-01-14). I am 100% not referring to fakes, counterfeits, or other similar cards. This Legacy playtest card allowance would enable players to enjoy the format and slowly build decks while not worrying about the most expensive, non-reprintable cards. This would not violate any element of the RL and would simply require a modification of tournament rules to allow X+ playtest cards in Legacy decks. Has anyone pushed for this and found pushback from Wizards? Conflicts with policies that can't be resolved? A policy like this might lead to some secondary issues with the value of RL cards, an increase in counterfeits who are capitalizing on a reinvigorated Legacy, etc. But these secondary issues aren't necessarily strikes against the primary policy change of allowing playtest cards in Legacy decks.

Forgive the double post.

My play group started with unsanctioned tournaments with unlimited proxies to build interest. Some of us went nuts and built full decks right away, for some others it took about a year before they bought in, and the rest are either building very, very slowly, or content to stay with just proxies.

Those of us with full decks don't really care about playing sanctioned Legacy at the LGS as long as we have an opportunity to play on a regular basis. We look at it as practice for when we travel to other stores in other cities and other states to play in sanctioned tournaments and win bodacious prizes. The bonus to full proxy is it creates a feeling of meta diversity. We get a lot of reps against a lot of different decks week to week because people can play whatever they want.

[taconaut]

I honestly feel if Wizards ever started looking at supporting Pauper that format would take over. It's (relatively) cheep, it's full of busted cards and it has a great identity.


Not saying Pauper isn't a good format or anything, but I seem to recall feeling like the mana was super clunky when I tried to play it. Even though the decks have the potential to be cool, it always feels gimped to me, somehow.

That being said, my brother made a pauper gauntlet that was pretty fun. I don't think it was all meta decks, though.

Also, I would love to play storm in that format, but alas, it isn't legal...I do like how the banlist is honest about it, though - instead of being oblique and shitty about it like modern, where they ban most of the good cards but inexplicably leave the payoffs legal, pauper just says, "nope, storm cards are banned," which I find admirable, if annoying.

[Zombie]

Not saying Pauper isn't a good format or anything, but I seem to recall feeling like the mana was super clunky when I tried to play it. Even though the decks have the potential to be cool, it always feels gimped to me, somehow.

That being said, my brother made a pauper gauntlet that was pretty fun. I don't think it was all meta decks, though.

Also, I would love to play storm in that format, but alas, it isn't legal...I do like how the banlist is honest about it, though - instead of being oblique and shitty about it like modern, where they ban most of the good cards but inexplicably leave the payoffs legal, pauper just says, "nope, storm cards are banned," which I find admirable, if annoying.

The mana *is* super clunky, it's one of the defining characteristics of the format.

I played Pauper storm when it was legal - it's one of the most fun decks to goldfish, but honestly not too exciting to actually play. Ended up playing Infect and UR Cloudpost Control to get to play actual games where the opponent mattered more.

[morgan_coke]

Banning all the Storm cards in Legacy would be great from the perspective of allowing non-blue decks to interact with combo successfully. But to honestly make that happen they'd probably have to ban a bunch of other stuff after that too, that Storm is currently keeping down, so doubt it happens.

[Megadeus]

It doesn't appear to be in the interest of WotC to allow proxy cards in sanctioned tournaments
Perhaps it would be appealing to them in that it would enable more people to play magic (legacy/vintage) thereby potentially creating demand for non-RL cards

I think the tournament logistics of this would be extremely unappealing
Like if you just have a sharpied basic then it looks shit on coverage and it can also be hard for players to follow what's going on (fuck your handwriting)
But if you have a printout of the entire card face and sleeve it then you have to be concerned about each sleeved card being marked for having different thicknesses etc

The funniest shit would be if the loophole actually is:
-> Here is a bunch of gold bordered power and duals, not breaking the reserved list because not tournament legal btw
-> Oh by the way proxy cards now legal in tournaments if you use opaque sleeves or w/e

But I can't see that ever happening

Making Gold Border and CE legal wouldn't even be that big a deal. I mean we can already play with Delvers and other DFC cards which are essentially the same thing (assuming you don't play with checklist cards, I never have). I feel like simply having alpha cards legal is enough honestly.

As for the proxy thing, yeah the worst is trying to watch a tourney on stream that allows proxies with just stupid sharpie ones. At least print something out and make a fucking effort. That said, with invocations (which all look the fucking same on camera) being legal who honestly cares at this point?

[morgan_coke]

Just read Pete Jahn's "State of the Program" article this week. His opinion section is about Masters 25 and how it's a total crap set and Wizards has it priced too high, and it isn't selling, stores are losing money on it because it's ebay price is 60% of MSRP, etc. etc. etc.

While this is just Tuesday in MTG world for most of us (WotC is run by incompetent morons at the corporate level and desperately needs to clean house) it's significant because Jahn is a huge apologist/enthusiast for the company. I mean, he actively defended the MTG Arena economy after the NDA dropped, to give you an idea where he stands on the fanboy scale.

How many more bad quarters do the suits at Hasbro give WotC on this? And what kind of idiocy will they pull to try and "restore profitability"? I'm specifically looking at the super-low quality paper stock they switched to as an example.

[Lemnear]

WotC ignored for more than 10 years the potential of the growing market, which is online gaming, for a physical product, they barely ever bothered to advertise in mainstream media. MTG spreads mainly through mouth to mouth Propaganda and/or if people stumble into one of the local comic/larp/tabletop/etc shops around the globe.

