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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Megadeus
I admittedly don't play modern, but isn't ghost quarter far more prevalent than Tec Edge? Edge doesn't hit tron if they assemble it quickly so it's useless isn't it?
On paper you'd think so but in practice no. The only possible way they can assemble it turn 3 is if they don't play any other land than tron lands (which with 12 total in their deck is unlikely to happen), and they don't play any repeating tron lands. They play Explorer's Maps but you need 2 mana to activate that and like I said, unless they have two different tron lands as their first plays they won't be getting turn 3 tron. RG Tron frequently plays turn 1 green land to get Ancient Stirrings, so they'll rarely have Tron on turn 3.
In addition to that if you're playing Tec edges you're likely playing either blue or Death and Taxes. Almost every blue control deck has Remand, so if the tron player assembles it on turn 4 they get one activation (which you can normally remand), and then you tec edge whichever one you expect they don't have a repeat of. If you don't have Remand for whatever it is, you might be able to just Path it (Wurmcoil). Death and Taxes eats Tron for breakfast, it's one of their better matchups as Ghost Quarter + Tec Edge + Leonin Arbiter + Aven Mindcensor ruin their day.
Now all this isn't to say that Wasteland wouldn't help the format out a lot. Most broken/linear strategies in Modern right now would be extremely easily knocked down a peg with land hate. Dredge would have suffered a lot if people were able to waste their turn 1 land, Affinity + Infect's backup plan of Inkmoth Nexus wouldn't be nearly as effective, Tron would have to actually try hard to get the 3 pieces to stick, and a lot of the combo decks are on the tenuous edge of mana screw as it is. Eldrazi would actually probably benefit even though they play some broken lands, but that one's hard to say. They never would have had to ban anything from Bloom Titan since wastelanding one of those lands is game over.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Phoenix Ignition
On paper you'd think so but in practice no. The only possible way they can assemble it turn 3 is if they don't play any other land than tron lands (which with 12 total in their deck is unlikely to happen), and they don't play any repeating tron lands. They play Explorer's Maps but you need 2 mana to activate that and like I said, unless they have two different tron lands as their first plays they won't be getting turn 3 tron. RG Tron frequently plays turn 1 green land to get Ancient Stirrings, so they'll rarely have Tron on turn 3.
A lot of Tron lists run Chromatic Star and/ or Chromatic Sphere... Turn 1 Tronland into Chromatic allows Turn 2 Tronland into Ancient Stirrings or Sylvan Scrying, which allows for Turn 3 Karn Liberated. Expedition Map has the perfect 1 CMC with 2 mana activation cost as well. So there's really quite a bit of redundancy to Turn 3 Tron, provided that you are lucky and get copies of 2 out of the 3 in your opening 8.
Those sequences leading to Turn 3 Karn/ All is Dust, Turn 4 Ugin/ Oblivion Stone are some of the most feared in Modern. Yet I'd be petrified to go for those sequences in Legacy; Force of Will or a Wasteland leaves you in a miserable state.
If Modern suddenly is cancelled, the Pop! of the price bubbles would be extreme. It's knocking on the door of Legacy price-wise, even if people don't entirely realize that. I mean, Mishra's Bauble is a $15 card, so there's gotta be a huge player-base, even if it isn't anybody's favorite format. And with Modern Masters 3 coming out, they're not going to kill it anytime soon.
It isn't an unenjoyable format, but I'll play any format with Magic cards, so I'll always be like an alcoholic saying "it's not a terrible drink". From what I've seen anecdotally, Modern at the LGS level is a blend of A. well-enfranchised, competitive people who'd rather be playing Legacy and, B. less-enfranchised players who are under the delusion that it's easier to build a brew for and less expensive or competitive than Standard.
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Re: The current state of Magic
There is the group I sit in as well, people who enjoy the format for its merits and do not bother to take it seriously. I mean I sometimes play a deck that uses Life from the Loam and Stinkweed Imp to find Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. Then you can play Nameless Inversion and Crib Swap from the grave and beat down with Knight of the Reliquary. Its dumb, its not going to win, but its fun. You can do shit like this in Legacy too sure, but if you can play both Modern and Legacy, I find your more likely to do the dumb shit in the format that you care about a little less.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Begle1
From what I've seen anecdotally, Modern at the LGS level is a blend of A. well-enfranchised, competitive people who'd rather be playing Legacy and, B. less-enfranchised players who are under the delusion that it's easier to build a brew for and less expensive or competitive than Standard.
