The current state of Magic

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Originally Posted by s&s

I don't understand people playing standard. That is all. :)

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Easiest format to enter, is dynamic rather than static like Legacy (which can be either good or bad depending on your perspective), gets the most support, and, until recently, you could feel pretty safe that your deck choice wouldn't suddenly get a ban.

Though all Legacy players should be extremely happy that Standard is the major cash cow, because the rotation allows them to avoid too great a level of power creep which allows Legacy to be Legacy. If Legacy was the dominant format they were pushing, they'd have to come up with reasons to keep you getting the new packs so they'd be constantly banning and having major cases of power creep to the point it'd basically end up switching around constantly like Standard anyway.

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Originally Posted by Barook

On a different note:
People love to bitch about Modern being "unhealty right now", but was there ever a state when it actually was "healty"?

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I think the time period between Deathrite Shaman's banning and Treasure Cruise's printing was pretty decent.

There are plenty of reasons for Standard to appeal to a player. They don't appeal to me, but neither does draft. I'm a huge fan of EDH, but a good portion of Sourcers scoff at the format.

Because of rotation, Standard is the format where you are most able to create the deck that dominates the new cycle, or find the sleeper cards that prey on the top decks. The reality is that those decks are created by teams of professionals, but that doesn't weaken the appeal of dreamers who think they can do it themselves.

The true strength of this game is its ability to appeal to a wider audience than most games allow. I often compare Magic cards to playing cards. You can enjoy playing cards in dozens of ways from War to Go Fish to Poker to Gin Rummy. Magic adds in trading, collecting, and deck-building in addition to all of its formats.

I'll admit it sucks to see your favorite aspect of the game get pushed aside for other aspects you don't like. But the game will persist long after the doom-sayers lose interest.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I have a question and this may not be the best place to ask, but it's food for thought perhaps.

Why is it we hate Standard and yet (some) seem to love 93/94? It's basically the same bloody thing. A limited and solvable format. Sure, one is more complex than there other, even if the creatures are weaker, but all the same issues that we argue are present in Standard exist on Old School.

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Standard is actually more complex than Old school from everything I've seen. I built an old school deck and thought it might be sweet, then I played a few games and realized why people only play it a couple times a year. Then again, neither of us were playing blue cards so maybe that had something to do with it, but if I wanted to play blue to win, I'd just continue playing legacy

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I have a question and this may not be the best place to ask, but it's food for thought perhaps.

Why is it we hate Standard and yet (some) seem to love 93/94? It's basically the same bloody thing. A limited and solvable format. Sure, one is more complex than there other, even if the creatures are weaker, but all the same issues that we argue are present in Standard exist on Old School.

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As others have mentioned, nostalgia is certainly a factor. The elitism part is a bit misunderstood, and certainly not as prevalent in the NA scene. Of course, the old frames and art being superior helps and the statement of incremental advantage(s) to win certainly rings true.

To answer your question - I adore the format as each colour/strategy has 'broken' cards, and the aggro/combo/control/midrange balance was real during that period of the game. I do not consider The Deck as the example of solving the format because aggro decks can and do destroy it. While it doesn't rotate cards, the difference in power level amongst the 'decent' cards (aka non-broken, non-crap) isn't as wide as they seem to be now. There is a higher number of playable cards tailored to certain styles and there are a number of different colour and playstyle combinations that are legitimately viable. I've read people claiming the # of legitimate Legacy decks to be 40+ (which is debatable) - Old School truly does and players continue to innovate. See: http://www.wak-wak.se/9394/archetypes.

The format I'd really like to "old school"-ify is TS-Lor Standard. That was one damn good format.

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Originally Posted by Zombie

The format I'd really like to "old school"-ify is TS-Lor Standard. That was one damn good format.

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I prefer RAV-TSP over Lorwyn, but that's because of the Faeries.