This is failing in advertising 101 anno 2018 and no one of these analog dinosaurs at WotC or Hasbro is able/willing to hire someone to break open their inbreed structures.

Seriously, unless you hit "mtg" into google, stumble over their website or right into your local MTG shop, you prolly will never hear about the brand/game or ... god forbid ... try it.

WotC is literally ONLY fishing customers in their own pool of players, without any serious effort to attract NEW people at all. The last TV commercial of MTG was like 5 years ago.

[Barook]

WotC ignored for more than 10 years the potential of the growing market, which is online gaming, for a physical product, they barely ever bothered to advertise in mainstream media. MTG spreads mainly through mouth to mouth Propaganda and/or if people stumble into one of the local comic/larp/tabletop/etc shops around the globe.

This is failing in advertising 101 anno 2018 and no one of these analog dinosaurs at WotC or Hasbro is able/willing to hire someone to break open their inbreed structures.

Seriously, unless you hit "mtg" into google, stumble over their website or right into your local MTG shop, you prolly will never hear about the brand/game or ... god forbid ... try it.

WotC is literally ONLY fishing customers in their own pool of players, without any serious effort to attract NEW people at all. The last TV commercial of MTG was like 5 years ago.
I only see my students playing Yu-Gi-Oh during breaks, but never MtG.

As for trying to reach new people, they're trying - except this whole "diversity" thing is completely misguided and ineffective.


How many more bad quarters do the suits at Hasbro give WotC on this? And what kind of idiocy will they pull to try and "restore profitability"? I'm specifically looking at the super-low quality paper stock they switched to as an example.
My expectation is that Papa Hasbro brings down the hammer once MtG Arena flops. Although they're probably just going to replace Chris Cocks instead of doing the necessary purge at all levels.

[Lemnear]

My expectation is that Papa Hasbro brings down the hammer once MtG Arena flops. Although they're probably just going to replace Chris Cocks instead of doing the necessary purge at all levels.

I guess it's out if question that Arena bombs given they copypasta Hearthstone without a grip about online economy and the market they set foot into.

If we are honest, the only reason why no one touched MaRo and his lackeys is that Hasbro has, and that's somewhat relatable, no idea of how to replace him, without putting the franchise as a whole on thin ice. I can't imagine there is any VC on Hasbros table which provides an alternative to MaRo, matching his own expertise with a TCG brand. Who can you pick? One of his lackeys?

[Barook]

Maro has too many fanboys to fire him. It would be really bad PR if the franchise was already failing. And since they're looking for "more of the same" when they search new designers, Maro's asskissers wouldn't be any better as replacement.

Which is a shame, really. Dominiaria feels like a breath of fresh air thanks to Richard Garfield's involvement.

[Koby]

Which is a shame, really. Dominiaria feels like a breath of fresh air thanks to Richard Garfield's involvement.

Thats always the case when you bring someone with vision and influence to a design team that knows echo chamber at best.

[Lord Seth]

I guess it's out if question that Arena bombs given they copypasta Hearthstone without a grip about online economy and the market they set foot into.

If we are honest, the only reason why no one touched MaRo and his lackeys is that Hasbro has, and that's somewhat relatable, no idea of how to replace him, without putting the franchise as a whole on thin ice. I can't imagine there is any VC on Hasbros table which provides an alternative to MaRo, matching his own expertise with a TCG brand. Who can you pick? One of his lackeys?What does Mark Rosewater have to do with Arena?

[Lemnear]

What does Mark Rosewater have to do with Arena?

MaRo has become a problem for the whole fanchise in general with his boring and yet problematic set designs, not for Arena in particular and its failed economy.

If Hasbro really wanted to finally react to MTGs development, they will do it if the last straw for online MTG bombs. I hope it's the shakeup the brand needs so desperately.

[morgan_coke]

Y'know, between MTG, DC (movies), Star Wars, and BioWare, I'm really getting tired of rooting for my favorite brands to fail so that they get the long needed blatantly obvious creative shakeups they so desperately need.

[Lemnear]

Y'know, between MTG, DC (movies), Star Wars, and BioWare, I'm really getting tired of rooting for my favorite brands to fail so that they get the long needed blatantly obvious creative shakeups they so desperately need.

They all do a great job at that as they sacrifice their brand name for quick cash.

DC released Justice League on schedule, despite half of the movie had to be reshot shortly before and the CGI Department would have needed additional time. A manager decided that it needs to be released rather than being good, so we ended up with ridiculous bad CGI effects.

Bioware fucked up with Dragon Age sequels as well as andromeda, because they felt like milking the franchises without any idea behind sequels.

And Disney is just creating a copypasta of the original Star Wars Trilogy without a clear vision for the story they wanna tell over 3 movies. And because they can't come up with a masterplan on the franchise they make standalone movies too which don't need to follow a grander scheme. All for the yearly Star Wars movie in cinemas

[Amazingxkcd]

Lets say Arena bombs (which it most likely will). Do you really think WOTC/hasbro has the competency to do a shake-up when there's rumors that they're discussing partnering with GAMESTOP of all places to run FNM?!?! Honestly, the only out I see here for WOTC and MTG in general is that the WOTC sale does go through to an entity that has the balls to actually completely shake up MTG over ; massive firings, complete revamp of WPN, actually start paying the judges as employees/contractors, fix arena (and merge MODO into it?), etc.