Your categories are weird and make me question your judgment. I've played all formats extensively at one time or another, except perhaps Standard since I only tried that right when I was getting into Magic, and I can say that Legacy is the stalest by far. In order of enjoyment I'd rather play Modern, Old School, Vintage, Pauper, competitive EDH (barf), and then Legacy, in that order. Some people enjoy playing the exact same Brainstorm shell with slightly different win conditions, but most people I know don't. Vintage is at least up front about how broken Blue is, and there are some strategies to fight it consistently.
Just look at it (image credit Janchu88, but quotes aren't allowed in locked threads) https://abload.de/img/therapyprobelraao.png
Modern is still much more open a format than Legacy, especially for dumb brews. They make it into top 8s of big tournaments all the time. If you're not playing the tier 1 best deck at the time it doesn't mean you're delusional thinking you can win. Except for Legacy where the "brew" is just Blue Shell + whatever new OP creature they printed. I've 4-0'd with Death Cloud twice now in Modern, which to me means the format is closer to where Legacy was in 2008 when you could play metagame decks that weren't 1) Blue shell or 2)Red Elemental Blast.deck
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Re: The current state of Magic
SCG has a good article on standard bannings, their interaction with digital strategy, and the implications for MTG. The end is pretty hardcore. Good on SCG for printing this.
These are some of the considerations against an aggressive banning policy, especially in Standard. This isn't necessarily to say the recent bans were a mistake, but to show some of the factors at play – factors overcome for the sake of more pressing concerns. With Wizards of the Coast's announcement of a new digital push and the thrust of recent developments, it's clear that they're trying to figure out how best to tailor and monetize Magic for mobile platforms, with their distinct interface advantages and disadvantages.
The big question is how close Magic can and should be tailored to these digital mediums and payment structures so that its original appeal is retained and the game doesn't just terminate in a clunkier version of Hearthstone. The drive toward digital adaptation is in tension with another possibility – coming to terms with Magic's partly analogue nature and the fundamental limits it presents, such as tangible cards that can't be instantly remade and intricate mechanics that tend to play better over a table than on a tablet.
The new approach to Standard bannings is part of an overall plan to compete with digital-native games. The challenge is difficult, and the particular approach is riskier than it looks, destabilizing the game on several levels to allow it to do what games like Hearthstone can do more seamlessly by design. So it's an open question. Most recently, six of the same deck just finished in the Top 6 of Pro Tour Aether Revolt.
Now what?
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...gic-Cards.html
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
SCG has a good article on standard bannings, their interaction with digital strategy, and the implications for MTG. The end is pretty hardcore. Good on SCG for printing this.
These are some of the considerations against an aggressive banning policy, especially in Standard. This isn't necessarily to say the recent bans were a mistake, but to show some of the factors at play – factors overcome for the sake of more pressing concerns. With Wizards of the Coast's announcement of a new digital push and the thrust of recent developments, it's clear that they're trying to figure out how best to tailor and monetize Magic for mobile platforms, with their distinct interface advantages and disadvantages.
The big question is how close Magic can and should be tailored to these digital mediums and payment structures so that its original appeal is retained and the game doesn't just terminate in a clunkier version of Hearthstone. The drive toward digital adaptation is in tension with another possibility – coming to terms with Magic's partly analogue nature and the fundamental limits it presents, such as tangible cards that can't be instantly remade and intricate mechanics that tend to play better over a table than on a tablet.
The new approach to Standard bannings is part of an overall plan to compete with digital-native games. The challenge is difficult, and the particular approach is riskier than it looks, destabilizing the game on several levels to allow it to do what games like Hearthstone can do more seamlessly by design. So it's an open question. Most recently, six of the same deck just finished in the Top 6 of Pro Tour Aether Revolt.
Now what?
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...gic-Cards.html
LOL. Ripperino Standard.
So they will keep pushing strategies without providing answer to them and if they noticed that they fucked up a bit too much, so a single strategy becomes to powerful, they just ban it, because they cant just NERF & BUFF cards like Hearthstone does?
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Re: The current state of Magic
All they need to do is print decent ANSWERS to problems. The format can self-regulate as long as there is access to decent sideboard cards.
There is no reason that a card like Shatter isn't printed in the same set as an artifact heavy block. I understand some hesitation in allowing for, say, Ancient Grudge, at least initially when the block first comes out (so as to allow for players to use the shiny new toys), but the following block should certainly have access to Ancient Grudge or equivalent.
And not every set has to have a Swords to Plowshares, but what's wrong with having Doom Blade?
It seems like a lot of cards don't need to be banned when there are sufficient ways of dealing with them. That's why Legacy is mostly able to regulate itself -- if anything becomes too problematic, generally there is an answer tailor-made to respond to it. This is especially obvious when you have things like Daze and Force of Will -- counterspells that can technically answer everything, un-counterable cards aside.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Honestly it seems goofy that they don't have Daze, or at least Force Spike in standard fairly often. The whole point of blue is slow the opponent down a bit by them wasting resources (mana put into a countered spell, mana not spent for fear of being countered, mana spent multiple times for bouncing.)