The format had a wide range of weird and good decks, varying from White Weenie and Burn, to hard UB Control, through the vagaries of combo (Warp World springs to mind) and out to GW and UW Flash (as in, instant-speed, not Flash.)

That was a great Standard format.

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Originally Posted by Darkenslight

I prefer RAV-TSP over Lorwyn, but that's because of the Faeries.

The format had a wide range of weird and good decks, varying from White Weenie and Burn, to hard UB Control, through the vagaries of combo (Warp World springs to mind) and out to GW and UW Flash (as in, instant-speed, not Flash.)

That was a great Standard format.

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I just like playing Lark-Blink too much, at least if we have damage on the stack. Blink <3

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Originally Posted by Zombie

The format I'd really like to "old school"-ify is TS-Lor Standard. That was one damn good format.

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Something like 'make your own standard' would be fun to play.

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Originally Posted by Stan

Something like 'make your own standard' would be fun to play.

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Wouldn't that be the most hellish of all nightmares to try to figure out what is legal? Even if you make your own CYO (choose your own) Standard deck, it'd be such a bitch to catch an opponent playing a card that isn't in their CYO Standard deck. Deck checks and the like would be so hard to do.

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Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition

Wouldn't that be the most hellish of all nightmares to try to figure out what is legal? Even if you make your own CYO (choose your own) Standard deck, it'd be such a bitch to catch an opponent playing a card that isn't in their CYO Standard deck. Deck checks and the like would be so hard to do.

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It would probably work better on MTGO were you could enforce the entire thing. But then again, it's that much of a terrible program that Gleemox was legal for several weeks recently.

"Choose your Own Standard" was an MTGO format. For like, two years. It was cool in concept but complete garbage in practice because everyone would find random combos from different blocks and then just go to town with them and there were almost never decent answers.

Really a lot of the same problems Tribal has had where it's supposed to be this fun/friendly good times format but if you make it competitive combo decks that break the very idea of the game you're supposed to be playing in half are clearly the best things around because the deckbuilding restrictions preclude being able to beat the combo decks.

tl;dr, it's been done, it didn't work

I just want to make a bitching Seance deck in Build Your Own Standard.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds

the period from the pod banning up until the twin ban is considered a high point and well liked.

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It was pretty oppressed by Bloom Titan.

I believe that the ban after DrS was a good period, until they messed up with Rhino/TC/Dig.

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Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition

Wouldn't that be the most hellish of all nightmares to try to figure out what is legal? Even if you make your own CYO (choose your own) Standard deck, it'd be such a bitch to catch an opponent playing a card that isn't in their CYO Standard deck. Deck checks and the like would be so hard to do.

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When I first heard of it, I thought CYOS was something where everyone agrees to which sets would be in, then builds a deck from that pool. So you could pick Revised-Mirage-Tempest and then everyone is restricted to those sets (blocks). It seemed like a neat spin on Old School Magic.

Then I found out what it really is and immediately was disinterested.

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Originally Posted by Nestalim

It was pretty oppressed by Bloom Titan.

I believe that the ban after DrS was a good period, until they messed up with Rhino/TC/Dig.

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Put up less results than you think and that doesn't really matter when the community seems to remember it fondly

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Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds

Put up less results than you think and that doesn't really matter when the community seems to remember it fondly

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This thing won one WMCQ and one RPTQ in my country, and was doing pretty decent in any local tournament.

It was not a GP killer for sure, but still was oppressive. I lost of good number of games agains't it on GP trials, Super series, etc.

But sure it was more a boogeyman than anything else.

The format is more deep than people take it for, because it takes time to learn the format and cardpool. if you're deep into it there's some cool stuff to innovate still, I have lists. But there are only so many of us and so much time available. Picking up a deck or two and jamming some rando games or reading a article or two on the format isn't going to give you much to run on for analysis. But still can be fun and totally worth the time.