That's just a pipe dream but the current trends of WOTC has nothing but bleakness going for it

[Ahab]

I recently started playing again and I'm actually having a pretty good time drafting RIX. Also the small comic store I draft at gets 12-20 players per FNM, which I think is pretty good. That's 2 more or less full draft pools on average.
Also Arena looks pretty smooth and entertaining. Can't wait to try it myself. People at my LGS are looking forward to it as well.
Of course there are always the eternally unhappy few complaining about A25, Arena, Ixalan, etc. They are also the loudest.
I invite everyone to ask themselves once in a while, while playing, "Am I enjoying this?". For example I was not excited seeing A25, but during the release sealed I had a blast, and most people around me, too. The fast paced games of Arena are entertaining to watch on stream, I am enjoying those as well. I'm afraid some players form their opinion early on, even before plaing at all, and never change it.

I want to highlight that there are people ut there that are actually pretty happy about the current direction.

Also DOM looks awesome.

[Lemnear]

I am glad you enjoy your time drafting, but it isn't related to the bigger topics like the downfall of Standard, format Management (or lack of), advertising, price spirals, etc.

You being entertained by Arena Streams, does not affect the economy of the game being totally wack and unattractive according to all the playtesters, not even talking the ripped off interface.

[Ahab]

That is true, but also having a great free playing experience and unique interface are not deciding factors. We still don't know how much a draft will cost.
I think mtg actually has a much bigger problem: a draft (main income source) takes too long. When playing Counterstrike or whatever, you can always play "just one more game". A draft typically takes 3-4 hours at my LGS. If they manage to create a system where you can split up the playing experience, so that you can draft a pack while taking a dump, the second one on your way to school, etc., that would do more for the game than slightly better economy, I think.

[morgan_coke]

Lets say Arena bombs (which it most likely will). Do you really think WOTC/hasbro has the competency to do a shake-up when there's rumors that they're discussing partnering with GAMESTOP of all places to run FNM?!?! Honestly, the only out I see here for WOTC and MTG in general is that the WOTC sale does go through to an entity that has the balls to actually completely shake up MTG over ; massive firings, complete revamp of WPN, actually start paying the judges as employees/contractors, fix arena (and merge MODO into it?), etc.

That's just a pipe dream but the current trends of WOTC has nothing but bleakness going for it

I don't think you (or anyone who hasn't been a part of it for awhile) understands just HOW BADLY the beta has been going. Que times are up to minutes, and you almost never see anyone within even the same rank band as an opponent. The beta forums have gone from bug reports and suggestions/complaints about the game and economy to endless threads complaining that blue is too good and asking for card bans. All the real players bailed.

Arena will get two more cracks at it, they're going to do another wipe and econ revamp in a few weeks, then I think one more before the beta goes open and collections become permanent. But right now, they've already lost all the hardcore players they had in the beta. I'd expect a big surge of people checking it out, and then everyone will just be done. Buh bye.

[Lemnear]

Sealed is a whole type of formats invented just to sell packs and i can't imagine that constantly dumping money into Arena for drafting is anything the crowd you want to attract with an online game is going to do. It's literally worse than gatcha.

Arenas economy is trash as meta constructed decks would only be accessible for whales as well according to the calculations on reddit.

Both factors are a huge liability for the game unless they get fixed before launch

[iatee]

IThe beta forums have gone from bug reports and suggestions/complaints about the game and economy to endless threads complaining that blue is too good and asking for card bans.

I think this means Magic Arena is actually just Magic: the Gathering.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

Arena is going to be a ton of fun if the economy improves and I've been having a blast playing crappy standard for free. I thought I would hate it compared to alternatives like MTGO or Eternal but it's got me doing my win a day for now at least. They are getting universally negative feedback about the economy so I'm not completely ready to write it off yet.

I can't believe they aren't getting 1v1 brawl going immediately though. It seems tailor-made for the program and would give Arena it's own thing you wouldn't really get elsewhere. Fuck sealed lol, I'll take some standard commander over that garbage format any day.

[Claymore]

It's literally worse than gatcha.

Man those collectibles were the shit in Shenmue.

Anyway, the interesting side effect I've read about with Arena is the creation of a pauper standard meta. Red deck wins had an article by MTG Goldfish as a clear way to be hyper aggressive against multi-color decks relying on CITP budget duals. I'm sure there are natural mono-color predators to mono-red, which could mean there's an overall budget meta to the format.

Of course, then you get the whales who just crush everyone with 4x Scarab Lord, actual tiered real Standard decks or whatever.

[Lemnear]

The issue I see, is that it's next to impossible to get people hooked on a game, if you need to win for your daily tasks (and related currency) as a f2p while nonstop getting crushed by P2P and P2W players thanks to their much better decks.

It would need a major revamp im the game economy and reward system to make it AT LEAST equal to Hearthstone. That however requires WotC actually having one in charge for their Online Department who has experience with monetarizing methods of "Freemium" and Gatcha games. Hiring people with actual business knowledge is of course out of question. /s

[thecrav]

The last TV commercial of MTG was like 5 years ago.

What's a TV commercial?

[Barook]

I think this means Magic Arena is actually just Magic: the Gathering.
Even Google agrees that Arena is just a Hearthstone clone:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Da7eWaiX0AIu_Rl.jpg:large

[Claymore]

At the cost of shipping Arena and building a "Digital Game Studio", Wizards no longer values its employees, nor are they committed to a diverse and welcoming workplace.

