The current state of Magic

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Originally Posted by Crimhead

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by kombatkiwi

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

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I just imagined the horror of a Jacetice League cartoon.

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Originally Posted by maharis

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.

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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).

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Originally Posted by Barook

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a) a viable business with reasonable prices instead of maximum player gauging
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That made me think of the "What's the biggest challenge facing magic?" question.

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A Standard that doesn't suck

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

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.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

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

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

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Originally Posted by Ace/Homebrew

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

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I mean, I'd draft that.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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

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Originally Posted by Barook

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

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"Aut inveniam viam aut faciam."

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

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:

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Originally Posted by 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:

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

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Originally Posted by morgan_coke

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

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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.

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/sta...47300369207297

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.

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Originally Posted by Barook

https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/sta...47300369207297

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.

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

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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)

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies

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.

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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.

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?

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.

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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.

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https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...ent-2018-01-15

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."

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.

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Originally Posted by Zombie

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

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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.

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

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...ent-2018-01-15

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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.]

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

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.

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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.

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.

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

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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."

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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...

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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.]

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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).

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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

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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

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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

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What does this even mean

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.

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Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies

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.

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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.

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

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

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Safety

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

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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.

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

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Originally Posted by kombatkiwi

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by kombatkiwi

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).

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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.

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Originally Posted by kombatkiwi

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by kombatkiwi

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

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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.