The current state of Magic

[Mr.C]

I doubt WotC makes a lot of money off Masters sets given that the print runs are much more limited than Standard sets (while being "unlimited"). I honestly believe that Masters sets are WotC's gift back to the players. I wouldn't say they lose money on them, but that they don't make nearly as much money off them as many on Reddit claim. They have no obligation to print these sets, and could make much more money off spending time developing more Standard sets which would be more widely distributed while also moving more product.

10 bucks per pack, what a gift!

[Smuggo]

this actually made me think. i've noticed that there's been a pretty big uptick in supplemental sets in the past few years with the masters set, the conspiracy/planechase slot, and the commander slot. in addition to iconic masters or whatever coming this year. I wonder if wotc has actually spread themselves out a little too thin and that's why development for standard has suffered so much.

I don't think it's so much standard suffers, I think it just leads to a bit of product overload which results in customer apathy.

If you think about joe average player, for each set maybe he buys a box and a fat pack, so that's about £100 each 4x a year.

Then you've got a couple of supplemental booster sets like conspiracy, MM etc... if they buy a box of each that's another £250ish per year.

Then they might buy a couple of commander precons, maybe a duel deck or two (I never bought a duel deck as they all look awful but I guess some people do). Another £100 there.

So that's about £750 a year and ontop of that you have drafts, pre-release, event entry fees, singles, the costs are really starting to rack up and I think some people are just getting fed up of keeping on coughing up money. They're not going to just buy it all probably so they will spread their spending out more, rather than spending more cash. Each new product comes with a ton of costs, from RnD to artists to distribution to marketing and PoS materials for retailers.

I think they'd be better off releasing less supplemental products. Maybe alternate between conspiracy and masters sets each year, and make EDH precons every couple of years. This reduces their costs and means that their customers don't feel so fatigued with trying to keep up with this never ending stream of products.

[Noctalor]

Leo buyout guys

[Barachai]

Any other cards hit, or is it just Handshake Guy?

[Big McLargeHuge]

True-Name Nemesis has spiked, too. The sad thing is I was going to buy one this Friday when I went to my LGS for $20, now he's at $30.

[Claymore]

I don't think Cradle has spiked, which surprises me. Although I guess it already is $221, but according to MTGStocks that price hasn't changed.

[Barook]

"How do we fix Standard?"
"Let's bring back core sets!"



They really don't know what to do anymore, do they? Their lack of direction and flailing around is worrying.

[Scott]

Booster packs of Corporate Buzzword 2019, that'll get the kids going.

[Tantarus]

I have to say I think things are looking up for legacy, My weekly event had more people tonight then in some time. People seemed over all happy and ready to try new things. I think as the weeks go by people will come to realize this is a great positive change for legacy and might bring back people that grew tired of miracles.

[Crimhead]

I think as the weeks go by people will come to realize this is a great positive change for legacy and might bring back people that grew tired of miracles.

Even people who were not tired of Miracles are probably excited to beart of the format as it shapes up going forward. These are fun times (unless you are scrambling because Miracles was your only deck I guess).

[Megadeus]

We also had more people playing last night than we've had in months.

[danyul]

Ditto on attendance numbers. We had way more players at last night's weekly and plenty of new faces. I'm also hearing that lots of friends of friends are returning to the game. People were playing wild shit too. Last night I matched up against Lantern Control and had to read all his damn cards, most of which I had never seen before.

That's why I play Legacy.

[PirateKing]

That's why I play Legacy.

Amen to that.
My early memories of Legacy were going to big 8+ round tournaments and playing different decks every round. Not just BUG mid compared to BUG aggro, but wildly different avenues of gameplay. I'm not the happiest about the Top ban, but the though of playing more than 4 different decks over 9 rounds is very exciting.

[Claymore]

The local shop hasn't been firing Modern on Wednesdays, so they changed it up to Legacy two weeks ago and got 12 to show, and 10 this week (including the Miracles player who had to switch to Show and Tell). Heard the Legacy FNM has been firing too but not sure on the numbers there.

This change was 1 week pre-ban anyway, but I think we could see better turn out going forward.

[Fox]

(unless you are scrambling because Miracles was your only deck I guess).

I'm not that worried for them, it's what like $300 to turn UWR from miracles to Blade?

Legacy finally has reasonable control decks again, and a lot of color combinations within the Blade and Standstill archetypes.

[rufus]

... the thought of playing more than 4 different decks over 9 rounds is very exciting.

Unless the situation is very special, there are only going to be a small number of top tier decks and the meta will slowly degenerate into some version of rock-paper-scissors.

[Zombie]

Unless the situation is very special, there are only going to be a small number of top tier decks and the meta will slowly degenerate into some version of rock-paper-scissors.

It's still more decksthan Miracles - the rest.

[Brael]

It's still more decksthan Miracles - the rest.

There is always going to be a top deck, I'm convinced actually that something will always be tier 0. Said deck might not always be found, or be popular though.

To give an example, it took 2+ years for Amulet Bloom to gain popularity in Modern, while that entire time it was secretly the best deck in the format by a large margin.

[rufus]

There is always going to be a top deck, I'm convinced actually that something will always be tier 0. Said deck might not always be found, or be popular though.

To give an example, it took 2+ years for Amulet Bloom to gain popularity in Modern, while that entire time it was secretly the best deck in the format by a large margin.

My understanding is that a "tier 0" deck is a deck that is so strong that there are no viable counter decks. For example in this standard, it was turning into "play cat, or lose." Legacy tends not to be like that because the card pool is so big and there's a lot of potent hate available.

[Crimhead]

I'm not that worried for them, it's what like $300 to turn UWR from miracles to Blade?

Still $300 is $300. I know If I suddenly needed $300 to play a good deck, it would be an issue. Not everybody has that on the drop of a hat.

I'm sure there are a couple people for whom this really sucks in the short term. For everyone else it's exciting times.

Legacy finally has reasonable control decks again, and a lot of color combinations within the Blade and Standstill archetypes.

A bit premature, perhaps? It remains to be seen if either of those decks can establish a home in the new meta.