...

Changing your mind about business strategy every 6 months is a great way to waste your employee's time and effort, so you should stop doing that.


So the Community thread about what makes Magic great mentioned the bad Glassdoor reviews of WotC. I knew they were terrible, but oh man, apparently in October they laid off 30+ full time employees ("a full third of the full-time equivalents in the technology groups"), mostly older (40+). Not sure if that was mentioned on here previously. Also a lot of complaints about how management was changing direction and priorities constantly. I don't know the release/development schedule of the supplemental product (thought 1-2 years), but the haphazard product releases (masterpieces on and off, conspiracies, even Unstable) and sudden changes seem to be hitting the market now.

And yeah, it does seem that the new management is hardcore going all-in on Arena. If Arena fails, then WotC is going to be a dumpster fire.

Granted, these reviews generally come from disgruntled employees, but still...

[Barook]

https://i.imgur.com/n71wDC8.png

They sure try to push their new legendary border onto everything. :mad: This looks like a child didn't cut out the card properly and called it a day.

[Darkenslight]

https://i.imgur.com/n71wDC8.png

They sure try to push their new legendary border onto everything. :mad: This looks like a child didn't cut out the card properly and called it a day.

The child was Urza, clearly.

[thecrav]

Did they modify existing cards?

What a shitshow.

[ParkerLewis]

"technology groups"

If that means anything related to computer programming, it's quite possible they should have fired these guys fifteen years ago.

[Lord Seth]

So the Community thread about what makes Magic great mentioned the bad Glassdoor reviews of WotC. I knew they were terrible, but oh man, apparently in October they laid off 30+ full time employees ("a full third of the full-time equivalents in the technology groups"), mostly older (40+). Not sure if that was mentioned on here previously. Also a lot of complaints about how management was changing direction and priorities constantly. I don't know the release/development schedule of the supplemental product (thought 1-2 years), but the haphazard product releases (masterpieces on and off, conspiracies, even Unstable) and sudden changes seem to be hitting the market now.In fairness, haven't a number of people here been suggesting that Wizards of the Coast needs to "clear the decks" of the old guard?

[Humphrey]

looks like the dog chewed on the card

[Brainstorm Ape]

I wish a dog would chew on every copy of Leovold...

[Fox]

"technology groups"

If that means anything related to computer programming, it's quite possible they should have fired these guys fifteen years ago.

Don't worry, they're about to fix everything with machine learning! There is inherent power in trendy terms like 'in the cloud,' 'blockchain,' and now 'machine learning.' :laugh:

@ Barook, the more pressing question is why this MTG Arena stuff is glutting the mtgo twitch when all I want to do is see real magic be it paper or mtgo. You have to scroll through 5-6 more rows of junk now - and I do mean junk, people who are less competent than an average FNM player, playing magic on a platform that doesn't create better players (unless they play mtgo or paper on top of it). That special border for legends looks bad, but it was on a modern border to begin with....so it's not like the aesthetics really took a hit; at least now you can look at a border shape and never read the card to have to know Karakas sends it back to hand.

[Barook]

@ Barook, the more pressing question is why this MTG Arena stuff is glutting the mtgo twitch when all I want to do is see real magic be it paper or mtgo.
Because it's new, shiny, exciting - and WotC literally pays off popular streamers from other games to promote the game (e.g. Day9 commented on that while streaming Arena). Nothing wrong with that kind of marketing, but I wouldn't read too much into that regarding Arena's popularity.

[morgan_coke]

Firing 30 senior programmers and paying streamers to play/promote Arena are two of the best things I've heard of wotc doing in years.

[ESG]

at least now you can look at a border shape and never read the card to have to know Karakas sends it back to hand.

I laughed, but that's not necessarily true. The new border also appears on other legendary permanents.

[Tittliewinks22]

I don't understand why they changed the boarder for all legendary permanents except Planeswalkers?????

[rufus]

I don't understand why they changed the boarder for all legendary permanents except Planeswalkers?????

For the same reasons that other stuff isn't consistent.

[Dr_D]

Because it's new, shiny, exciting - and WotC literally pays off popular streamers from other games to promote the game (e.g. Day9 commented on that while streaming Arena). Nothing wrong with that kind of marketing, but I wouldn't read too much into that regarding Arena's popularity.

Paying streamers to play your game is normal these days if a company wants extra exposure for a new game.

[Barook]

Firing 30 senior programmers and paying streamers to play/promote Arena are two of the best things I've heard of wotc doing in years.
I dunno about the first one. DOM on MTGO has currently the issue that 38 out 42 legendary creatures can't show up as foils in packs, screwing up both EV and foil redemption.

[Claymore]

The Glassdoor reviews didn't specify that the technology employees were Programmers. I think insinuated that they were engineers, but seemed to be spread across all of the different tech groups.

Regardless, it does seem that MTGO's usual bugginess has taken a turn for the worse lately.

[H]

Regardless, it does seem that MTGO's usual bugginess has taken a turn for the worse lately.

Well, even just scale effects alone could explain that, although we know there is more to it. Adding more things to already poorly and haphazardly implemented things will have ever greater side-effects, which will dictate there being even more awkwardly implemented things for new cards to eventually come in and break. It will always just get worse, because the foundation isn't right and every addition exposes that.

[Claymore]

Supposedly, Hasbro Gaming (including MTG and Monopoly) dropped 20% according to Hasbro 1Q18 earnings report compared to 1Q17. D&D was listed as a brand that had gains, but MTG was not.