I can only speak for myself, but here's my take. The power of the cards isn't even remotely close to standard and I enjoy the level of power it has, yet being not as crazy as vintage. Stack damage, mana burn, chaos orb....It offers something else. Strip mine, Loa, p9, ring, these and many many other cards are nothing you will see in standard. Cards that they wouldn't consider designing now or reprint into standard, fun. 93/94 is magic in a contained design, the Creators baby.... it plays like a very advanced board game. This is where they can be considered most alike because they are designed in a contained space vs the kitchen sink approach other formats have.93/94 contains all the fundamentals of the game, in turn the building blocks of magic. Standard is much more limited and designed to work a certain way, with a spoonfed shit storyline. 93/94 offers more imagination and lines due to card uniqueness 93/94 offers. The art is very rare in general, even hard to find similar art references in old d&d books. I like art and I'm not into Cg photoshopped 3-d models from overseas that belong in video games, standard art is dime a dozen if you know the field. To add to all of this you get to play with people of a certain age and lifestyle, which I suppose you get with standard too but it's not for me at all. Lastly, value- and I'll just leave it at that.

Comparing a casual format mainly played in bars to a competitive grinder format for teens should be your starting point.

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

If Legacy was the dominant format they were pushing, they'd have to come up with reasons to keep you getting the new packs so they'd be constantly banning and having major cases of power creep to the point it'd basically end up switching around constantly like Standard anyway.

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Which is why I'm okay with not having WotC heavily increasing Legacy support e.g. making the format cheaper to get into.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Which is why I'm okay with not having WotC heavily increasing Legacy support e.g. making the format cheaper to get into.

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But if WotC keeps on reprinting certain staples, people will try to make the switch to Legacy. Demand on other staples (Duals etc etc) will increase, and those staples (especially cards on the RL) will double or triple or whatever in price... In the end Legacy will be not be so easily accesible

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Originally Posted by Nestalim

This thing won one WMCQ and one RPTQ in my country, and was doing pretty decent in any local tournament.

It was not a GP killer for sure, but still was oppressive. I lost of good number of games agains't it on GP trials, Super series, etc.

But sure it was more a boogeyman than anything else.

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Every format has a boogeyman, the format did seem fairly diverse and healthy regardless. Yeah you had the feel bads of turn 2/3 Prime Time, but you also had Twin forcing Bloom-Titan and other decks to play a bit more honestly, and you could actually play fair magic without feeling like a chump.

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Originally Posted by Chatto

But if WotC keeps on reprinting certain staples, people will try to make the switch to Legacy. Demand on other staples (Duals etc etc) will increase, and those staples (especially cards on the RL) will double or triple or whatever in price... In the end Legacy will be not be so easily accesible

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But the non reserved cards will presumably reduce in price, cancelling out the rise in reserved list cards...at the end of the day the barrier of entry will generally remain the same.

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Originally Posted by rlesko

But the non reserved cards will presumably reduce in price, cancelling out the rise in reserved list cards...at the end of the day the barrier of entry will generally remain the same.

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Deck prices rise. Its a fact

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Originally Posted by Chatto

But if WotC keeps on reprinting certain staples, people will try to make the switch to Legacy. Demand on other staples (Duals etc etc) will increase, and those staples (especially cards on the RL) will double or triple or whatever in price... In the end Legacy will be not be so easily accesible

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Except they don't rise in a 1:1 ratio, and the rise isn't sustained. For example, Alliances FoW was about $80 pre-announcement. Volcanic spiked from ≤$250 to around $280-290 pre-EMA-post-announcement. Volc is now back down to its pre-announcement price, and Alliances FoW is around $60.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Deck prices rise. Its a fact

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Yes but only temporarily. As mentioned above, dual prices have already fallen back down to what they were pre-EMA spike and the reprinted EMA cards are cheaper than they were pre-reprint.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Except they don't rise in a 1:1 ratio, and the rise isn't sustained. For example, Alliances FoW was about $80 pre-announcement. Volcanic spiked from ≤$250 to around $280-290 pre-EMA-post-announcement. Volc is now back down to its pre-announcement price, and Alliances FoW is around $60.