Daze is such an intricate part of the flavor of legacy play that I think they need to jam it in. Counter protection, should help with giant tron spells, and without brainstorm it's a risk to run.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tescrin
Honestly it seems goofy that they don't have Daze, or at least Force Spike in standard fairly often. The whole point of blue is slow the opponent down a bit by them wasting resources (mana put into a countered spell, mana not spent for fear of being countered, mana spent multiple times for bouncing.)
Daze is such an intricate part of the flavor of legacy play that I think they need to jam it in. Counter protection, should help with giant tron spells, and without brainstorm it's a risk to run.
Manal Leak is considered too strong in Standard and you want to give them Daze? :really:
It isn't really fun to play around Daze and considering they overcost so much stuff for Standard, getting your expensive spell countered by a free spell rubs even more salt into the wound. I agree Standard would be better off with cheap answers, but Eternal-tier free counter magic isn't the way to go.
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Re: The current state of Magic
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
wcm8
All they need to do is print decent ANSWERS to problems. The format can self-regulate as long as there is access to decent sideboard cards.
This sentiment has issues. Land heavier formats and now advocating for "answer" cards, that don't advance how a deck wins, more quickly accelerates a format towards hellbent state of topdeck and deploy 1 card wincons (i.e. the best creature at a given mana cost). This approach removes strategy from the game, which is why standard is especially unfun to watch or play.
Modern at least has multiple types of combo, and if we ignore the no real LD/countermagic interaction, you'll get games of "you do your thing, I'll do mine" where both players are focusing on being proactive. The ships in the night matches are more likely to have very strange interactions rather than "I'm going to mull to [insert hate card], and then you can't possibly win." Standard generally lacks multiple types of competitive combo decks, so 'swing with creature' decks are reduced to needing answer cards if a combo deck becomes viable. In modern the combo decks/overall strategies are generally too linear to have novel interactions.
In terms of the mardu vehicles debacle, I don't see how standard gets healthier if you were to say reprint a hoser like Null Rod (even though it's reserved list). Start printing dedicated artifact kill spells and it's just a pointless grindfest of who draws better. Start printing cards like Goblin Welder, LD +/- Kataki effects, Dack Fayden, Meekstone, etc and you allow players to create decks that can accidentally screw over a deck like vehicles while proactively trying to distort the rules of the game. Sadly R&D wants people to keep playing straight-up so you see answer cards or an answer on a creature with no requirement to put work into distorting the gamestate.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Megadeus
I admittedly don't play modern, but isn't ghost quarter far more prevalent than Tec Edge? Edge doesn't hit tron if they assemble it quickly so it's useless isn't it?
As someone who plays a lot of Modern, I can say Ghost Quarter is way more prevalent than Tectonic Edge. In fact, I've barely even see Tectonic Edge played for quite a while. Normally it's only played when you're already running 4x Ghost Quarter but want more copies.
Neither one (by themselves) works very well as mana denial, unlike Wasteland. Ghost Quarter just makes them get their basic land and Tectonic Edge you can't use until they have 4 lands, so you're not doing much in the way of mana denial if you're just knocking them down to 3, especially in a format where 4-drops are generally uncommon unless you're on a ramp strategy.
Since they're lousy at mana denial, people play them instead to try to get rid of utility lands, like manlands, the Tron lands, Cavern of Souls, and Eldrazi Temple. And Ghost Quarter is much more effective at that job than Tectonic Edge due to it not requiring mana investment and being usable right away.
Even if your goal is for outright mana denial, Ghost Quarter is still better because it can be used in conjunction with Crucible of Worlds or Life from the Loam to actually blow your opponent out over time (or Leonin Arbiter to turn it into a Strip Mine), whereas Tectonic Edge is not so good at that.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lord Seth
As someone who plays a lot of Modern, I can say Ghost Quarter is way more prevalent than Tectonic Edge. In fact, I've barely even see Tectonic Edge played for quite a while. Normally it's only played when you're already running 4x Ghost Quarter but want more copies.
Neither one (by themselves) works very well as mana denial, unlike Wasteland. Ghost Quarter just makes them get their basic land and Tectonic Edge you can't use until they have 4 lands, so you're not doing much in the way of mana denial if you're just knocking them down to 3, especially in a format where 4-drops are generally uncommon unless you're on a ramp strategy.
Since they're lousy at mana denial, people play them instead to try to get rid of utility lands, like manlands, the Tron lands, Cavern of Souls, and Eldrazi Temple. And Ghost Quarter is much more effective at that job than Tectonic Edge due to it not requiring mana investment and being usable right away.