Ben Bleiweiss has a big post on reddit mathing out that MTG is stable and we're just in between sets, Toys R' Us did it, but, well, SCG GM and all.

[Barook]

Supposedly, Hasbro Gaming (including MTG and Monopoly) dropped 20% according to Hasbro 1Q18 earnings report compared to 1Q17. D&D was listed as a brand that had gains, but MTG was not.

Ben Bleiweiss has a big post on reddit mathing out that MTG is stable and we're just in between sets, Toys R' Us did it, but, well, SCG GM and all.
Ben Bleiweiss' post (https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/8ebvsq/hasbro_1q18_earnings_gaming_including_magic_the/dxtxsws/)

Dominaria seems to be doing very well, if social media is too believed. Maybe WotC gets the hint to return more back to the roots.

[morgan_coke]

Assigning 61.4 million to Toys R Us is pretty disingenous. The stuff was still selling before, it just wasnt selling at ToysRus, which is why they went out of business.

Looking at that "math" as an mba, I'm kinda skeptical. It reads like the crap you put out if you're trying to convince someone that bad is actually good. i.e. Look, sales are only down because struggling retailer went out of business and the old guy we fired put out a bad product and we didn't release as much product and peoples dogs were sick a lot this year. But LOOK, our new thing! SUPER SHINY! BEST EVER!

[Claymore]

What's the saying, Data can be manipulated to prove anything? Kinda smelled like that.

[rufus]

What's the saying, Data can be manipulated to prove anything? Kinda smelled like that.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -- (allegedly) Benjamin Disraeli

[phonics]

Assigning 61.4 million to Toys R Us is pretty disingenous. The stuff was still selling before, it just wasnt selling at ToysRus, which is why they went out of business.

Looking at that "math" as an mba, I'm kinda skeptical. It reads like the crap you put out if you're trying to convince someone that bad is actually good. i.e. Look, sales are only down because struggling retailer went out of business and the old guy we fired put out a bad product and we didn't release as much product and peoples dogs were sick a lot this year. But LOOK, our new thing! SUPER SHINY! BEST EVER!

I'm pretty sure that Toys r Us went bankrupt because of unsustainable debt incurred by the leveraged buyout that happened in the mid 00s more than anything else.

[Dice_Box]

I'm pretty sure that Toys r Us went bankrupt because of unsustainable debt incurred by the leveraged buyout that happened in the mid 00s more than anything else.
Yep. Toys of the last few years was making money, just not enough money to overtake the greed that had put it in an unsustainable position.

[Barook]

Aside from Richard Shay tweeting about how the bending issues aren't fixed with the new coating, there's also Ewan Erwin requesting pictures of printing errors (https://twitter.com/misterorange/status/989857500999667712). :eyebrow:

On a slightly different note
Kelly Digges (https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/8fgn2p/kelly_digges_creative_lead_on_dominaria_is_no/), creative lead of Dominaria, has suddenly stopped working for WotC. Probably got fired.

[Bosque]

I played in a Dominaria draft the other night. The set is a lot of fun and feels very old school. I managed to do well with a deck that basically made it off of a few crappy blockers, 7 main deck counterspells (including 5x Syncopate), bounce spells with stapled on card advantage, and 2x 10 mana finishers (Josu Vess, Lich Knight and Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep).

Buuut... the cards were all weirdly warped right out of the pack. Sitting on a shelf you can instantly tell which cards are from Dominaria from across the room. For extra amusement, they warp the opposite direction of the few foil cards I have from other sets.

[Claymore]

Aside from Richard Shay tweeting about how the bending issues aren't fixed with the new coating, there's also Ewan Erwin requesting pictures of printing errors (https://twitter.com/misterorange/status/989857500999667712). :eyebrow:


The only thing surprising there is that Erwin doesn't work for Wizards, assuming "Marketing Manager for CoolStuffInc" is correct. Working in manufacturing myself, I would want Wizards to be collecting print error data from the field so they could correct going forward...instead of just putting their heads in the sand. Quality can catch a lot of stuff, but invariably you'll have escapes.

[Barook]

The only thing surprising there is that Erwin doesn't work for Wizards, assuming "Marketing Manager for CoolStuffInc" is correct. Working in manufacturing myself, I would want Wizards to be collecting print error data from the field so they could correct going forward...instead of just putting their heads in the sand. Quality can catch a lot of stuff, but invariably you'll have escapes.
Question is how openly WotC can admit that they're selling faulty product before getting hit with a class-action lawsuit.

[Megadeus]

I played in a Dominaria draft the other night. The set is a lot of fun and feels very old school. I managed to do well with a deck that basically made it off of a few crappy blockers, 7 main deck counterspells (including 5x Syncopate), bounce spells with stapled on card advantage, and 2x 10 mana finishers (Josu Vess, Lich Knight and Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep).

Buuut... the cards were all weirdly warped right out of the pack. Sitting on a shelf you can instantly tell which cards are from Dominaria from across the room. For extra amusement, they warp the opposite direction of the few foil cards I have from other sets.

Are foils warped or is it every card? Foils suck

[morgan_coke]

Question is how openly WotC can admit that they're selling faulty product before getting hit with a class-action lawsuit.

They're only open to a suit if they knowingly sold faulty product. If they just tried to skimp on costs and made something bad by accident, not so much. Even when Pinto's were blowing up and killing people, Ford only got busted once it was proven they knew about the bad gas tanks ahead of time.