Yes but only temporarily. As mentioned above, dual prices have already fallen back down to what they were pre-EMA spike and the reprinted EMA cards are cheaper than they were pre-reprint.

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https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Re...c+Island#paper

Not really. It still seems ~40$ expensive than before the annoucement, despite slowly dropping off.

If prices rise, it's mainly due to random buyouts from hoarders in combination with price memory. With the total number of players stagnating, it seems unlikely that there's that much increasing demand to justify price increases.

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Originally Posted by Chatto

But if WotC keeps on reprinting certain staples, people will try to make the switch to Legacy. Demand on other staples (Duals etc etc) will increase, and those staples (especially cards on the RL) will double or triple or whatever in price... In the end Legacy will be not be so easily accesible

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This is a fair point, but no one knows when "the end" will happen. People have been wringing their hands about Legacy for at least seven years now. I've been reading "Legacy is dying" claims for that long. It's surreal. Prices have increased, but the player base hasn't dropped off. I want to remind everyone that this fear of Legacy being accessible has been replayed for years. How about this post, the first from the Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread, from January 2010:

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Originally Posted by Dazed

Wasteland has just doubled its price in the last month. Star City is selling it for $25. Even Troll and Toad is offering this tempest rare land for $20. This cards, if I am not committing a mistake, closed the year 2009 in a healthy 10 dollars per each. Mox Diamond was about $28 on October or so. I selled four of them for a hundred bucks just to find out that today, stores are willing to sell them for no less than $40.

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My advice is always to play Legacy. For most people who want to play, there are ways to get into the format, even today when prices are higher than they were seven years ago. To me, complaining about accessibility is not useful at all.

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Originally Posted by rlesko

But the non reserved cards will presumably reduce in price, cancelling out the rise in reserved list cards...at the end of the day the barrier of entry will generally remain the same.

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True, to a certain extent, except what do you do with those cards if the price of one RL-card is the same as two times all the staples you bought in recent years?

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Originally Posted by ESG

This is a fair point, but no one knows when "the end" will happen. People have been wringing their hands about Legacy for at least seven years now. I've been reading "Legacy is dying" claims for that long. It's surreal. Prices have increased, but the player base hasn't dropped off. I want to remind everyone that this fear of Legacy being accessible has been replayed for years. How about this post, the first from the Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread, from January 2010:



My advice is always to play Legacy. For most people who want to play, there are ways to get into the format, even today when prices are higher than they were seven years ago. To me, complaining about accessibility is not useful at all.

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Also true, but in recent years all non-RL cards have been reprinted. It's a bit different than say seven-ten years ago. I personally am not complaining at all, simply because I already own enough cards to make different decks.

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Originally Posted by Barook

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Re...c+Island#paper

Not really. It still seems ~40$ expensive than before the annoucement, despite slowly dropping off.

If prices rise, it's mainly due to random buyouts from hoarders in combination with price memory. With the total number of players stagnating, it seems unlikely that there's that much increasing demand to justify price increases.

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Yes really. I prefer to use a graph that doesn't only report the average price of cards for sale (click on "low"), when in reality cards are exchanging hands off these main sites (i.e. Facebook HEG) for far less. In addition, look at TCGP's market price, which is the average price at which cards are actually being sold for on that site (their graph used to be better, but trust me when I say that pre-EMA Volcs were exchanging hands for around $250 tops, more like $230ish).

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

their graph used to be better

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No kidding, whatever happened to the sweet, easy-to-use TCGPlayer graphs?

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Originally Posted by Begle1

No kidding, whatever happened to the sweet, easy-to-use TCGPlayer graphs?

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Much like their previous and much better deck search engine, I think it got removed when they redesigned the site.