Even if your goal is for outright mana denial, Ghost Quarter is still better because it can be used in conjunction with Crucible of Worlds or Life from the Loam to actually blow your opponent out over time (or Leonin Arbiter to turn it into a Strip Mine), whereas Tectonic Edge is not so good at that.
I also play a lot of Modern and can confirm this. The only time I see Tec Edge is usually in addition to Ghost Quarter (and often Spreading Seas) in a Ux hard-control kind of list. These lists are actually a problem for Tron and Valakut.dec, which otherwise are rough for Control in general. I will also second the earlier statements about Modern being better for brewing at this point. I see all kinds of different decks, whereas in Legacy usually I'm the one on the brew while most everyone else is on some blue deck, DnT, BR Reanimator, etc.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fox
In terms of the mardu vehicles debacle, I don't see how standard gets healthier if you were to say reprint a hoser like Null Rod (even though it's reserved list). Start printing dedicated artifact kill spells and it's just a pointless grindfest of who draws better. Start printing cards like Goblin Welder, LD +/- Kataki effects, Dack Fayden, Meekstone, etc and you allow players to create decks that can accidentally screw over a deck like vehicles while proactively trying to distort the rules of the game. Sadly R&D wants people to keep playing straight-up so you see answer cards or an answer on a creature with no requirement to put work into distorting the gamestate.
This is exactly what I see as the divergent philosophy that new card design has taken from the past. WOTC wants everything to fit into the rulesbox and snuff out anything that even touches the edges.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
phonics
... WOTC wants everything to fit into the rulesbox and snuff out anything that even touches the edges.
I don't think that's the case at all. They did a bunch of whacky stuff in commander. They do seem to want an obvious chase card is obvious meta game though.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barook
Shareholder earnings remarks
Go to Page 7.
Game category up my 9%, led by PIE-FACE (the fuck is this? :eyebrow: ) and then MtG as the fastest growing games.
I've also looked through the other shareholder papers. Nothing disproves the slowed down growth of Magic, especially how certain categories are lumped together.
Hrm... it's true categories are lumped together, but looking at previous years when growth was supposedly higher, that was true then also. There might not be anything disproving the slowed down growth, but that doesn't mean it's proving it either.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fox
This sentiment has issues. Land heavier formats and now advocating for "answer" cards, that don't advance how a deck wins, more quickly accelerates a format towards hellbent state of topdeck and deploy 1 card wincons (i.e. the best creature at a given mana cost). This approach removes strategy from the game, which is why standard is especially unfun to watch or play.
Modern at least has multiple types of combo, and if we ignore the no real LD/countermagic interaction, you'll get games of "you do your thing, I'll do mine" where both players are focusing on being proactive. The ships in the night matches are more likely to have very strange interactions rather than "I'm going to mull to [insert hate card], and then you can't possibly win." Standard generally lacks multiple types of competitive combo decks, so 'swing with creature' decks are reduced to needing answer cards if a combo deck becomes viable. In modern the combo decks/overall strategies are generally too linear to have novel interactions.
In terms of the mardu vehicles debacle, I don't see how standard gets healthier if you were to say reprint a hoser like Null Rod (even though it's reserved list). Start printing dedicated artifact kill spells and it's just a pointless grindfest of who draws better. Start printing cards like Goblin Welder, LD +/- Kataki effects, Dack Fayden, Meekstone, etc and you allow players to create decks that can accidentally screw over a deck like vehicles while proactively trying to distort the rules of the game. Sadly R&D wants people to keep playing straight-up so you see answer cards or an answer on a creature with no requirement to put work into distorting the gamestate.
Annul would have been a good start to hard-hose Vehicles; a reverse Winding Constrictor would be cool to see in Amonkhet, and for the love of GOD give us some decent graveyard hosers! I mean, this isn't really that hard. Cards like Fatal Push help, don't get me wrong; but as it stands, we have a dearth of powerful one-on-one removal in Standard, and all of the good mass-removal doesn't hit the problem cards.
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Re: The current state of Magic
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barook
Oh, yeah. That is a really good, and more importantly, valid criticism of the design of the testing that Wizards does. By all means, push cards like Reflector Mage. But don't just have glaring misses like Crazy Cat Lady and Iam'Rakul. There are three BIG misses, adding on to the BIG miss of Siege Rhino from Khans block. There have been more misses in the last eighteen months than there have been in the last Ten Years, just looking at Standard. Modern's also had a couple of Big Misses that should have been caught, but those are marginally more tolerable, given the suite of answer cards available.