[Barook]

They're only open to a suit if they knowingly sold faulty product. If they just tried to skimp on costs and made something bad by accident, not so much. Even when Pinto's were blowing up and killing people, Ford only got busted once it was proven they knew about the bad gas tanks ahead of time.
Given how bad the card stock is now for 1-1.5 years by now, I don't think it's an "accident" anymore, like the failure that was the paper Modern Masters 2015 packaging.

[Bosque]

Are foils warped or is it every card? Foils suck

Foils do suck, and I avoid them like the plague but have a couple where the foils were cheaper than regular printings (Imperial Recruiter, Ajani Vengeant). But no, every card is warped, not just foils.

[ed06288]

How do you prove the product is faulty?

[Claymore]

Wizards appears to have fired their VP of Production.

Maro's said in an article on the Mothership that Wizards is considering a Return to Dominaria only because the set was so well received. Glad they decided to not throw away all of the history of the game.

[morgan_coke]

OMG.

Saffron Olive has an article up on Arena at mtggoldfish today.

The comments are fucking priceless. Literally the only people in the comments saying the economy is ok and they can build what they want are the ones saying they spent $500+ on gems.

BAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHA.

Like, I mean, ffs, make the game generous, get people in, sell Judge Promo art and full art cards and shit to make your $$ back. This should be the most brain dead easy decision in the world, and they're going to fuck it up.

That's amazing.

[Zombie]

https://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/avatars/269/101/636615816393961918.jpeg

[morgan_coke]

https://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/avatars/269/101/636615816393961918.jpeg

Is that a real fucking card?!?!?!?

Ha. Hahahahahaha.

Remember when a 2/2 one drop was so strong it could only be white and had to have the Legendary tag on it as a drawback? Ah, fun times.

Still way worse than Delver.

Which is also Blue.

Because of course.

[Barook]

Wizards appears to have fired their VP of Production.
Interesting - where did you get that from?


Maro's said in an article on the Mothership that Wizards is considering a Return to Dominaria only because the set was so well received. Glad they decided to not throw away all of the history of the game.
People love Dominaria since it's the core lore of the game. It's mindboggling how deep they have their heads in their asses thinking to skip Dominaria like that. I'd take more Dominaria over garbage settings like Amonkhet or especially Ixalan every day of the week.


Like, I mean, ffs, make the game generous, get people in, sell Judge Promo art and full art cards and shit to make your $$ back. This should be the most brain dead easy decision in the world, and they're going to fuck it up.

That's amazing.
Apparently they've hired three people regarding online economies in the wake of making Arena, which begs the question what in the name of fuck these people are doing. I wouldn't be suprised if they came from the mobile game sector, trying to make the most exploitative economy possible. Thing is, those peopke don't understand how the game works - and that will be Arena's downfall.

Edit: One of the best parts is WotC having no idea how to handle rotations properly and just handwaves it. That pure amount of hubris, ignorance and stupidity is stellar.

[Claymore]

Saw that VP firing mentioned by a friend, appears to be a Rudy video. Not sure of the legitimacy past that.

But what flavor of hat will Dominaria get in the Return set?????

[Zombie]

Is that a real fucking card?!?!?!?

Ha. Hahahahahaha.

Remember when a 2/2 one drop was so strong it could only be white and had to have the Legendary tag on it as a drawback? Ah, fun times.

Still way worse than Delver.

Which is also Blue.

Because of course.

Real card is real.

[Lord Seth]

OMG.

Saffron Olive has an article up on Arena at mtggoldfish today.

The comments are fucking priceless. Literally the only people in the comments saying the economy is ok and they can build what they want are the ones saying they spent $500+ on gems.

BAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHA.

Like, I mean, ffs, make the game generous, get people in, sell Judge Promo art and full art cards and shit to make your $$ back. This should be the most brain dead easy decision in the world, and they're going to fuck it up.

That's amazing.It helps if you provide people with a link to the article:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/magic-arena-answers-and-more-questions


Is that a real fucking card?!?!?!?

Ha. Hahahahahaha.

Remember when a 2/2 one drop was so strong it could only be white and had to have the Legendary tag on it as a drawback? Ah, fun times.

Still way worse than Delver.

Which is also Blue.

Because of course.Not sure what the big deal is. Red has a strictly better version of it in Inventor's Apprentice.

[phonics]

I wonder who this game is directed at. Wouldn't limited players rather play on mtgo where they can sell the cards they draft for tickets (or trade them for cards they need in constructed formats), while having access to cube drafts and other formats? Without trading or secondary a secondary market, constructed players will never play this over mtgo. It is basically a mtg game for people who dont play mtg (ie it is directed at Hearthstone players that want something more complex).

[morgan_coke]

No, it's directed at shareholders wondering why Hearthstone is making more money online after 3 years than MTG is after 20+.

[PirateKing]

No, it's directed at shareholders wondering why Hearthstone is making more money online after 3 years than MTG is after 20+.

Hey now, #notallshareholders

I remember the best use of Duel of the Planewalkers games were these magic "puzzles" they employed as a teaching tool to develop the critical thinking and ass-around order you need to be good that the game. You;d load up a board state and typically the requirement would be to win that turn, sometimes it would be to not die that turn.