Wizards of the Coast doesn't release sales data, but ICv2's new Internal Correspondence came out and may be of interest. The version on the website lacks some of the more detailed information (which is available by purchase), namely that both suppliers and retailers report that Magic sales for them are a little down compared to the previous year, though it also does note that this might not equal a drop on WOTC's end due to there being more places to buy the game.

Interestingly, the Pokemon TCG is absolutely exploding right now, outselling Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh combined in mass market retailers and finally taking the #2 spot in game stores from Yu-Gi-Oh.

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

Wizards of the Coast doesn't release sales data, but ICv2's new Internal Correspondence came out and may be of interest. The version on the website lacks some of the more detailed information (which is available by purchase), namely that both suppliers and retailers report that Magic sales for them are a little down compared to the previous year, though it also does note that this might not equal a drop on WOTC's end due to there being more places to buy the game.

Interestingly, the Pokemon TCG is absolutely exploding right now, outselling Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh combined in mass market retailers and finally taking the #2 spot in game stores from Yu-Gi-Oh.

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That's pretty interesting. No wonder that they're panicking. Are sales per set down or total sales down, considering they had an additional product (Conspiracy 2) squeezed in last year?

But then again, they reap what they sowed.

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Originally Posted by Lord Seth

Interestingly, the Pokemon TCG is absolutely exploding right now, outselling Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh combined in mass market retailers and finally taking the #2 spot in game stores from Yu-Gi-Oh.

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Huh, I wonder if there's a lesson WotC can learn from Pokemon's huge success. It's no doubt that Pokemon Go increased the franchise popularity greatly, it's almost as if having a good digital environment would draw in consumers to your paper game as well...

Oh wait, I think I've got it! Magic Augmented Reality, a phone game where you can walk around in the wild and meet Jace and the Jacetice League IRL.

Pokemon still having games come out on handheld along with a strong brand definitely benefits them.

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Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition

Oh wait, I think I've got it! Magic Augmented Reality, a phone game where you can walk around in the wild and meet Jace and the Jacetice League IRL.

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We already know what that looks like.

It is not pretty.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...49397726,d.cGw

Pokémon throws shit at you (their fatpacks comes with sleeves, flip coins, I think dice) and makes it super easy to get into the digital game, also their foils are cool.

It's like they actually want you to spend money on their game

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Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition

Huh, I wonder if there's a lesson WotC can learn from Pokemon's huge success. It's no doubt that Pokemon Go increased the franchise popularity greatly, it's almost as if having a good digital environment would draw in consumers to your paper game as well...

Oh wait, I think I've got it! Magic Augmented Reality, a phone game where you can walk around in the wild and meet Jace and the Jacetice League IRL.

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They could call it Magic: The Gothering

Magic Go! Head outside and find booster packs. Throw mana at the booster pack to capture it! Unlock rare and powerful Planewalkers, then battle Planeswalkers in local Planesgyms to be the best!

Use the power of friendship to keep your own Jacetice League on top!

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Originally Posted by Claymore

Magic Go! Head outside and find booster packs. Throw mana at the booster pack to capture it! Unlock rare and powerful Planewalkers, then battle Planeswalkers in local Planesgyms to be the best!

Use the power of friendship to keep your own Jacetice League on top!

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You obviously explore beautiful landscapes to tap them for mana.

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Originally Posted by Barook

That's pretty interesting. No wonder that they're panicking. Are sales per set down or total sales down, considering they had an additional product (Conspiracy 2) squeezed in last year?

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Hrm, it didn't really say. Just that a lot of guys say they were disappointed by Magic sales this year compared to the last.

I should note that this is very different from sales being outright bad; one distributor commented "I would not be complaining about the sales if it were anything other than Magic." And as previously stated, it's not clear if this is actually a decrease in sales for Wizards of the Coast in total. Individual stores and individual distributors may be down a little, but there are more places to buy it so it could still be a year of growth for Magic when everything is added together.

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Originally Posted by TsumiBand

They could call it Magic: The Gothering

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I'd prefer ShandalAR.