The core rpoblem is that there are relatively few Hard Answer cards in Standard. In Shadows over Innistrad block, for example, there was a wonderful chance at reprinting Stony Silence, which could have been a huge flavor win as well as a powerful 'signal hoser'. Or we could have had a card like Rest in Peace in Kaladesh, which would also have been a flavor win. Yes, those cards are absolutely powerful, but they're also effective, and in particular, narrow Hard Answer cards for particular strategies. Would the Vehicles deck have been so dominant at the Pro Tour had RIP or Stony Silence been in Standard? I find that extremely unlikely. It also has a side-hate solution, dealing splash damage to other deck whose nut-draws were just as vicious as the Vehicles decks, like Delerium.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rufus
WotC doesn't make significant money off event attendance. (I expect that large WotC events are put on at a loss.) The money is in selling cards, and WotC doesn't deal in most of the cards that legacy players are interested in.
As for the simile, auto manufacturers do make money off the 'repair network' and from selling parts.
Ultimately none of that shit is my problem. I can throw my money at other things.
Looking at WoTC - their digital department, their FFL testing, their communication with the community .. its a pretty poorly lead company, can see them go belly up within a decade easily.
Find a business model that allows to support various formats or expect to lose players. Sure, there are standard players that bring in more revenue then me, there are also tons of players that do not (I used to be top customer at my LGS..).
Stopping support for older formats is in no way going to increase the income WoTC generates. It simply doesnt' work that way.
"oh you stopped supporting my favorite, complicated format, in which I've invested money and more importantly time .. let me just spend a few thousand on standard boxes while I throw all my outdated cards in the bin!"
Again, it doesn't work like that. Growth of standard has diminished, driving away players from older formats, I don't see which part of this scenario benefits WoTC, then again I didn't think Smugglers Copter would be healthy for standard either, so what do I know :)
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Darkenslight
he BIG miss of Siege Rhino from Khans block
who could have known that a legacy playable 4 drop would hurt standard
made me lol, thx
splinter twin was also a really nice one, they really stacking the blunders quite fast
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
s&s
who could have known that a legacy playable 4 drop would hurt standard
made me lol, thx
splinter twin was also a really nice one, they really stacking the blunders quite fast
Lol "legacy playable" gets thrown around so easily these days. Sure you can put it in your deck, but you will never win anything because you're playing Siege Rhino in legacy for crying out loud. :p
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Re: The current state of Magic
I think showing Wolpert the door was a huge upgrade, and the new CEO seems to better "get it". We'll have to wait and see obviously, but they do seem aware they've got some real problems to be solved. And they already took the two biggest steps to solving them in getting rid of the dead weight that was causing them and acknowledging that they need to be fixed.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LarsLeif
Lol "legacy playable" gets thrown around so easily these days. Sure you can put it in your deck, but you will never win anything because you're playing Siege Rhino in legacy for crying out loud. :p
I play nic-fit on mtgo, along with manaless dredge and some other budget decks.
4 colour nic fit has gotten me the most 4-1's.
Its not T1 but its a playable deck for sure, maybe T2-T3. A deck like rug-delver has 0 single cards that can remove a rhino, the life-gain helps a lot against their main strategy, its an A+ card in such a matchup. At worst I gain 3 and they bolt / chump, or double bolt. Either way its a 3v1 pretty much.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
morgan_coke
I think showing Wolpert the door was a huge upgrade, and the new CEO seems to better "get it". We'll have to wait and see obviously, but they do seem aware they've got some real problems to be solved. And they already took the two biggest steps to solving them in getting rid of the dead weight that was causing them and acknowledging that they need to be fixed.
Worth was definitely a problem, but as long as ALL of the incompetent management (which is the root of all evil) isn't purged, it's merely like a drop in the bucket.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
s&s
Ultimately none of that shit is my problem. I can throw my money at other things.
Looking at WoTC - their digital department, their FFL testing, their communication with the community .. its a pretty poorly lead company, can see them go belly up within a decade easily.
Find a business model that allows to support various formats or expect to lose players. Sure, there are standard players that bring in more revenue then me, there are also tons of players that do not (I used to be top customer at my LGS..).
Stopping support for older formats is in no way going to increase the income WoTC generates. It simply doesnt' work that way.
"oh you stopped supporting my favorite, complicated format, in which I've invested money and more importantly time .. let me just spend a few thousand on standard boxes while I throw all my outdated cards in the bin!"
Again, it doesn't work like that. Growth of standard has diminished, driving away players from older formats, I don't see which part of this scenario benefits WoTC, then again I didn't think Smugglers Copter would be healthy for standard either, so what do I know :)
I fully agree. I fail to see how the current shitting on enfranchised players that is going on is going to benefit them. I'll never ever play Standard as long as it's boring "Creatures: The Tappening feat. Planeswalkers". I've quit playing Legacy (and thus spending money on MTGO) because of their neglect of format management. Their new, excessive focus on Standard seems to be a mistake on par with the quickened Standard schedule that will bite them in the ass sooner or later:
"I shot your beloved dog. Now hurry up and buy my cat!"