I recall one when you had 4 mana, 3 creatures, one holding a Jitte with 4 counter on it. The opponent had two blockers and was at low life. Their toughness was such you couldn't kill them and get enough power through. The solution was to pump the creature, move the Jitte, pump that one, move it again and pump, sending three guys and the one that gets through would be lethal.

It was those kind of Chess/Go problems that made it something worth all the garbage that was the rest of the game. If they could do anything, it would be more of that.

[Tylert]

I use MTG Arena everyday now and oh boy this soft is sweet.
The real problem is the economy as Safron olive says. And while i have a deck that fits me right now i'm really wondering if i'll be able to redo it when they'll wipe the accounts for the open beta....

[supremePINEAPPLE]

I'm enjoying arena but I also bought one of the big packs to get started. I can imagine it being super annoying as a f2p person but I wasn't ever gonna go that route anyways since grinding is for people with more time than money.

I hate playing paper magic these days (had enough of playing with crusty fucks in dingy little shops), hate mtgo, and don't have that much time anyways so getting a few casual-ish games in on arena is just about perfect for me. The format isn't ideal but dominaria is really awesome so I'm having a refreshing amount of fun with it considering how burnt out on legacy and magic I've been in general.

[MaximumC]

It helps if you provide people with a link to the article:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/magic-arena-answers-and-more-questions

Not sure what the big deal is. Red has a strictly better version of it in Inventor's Apprentice.

Sure, I mean, what color DOESN'T have a one-drop 2/2 or better dependent on artifacts? Black and Green, I guess. White has at least 2. Still, if any color is supposed to have weaker creatures, it is blue, and giving blue a 1cc 2/2 like Delver just seems really bonkers for what the color is supposed to be about.

[Mr. Safety]

Sure, I mean, what color DOESN'T have a one-drop 2/2 or better dependent on artifacts? Black and Green, I guess. White has at least 2. Still, if any color is supposed to have weaker creatures, it is blue, and giving blue a 1cc 2/2 like Delver just seems really bonkers for what the color is supposed to be about.

It would be ok if it had a drawback (and the flip trigger is pathetically easy to build around in every format.) If it flipped back again if someone played 2 spells, like the werewolves, it would have been much more fair and much less playable. Not that I'm complaining, I think delver is fine for the format, just agreeing that it doesn't really fit the traditional blue mold.

[Lemnear]

It would be ok if it had a drawback (and the flip trigger is pathetically easy to build around in every format.) If it flipped back again if someone played 2 spells, like the werewolves, it would have been much more fair and much less playable. Not that I'm complaining, I think delver is fine for the format, just agreeing that it doesn't really fit the traditional blue mold.

I am more offended by a 3/1 - Protection from everything your opponent has, which isn't white (as it should) but blue. Maybe just me

[morgan_coke]

Yeah, I definitely think the biggest thing contributing to the problems with the format in general, and the "cantrip shell" in particular are that Black has the best mana dork and Blue has the best creatures.

[Lemnear]

Yeah, I definitely think the biggest thing contributing to the problems with the format in general, and the "cantrip shell" in particular are that Black has the best mana dork and Blue has the best creatures.

I was one of the old hags nagging for years that everyone is just playing blue shell + delver and that the main differences are only the colors they choose between RUG, BUG, UWR or UR, which seems silly now that DRS literally eliminated exactly that variance and turned everything BUGx.

Having a permanent 5c manaacceleration, yardhate and cursed scroll available off your Underground Sea, trivialized cardchoices and nonbasic hate

[Parcher]

I was one of the old hags nagging for years that everyone is just playing blue shell + delver and that the main differences are only the colors they choose between RUG, BUG, UWR or UR, which seems silly now that DRS literally eliminated exactly that variance and turned everything BUGx.

Having a permanent 5c manaacceleration, yardhate and cursed scroll available off your Underground Sea, trivialized cardchoices and nonbasic hate

Yeah, I have to chime in on this one. One of the large advantages people who play Legacy as their main format had was deck recognition. I used to be able to see your turn one Fetch, what land you got, and what spell you played, and know what your were on at least 75% of the time. And with the slow evolution of cards into the format, and changes in subsequent lists, I'd usually know at least 75% of your list once deducing what you were playing. Now, X Fetch into Sea into Deathrite means I can eliminate maybe 40% of the meta. Maybe.

EDIT: A prime example of in-game actions being warped by the new meta; When RUG was a huge player, obviously before Deathrite, a common play, even blind, was T1 Fetch a land, go. Even without Basics. Because it was so much worse getting Stifled with no T1 play, than Wasted. When's the last time anyone saw anyone do that?

[Lemnear]

When RUG was a huge player, obviously before Deathrite, a common play, even blind, was T1 Fetch a land, go. Even without Basics. Because it was so much worse getting Stifled with no T1 play, than Wasted. When's the last time anyone saw anyone do that?

Fetching a Dual without any Ponder/DRS/Delver/Mongoose/etc played before passing? Prolly 2007? Could be wrong though. Too long ago regardless.

I agree on the deck identification. There was a time when you could identify opposing decks based on the fetches, lands fetched and first spell cast, which was temendously helpful as a combo player. These days, every tempo and midrange deck looks the same and I cant even predict, if they play stifles or Hymns as their disruption or how the fuck their endgame might looks. Could be anything from Jace to Leovold to Gurmag.

[kombatkiwi]

I cant even predict, if they play stifles or Hymns as their disruption or how the fuck their endgame might looks. Could be anything from Jace to Leovold to Gurmag.

