I only see my students playing Yu-Gi-Oh during breaks, but never MtG.
As for trying to reach new people, they're trying - except this whole "diversity" thing is completely misguided and ineffective.
My expectation is that Papa Hasbro brings down the hammer once MtG Arena flops. Although they're probably just going to replace Chris Cocks instead of doing the necessary purge at all levels.
I guess it's out if question that Arena bombs given they copypasta Hearthstone without a grip about online economy and the market they set foot into.
If we are honest, the only reason why no one touched MaRo and his lackeys is that Hasbro has, and that's somewhat relatable, no idea of how to replace him, without putting the franchise as a whole on thin ice. I can't imagine there is any VC on Hasbros table which provides an alternative to MaRo, matching his own expertise with a TCG brand. Who can you pick? One of his lackeys?
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Maro has too many fanboys to fire him. It would be really bad PR if the franchise was already failing. And since they're looking for "more of the same" when they search new designers, Maro's asskissers wouldn't be any better as replacement.
Which is a shame, really. Dominiaria feels like a breath of fresh air thanks to Richard Garfield's involvement.
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MaRo has become a problem for the whole fanchise in general with his boring and yet problematic set designs, not for Arena in particular and its failed economy.
If Hasbro really wanted to finally react to MTGs development, they will do it if the last straw for online MTG bombs. I hope it's the shakeup the brand needs so desperately.
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Y'know, between MTG, DC (movies), Star Wars, and BioWare, I'm really getting tired of rooting for my favorite brands to fail so that they get the long needed blatantly obvious creative shakeups they so desperately need.
They all do a great job at that as they sacrifice their brand name for quick cash.
DC released Justice League on schedule, despite half of the movie had to be reshot shortly before and the CGI Department would have needed additional time. A manager decided that it needs to be released rather than being good, so we ended up with ridiculous bad CGI effects.
Bioware fucked up with Dragon Age sequels as well as andromeda, because they felt like milking the franchises without any idea behind sequels.
And Disney is just creating a copypasta of the original Star Wars Trilogy without a clear vision for the story they wanna tell over 3 movies. And because they can't come up with a masterplan on the franchise they make standalone movies too which don't need to follow a grander scheme. All for the yearly Star Wars movie in cinemas
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Lets say Arena bombs (which it most likely will). Do you really think WOTC/hasbro has the competency to do a shake-up when there's rumors that they're discussing partnering with GAMESTOP of all places to run FNM?!?! Honestly, the only out I see here for WOTC and MTG in general is that the WOTC sale does go through to an entity that has the balls to actually completely shake up MTG over ; massive firings, complete revamp of WPN, actually start paying the judges as employees/contractors, fix arena (and merge MODO into it?), etc.
That's just a pipe dream but the current trends of WOTC has nothing but bleakness going for it
I recently started playing again and I'm actually having a pretty good time drafting RIX. Also the small comic store I draft at gets 12-20 players per FNM, which I think is pretty good. That's 2 more or less full draft pools on average.
Also Arena looks pretty smooth and entertaining. Can't wait to try it myself. People at my LGS are looking forward to it as well.
Of course there are always the eternally unhappy few complaining about A25, Arena, Ixalan, etc. They are also the loudest.
I invite everyone to ask themselves once in a while, while playing, "Am I enjoying this?". For example I was not excited seeing A25, but during the release sealed I had a blast, and most people around me, too. The fast paced games of Arena are entertaining to watch on stream, I am enjoying those as well. I'm afraid some players form their opinion early on, even before plaing at all, and never change it.
I want to highlight that there are people ut there that are actually pretty happy about the current direction.
Also DOM looks awesome.
I am glad you enjoy your time drafting, but it isn't related to the bigger topics like the downfall of Standard, format Management (or lack of), advertising, price spirals, etc.
You being entertained by Arena Streams, does not affect the economy of the game being totally wack and unattractive according to all the playtesters, not even talking the ripped off interface.
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That is true, but also having a great free playing experience and unique interface are not deciding factors. We still don't know how much a draft will cost.
I think mtg actually has a much bigger problem: a draft (main income source) takes too long. When playing Counterstrike or whatever, you can always play "just one more game". A draft typically takes 3-4 hours at my LGS. If they manage to create a system where you can split up the playing experience, so that you can draft a pack while taking a dump, the second one on your way to school, etc., that would do more for the game than slightly better economy, I think.
I don't think you (or anyone who hasn't been a part of it for awhile) understands just HOW BADLY the beta has been going. Que times are up to minutes, and you almost never see anyone within even the same rank band as an opponent. The beta forums have gone from bug reports and suggestions/complaints about the game and economy to endless threads complaining that blue is too good and asking for card bans. All the real players bailed.
Arena will get two more cracks at it, they're going to do another wipe and econ revamp in a few weeks, then I think one more before the beta goes open and collections become permanent. But right now, they've already lost all the hardcore players they had in the beta. I'd expect a big surge of people checking it out, and then everyone will just be done. Buh bye.
Sealed is a whole type of formats invented just to sell packs and i can't imagine that constantly dumping money into Arena for drafting is anything the crowd you want to attract with an online game is going to do. It's literally worse than gatcha.
Arenas economy is trash as meta constructed decks would only be accessible for whales as well according to the calculations on reddit.
Both factors are a huge liability for the game unless they get fixed before launch
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Arena is going to be a ton of fun if the economy improves and I've been having a blast playing crappy standard for free. I thought I would hate it compared to alternatives like MTGO or Eternal but it's got me doing my win a day for now at least. They are getting universally negative feedback about the economy so I'm not completely ready to write it off yet.
I can't believe they aren't getting 1v1 brawl going immediately though. It seems tailor-made for the program and would give Arena it's own thing you wouldn't really get elsewhere. Fuck sealed lol, I'll take some standard commander over that garbage format any day.
Man those collectibles were the shit in Shenmue.
Anyway, the interesting side effect I've read about with Arena is the creation of a pauper standard meta. Red deck wins had an article by MTG Goldfish as a clear way to be hyper aggressive against multi-color decks relying on CITP budget duals. I'm sure there are natural mono-color predators to mono-red, which could mean there's an overall budget meta to the format.
Of course, then you get the whales who just crush everyone with 4x Scarab Lord, actual tiered real Standard decks or whatever.
The issue I see, is that it's next to impossible to get people hooked on a game, if you need to win for your daily tasks (and related currency) as a f2p while nonstop getting crushed by P2P and P2W players thanks to their much better decks.
It would need a major revamp im the game economy and reward system to make it AT LEAST equal to Hearthstone. That however requires WotC actually having one in charge for their Online Department who has experience with monetarizing methods of "Freemium" and Gatcha games. Hiring people with actual business knowledge is of course out of question. /s
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