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
s&s
Ultimately none of that shit is my problem. I can throw my money at other things.
Similarly, your unhappiness with legacy isn't WotC's problem. They can throw their money at other things.
Quote:
...Find a business model that allows to support various formats or expect to lose players. ...
How do you change the business model so that WotC can significantly profit off the eternal formats without burning the intermediary businesses (which WotC is reliant on) that have bought into expensive singles?
Quote:
Stopping support for older formats is in no way going to increase the income WoTC generates. It simply doesnt' work that way.
That's probably not the calculus that's going on at WotC (or Hasbro). Rather, I think they see support for eternal formats as an expense with little or no return.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barook
...
I fully agree. I fail to see how the current shitting on enfranchised players that is going on is going to benefit them...
It depends on the end results (which is obvious, I know).
But really, it can be a no brainer. If they piss off 100000 guys and gals, and get 1000000 in return, it was well worthwhile.
It's a bit like the MTGO conundrum. If it was only pissing off existing players to trade that player base for Hearthstone's player base, they would do it instantly , I'm pretty certain. But in there they have a much bigger issue, since a huge bet on digital, might mean a huge decrease on paper. So they are a bit stuck which you can see in their constant indecisiveness to break the link between both.
Ultimately, they want direct continuous revenue. Quite honestly, Modern and Legacy, through supplemental products might provide a minor bsoot to the bottom line, but bread and butter comes from Standard and draft and they, quite rightfully, focus all their marketing and promotion effort son that avenue. A lot of guys mention enfranchised players. But how many standard players become enfranchised? What is the percentage? 10%? Less? A bit more? Anyway, point is, the majority of new Standard players will play for a while and then move on to other things, not being like us sad old farts debating a card game where you get to play wizards and spells.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rufus
How do you change the business model so that WotC can significantly profit off the eternal formats without burning the intermediary businesses (which WotC is reliant on) that have bought into expensive singles?
That's probably not the calculus that's going on at WotC (or Hasbro). Rather, I think they see support for eternal formats as an expense with little or no return.
All they need to do is print actual duals in some way or the other (doesn't need to abolish the RL, we've had already another thread where this has been discussed to death).
As for money making, Legacy League on MTGO alone should pull at least 1+ million $/year by rough estimations from entries.
And it's been said over and over again that singles that aren't outrageously expensive are better for business. It would mainly hit the hoarders/speculators, but fuck those assholes in particular.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Yeah, I enjoy playing Eternal formats, presumably everyone here does. But if you've somehow come to the conclusion that 'Legacy could be good business for WotC', you're just not capable of looking at this stuff objectively. The company needs to sell new cards. Constantly. That is how they make money. Anything that gets in the way of 'Wizards is selling new cards, constantly' is bad business. Pretty sure Hasbro shareholders aren't gonna accept 'Well sales were down but Legacy had a really sweet year, lots of cool new decks and the format is really fun right now.'
If I were a Wizards exec I would try to make eternal formats worse. It is probably a bad thing that people enjoy playing Modern more than Standard. The Reserved List is in some ways a blessing in disguise - 'Sorry - you guys can't play a competitive format that's more fun and lets you play with your favorite old cards, you're gonna have to buy new cards instead.'
There are aspects of older formats that could possibly be better leveraged - e.g. maybe people would enjoy Standard more if it looked more like Legacy or Modern, was more spell-based, played with tight mana, free spells, resource constraints, etc. etc. It is possible that the drive towards Siege Rhino Standards isn't as well thought out as they believe, since most people ultimately want to pretend they're wizards, not zookeepers.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Yeah, I enjoy playing Eternal formats, presumably everyone here does. But if you've somehow come to the conclusion that 'Legacy could be good business for WotC', you're just not capable of looking at this stuff objectively. The company needs to sell new cards. Constantly. That is how they make money. Anything that gets in the way of 'Wizards is selling new cards, constantly' is bad business. Pretty sure Hasbro shareholders aren't gonna accept 'Well sales were down but Legacy had a really sweet year, lots of cool new decks and the format is really fun right now.'
If I were a Wizards exec I would try to make eternal formats worse. It is probably a bad thing that people enjoy playing Modern more than Standard. The Reserved List is in some ways a blessing in disguise - 'Sorry - you guys can't play a competitive format that's more fun and lets you play with your favorite old cards, you're gonna have to buy new cards instead.'