Isn't this a positive thing?
I'd rather play a game where you actually gain some win% by making smart picks for what cards to play rather than just "I'm playing X deck, I guess my whole 75 is locked in" (and I say this as a RUG player)

[Lemnear]

Isn't this a positive thing?
I'd rather play a game where you actually gain some win% by making smart picks for what cards to play rather than just "I'm playing X deck, I guess my whole 75 is locked in" (and I say this as a RUG player)

That's not what I meant. I wanted to refer that we are at the point of tempo, midrange and control running the same shell with like 65% of the decks being identical. There was a time these strategies differed drastically in terms of card selection and colors.

[morgan_coke]

Ban DRS, Gurmag, and the Blue creatures (leovold, TNN, Delver). That will force decks to re-diversify without touching fetches, duals, or the blue cantrip shell wotc loves so much.

[Lord Seth]

Sure, I mean, what color DOESN'T have a one-drop 2/2 or better dependent on artifacts? Black and Green, I guess. White has at least 2. Still, if any color is supposed to have weaker creatures, it is blue, and giving blue a 1cc 2/2 like Delver just seems really bonkers for what the color is supposed to be about.Blue has had Phantasmal Bear for years.

I just don't see why a one-drop 2/2 is particularly shocking at this point. Every color has those and they've had them for a while.

[Fatal]

Ban DRS, Gurmag, and the Blue creatures (leovold, TNN, Delver). That will force decks to re-diversify without touching fetches, duals, or the blue cantrip shell wotc loves so much.

I like idea of banning: DRS, Leovold, TNN, Delver and Griselbrand at once.

DRS - omnipresent in each blue cartel, which changed to Ub/x cartel.

Leovold - mistake in design too many good abilities - and no real cost effective and CA answer to it (cheapest mass removal is for 3 mana + drawback - like paying life) each other gives -1 CA.

TNN - similar to Leovold, mistake in design - actually it's just bad design, which is out of color-wheel, out of interactive play - it required special rulling in comp rules - just awful.

Delver - 3/2 flying for U - no drawbacks, that's how you creating one of dominating archetype since 2011 until today.

Griselbrand is similar "mistake" like DRS, but in Combo category - bring in fattie - you don't think about which fatty is ok vs proper situation, you bring Grisel every time, since it's like old Skull (Necropotence or later Yawg Bergain - both banned) drawing more cards is enough to win, add to it 7/7 body flying and lifelink.. idiotic, and can't be answered symetrical you always draw 7 cards, or will have bigger body. S&T and Reanimator dropped diversity bacause of it.


Gurmag is like Tombstalker, one mana cheaper but without reach - it's ok in power level and diversity, you can also use 4/5 legendary version with option.

P.S Missed last "mistake" in design - Omniscience - players like interesting cards which interact with each other not cards which has on their text box - you win the game. It's not oppressing it's just bad card design.

Edit to

We a B&R thread now, boyz

Little true but it's very connected - current state of Magic makes format less diversity since R&D form WotC produce bad designed cards in last few years and do nothing with it. That's why Banned & Restricted list exist - but WotC refuse to take any action to correct mistakes in development. It's scary how long took correct mistake with Terminus and how they correct it - SDT ban, similar like with Vengevines and Survival, the more engines they ban, instead issues, then less diversity and more paper (Grixis Delver) / rock (Czech Pile) / scissors(Chalice based decks) / ok let be Spock also (D&T) will be format instead of multi-dimensional matrix.

[Vissah]

I like idea of banning: DRS, Leovold, TNN, Delver and Griselbrand at once.

DRS - omnipresent in each blue cartel, which changed to Ub/x cartel.

Leovold - mistake in design too many good abilities - and no real cost effective and CA answer to it (cheapest mass removal is for 3 mana + drawback - like paying life) each other gives -1 CA.

TNN - similar to Leovold, mistake in design - actually it's just bad design, which is out of color-wheel, out of interactive play - it required special rulling in comp rules - just awful.

Delver - 3/2 flying for U - no drawbacks, that's how you creating one of dominating archetype since 2011 until today.

Griselbrand is similar "mistake" like DRS, but in Combo category - bring in fattie - you don't think about which fatty is ok vs proper situation, you bring Grisel every time, since it's like old Skull (Necropotence or later Yawg Bergain - both banned) drawing more cards is enough to win, add to it 7/7 body flying and lifelink.. idiotic, and can't be answered symetrical you always draw 7 cards, or will have bigger body. S&T and Reanimator dropped diversity bacause of it.


Gurmag is like Tombstalker, one mana cheaper but without reach - it's ok in power level and diversity, you can also use 4/5 legendary version with option.

P.S Missed last "mistake" in design - Omniscience - players like interesting cards which interact with each other not cards which has on their text box - you win the game. It's not oppressing it's just bad card design.

Edit to


Little true but it's very connected - current state of Magic makes format less diversity since R&D form WotC produce bad designed cards in last few years and do nothing with it. That's why Banned & Restricted list exist - but WotC refuse to take any action to correct mistakes in development. It's scary how long took correct mistake with Terminus and how they correct it - SDT ban, similar like with Vengevines and Survival, the more engines they ban, instead issues, then less diversity and more paper (Grixis Delver) / rock (Czech Pile) / scissors(Chalice based decks) / ok let be Spock also (D&T) will be format instead of multi-dimensional matrix.


You know what, I actually think you got some very good points here.