There are aspects of older formats that could possibly be better leveraged - e.g. maybe people would enjoy Standard more if it looked more like Legacy or Modern, was more spell-based, played with tight mana, free spells, resource constraints, etc. etc. It is possible that the drive towards Siege Rhino Standards isn't as well thought out as they believe, since most people ultimately want to pretend they're wizards, not zookeepers.
Ah, but that's, "cutting off your nose to spite your face," economically-speaking. It harms the long-term health of the game, as larger companies are far less willing to support he formats that keep older players in the game. Remember that there are Legacy-playable cards that can be reprinted, and wouldn't do that much damage to the current Standard. And no, I'm not talking about the Masterpiece series.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Legacy players aren't your nose, they're some small wart on your back.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
s&s
I play nic-fit on mtgo, along with manaless dredge and some other budget decks.
4 colour nic fit has gotten me the most 4-1's.
Its not T1 but its a playable deck for sure, maybe T2-T3. A deck like rug-delver has 0 single cards that can remove a rhino, the life-gain helps a lot against their main strategy, its an A+ card in such a matchup. At worst I gain 3 and they bolt / chump, or double bolt. Either way its a 3v1 pretty much.
Pretty sure if your 3 color 4 mana spell resolves vs. RUG they already lost. The idea is to mana screw you, rewind the turn and pressure you into soft counters, all while chimping out with a flying Wild Nacatyl for U.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Yeah, I enjoy playing Eternal formats, presumably everyone here does. But if you've somehow come to the conclusion that 'Legacy could be good business for WotC', you're just not capable of looking at this stuff objectively. The company needs to sell new cards. Constantly. That is how they make money. Anything that gets in the way of 'Wizards is selling new cards, constantly' is bad business. Pretty sure Hasbro shareholders aren't gonna accept 'Well sales were down but Legacy had a really sweet year, lots of cool new decks and the format is really fun right now.'
If I were a Wizards exec I would try to make eternal formats worse. It is probably a bad thing that people enjoy playing Modern more than Standard. The Reserved List is in some ways a blessing in disguise - 'Sorry - you guys can't play a competitive format that's more fun and lets you play with your favorite old cards, you're gonna have to buy new cards instead.'
There are aspects of older formats that could possibly be better leveraged - e.g. maybe people would enjoy Standard more if it looked more like Legacy or Modern, was more spell-based, played with tight mana, free spells, resource constraints, etc. etc. It is possible that the drive towards Siege Rhino Standards isn't as well thought out as they believe, since most people ultimately want to pretend they're wizards, not zookeepers.
Player retention is already terrible and enough cards already lose value after leaving Standard. No desirable Modern/Eternal format means that you're going to lose alot of money each Standard season with no chance of recovery - even worse than now.
If more people enjoy older formats, then Wizards should look at why people enjoy said formats instead of continously delivering boring, dumbed-down, ill-received Standard formats.
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Re: The current state of Magic
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Originally Posted by
Barook
Player retention is already terrible and enough cards already lose value after leaving Standard. No desirable Modern/Eternal format means that you're going to lose alot of money each Standard season with no chance of recovery - even worse than now.
This is right, and the potential impact of this on the long-term health and viability of the game is the key disagreement between people.
What seems to have happened is that their player growth ballooned and plateaued very quickly. I'm not sure what drove that -- though if I had to guess -- it seems to have coincided with the rise of Modern. RTR was the boom time -- and that's when the shocks were reprinted.
It seems that Wizards' market reacted positively more to the accessibility of a long-term format than their short-term options. But they took the major growth as a validation of their Standard strategy. Smash cut to 3 years later... And you're banning stuff because attendance is suddenly falling.
People like the depth of the card pool. I mean, how long are people going to pay $15 for the thrill of playing three rounds of draft? Sure, maybe for a few months -- but constructed is retention, and deeper formats even more so. They are the reward for starting out.
Wizards is trying to acquire more customers, but even then there's an upper limit on who this game will appeal to. I think it's a big mistake.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barook
Player retention is already terrible and enough cards already lose value after leaving Standard. No desirable Modern/Eternal format means that you're going to lose alot of money each Standard season with no chance of recovery - even worse than now.
Wizards is a business. Their business goals are not 'make sure people have a good way to recover the money they spent on Magic'. Their business goals are to take as much of your money as possible. When you're having fun, it's easier to forget how much money you're spending. When you're not having fun, you begin to question why you just bought into another Standard deck.
When you're an eternal player, obviously the issue with Standard is that you don't get to play with cool cards like Brainstorm and Daze. But honestly most Standard players aren't actually complaining about 'too many creatures' or saying 'why can't I cast Brainstorm, I love Brainstorm'. They are complaining about losing to a Mindslaver effect 5 times in a tournament, mono-black devotion mirrors, etc. So their core problem is that they still haven't figured out how to reliably construct good Standards. This is actually not an easy problem to solve. They're better at it than they used to be - they don't print Memory Jars very often. But if 20 people at Wizards can successfully solve a Standard they just designed and 'hey, it's fun' - well then 20 pros can obviously do it in one weekend too. It's possible that this is why this problem will never disappear.
On the other hand, Wotc have more or less figured out how to make new limited formats. New limited formats aren't always amazing, but they're almost always playable, pretty fun for a while, skill-testing and not immediately solvable. Pros will disagree pretty strongly on pick order and color preferences, sometimes even late into a format. Old school players know that today's limited formats are incomparably superior to limited back in the day. Limited is great.
The % of people who play legacy is a tiny drop in the bucket for this business. When you play legacy on MTGO, you play against the same people again and again. It is an adorable little bunch of wizards, most of whom are also on this site. I play paper legacy in the East Coast - which probably has the highest density of eternal players overall - and I expect to bump into and play the same people again and again. The idea that this raggedy crew is or could ever be responsible for real money for Wizards is totally delusional.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
maharis
What seems to have happened is that their player growth ballooned and plateaued very quickly. I'm not sure what drove that -- though if I had to guess -- it seems to have coincided with the rise of Modern. RTR was the boom time -- and that's when the shocks were reprinted.
Seriously doubt Modern had anything to do with it. The two driving factors were demographics (huge number of people who played as kids in the original boom came back to the game at the same time) and the development of Duels as a digital entry point for new players.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Wizards is a business. Their business goals are not 'make sure people have a good way to recover the money they spent on Magic'. Their business goals are to take as much of your money as possible. When you're having fun, it's easier to forget how much money you're spending. When you're not having fun, you begin to question why you just bought into another Standard deck.
Cost of Standard is definitely an issue and recuperating money helps with that. WotC dropped the greedy 1.5 year rotation rather quickly due to the amount of people that complained and quit due not being able to keep up with Standard anymore.
As for the business standpoint, Wizards makes money, yes, but they're utterly terrible at maximizing their profits. Eternal formats could be monetized alot better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Seriously doubt Modern had anything to do with it. The two driving factors were demographics (huge number of people who played as kids in the original boom came back to the game at the same time) and the development of Duels as a digital entry point for new players.
Duels was/is their main way to get new people into the game. That's probably one of the reason why things started to stagnate, as Hearthstone wipes the floor with its digital competitors. And it isn't just HS, several other games have popped up that try to take market share from MtG, hence Hasbro's push to get the dinosaurs at WotC into the digital age for real this time instead of their amateurish, half-assed attempts in the past.
Latest example: MTGO bring back old Standard formats to relive their past glory, starting with various decks from Mirage/Tempest Standard. That's fucking awesome, I nostalgia'd hard since that was the time when I started playing Magic. But I'll be damned if I pay 10 bucks for 3 matches with a random deck to win more Itchy & Scratchy money. Their price gouging is absurd compared to their way cheaper competitiors.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
...
On the other hand, Wotc have more or less figured out how to make new limited formats. New limited formats aren't always amazing, but they're almost always playable, pretty fun for a while, skill-testing and not immediately solvable. Pros will disagree pretty strongly on pick order and color preferences, sometimes even late into a format. Old school players know that today's limited formats are incomparably superior to limited back in the day. Limited is great.
...
That's a question: Is standard languishing because WotC is focusing on limited instead (and is that a good business move for them)?
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Re: The current state of Magic
I'm not just being shitty here, what was the actual problem with Siege Rhino? Was it just a super midrange-to-end-all-midrange beatstick and that was too much for Standard?
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Re: The current state of Magic
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Originally Posted by
TsumiBand
I'm not just being shitty here, what was the actual problem with Siege Rhino? Was it just a super midrange-to-end-all-midrange beatstick and that was too much for Standard?
I thought that overall people enjoyed the Siege Rhino format? From my understanding the Junk deck that played Rhino was basically the equivalent of The Rock, you were basically playing the best cards in the format period and you had basically answers to everything your opponent was trying to do. The lists were very similar to what are being played in frontier right now.
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Re: The current state of Magic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rufus
That's a question: Is standard languishing because WotC is focusing on limited instead (and is that a good business move for them)?
If it was a good business move to screw over Standard in favor of Limited, they wouldn't nuke Standard with bans while getting ready to hand out more bans.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TsumiBand
I'm not just being shitty here, what was the actual problem with Siege Rhino? Was it just a super midrange-to-end-all-midrange beatstick and that was too much for Standard?
Siege Rhino Standard in a nutshell:
http://i.imgur.com/a3CG49b.jpg
