An idea could be to reintroduce an old mechanic every time you visit an old world. Say you go back to Zendikar again, Landfall would be something you include.Originally Posted by Barook
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
Change is fine; lazy, bland, uninspired and sloppy design isn't though.
All the proposals are pretty reasonable. It will remain to be seen what they do with things though. Return sets are a gimmick, but a reasonable one, depending how often they go to it and how they handle it.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Core Sets are by far the biggest and best change from this announcement.
Standard is most likely going to get better and the tribes are going to start getting new cards again.
Return-Sets are just a lazy way to feast on Nostalgia. Its not than WotC cares about what made certain blocks popular in the first place. Every revisit has been executed by chopping the original mechanics & flavor for more Kicker & Jacetice League bollocks
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It's irritating how deep they have heads in their asses when it comes to nostalgia. Popular mechanics aren't brought back just because, or they get mangled beyond recognition because they were "too good". If you bring back Landfall and the only Landfall card worth a shit is Retreat to Coralhelm, with the best Landfall card (Tireless Tracker) not even being in the same block, you failed epically at your job.
Yeah, I don't think nostalgia is bad. Just the way they have gone about it is bad. You really don't need to reinvent the wheel on a monthly basis...
It's like the cash grab that is the "Masters" sets: they are cash grabs, we know they are cash grabs, but (at least the last two) were actually done pretty well, so most people don't mind.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I was completely on board with WotC's prior changes to how they did sets. I'm not on board with this one.
And that's basically why. Standard is getting favored over Eternal.
This announcement does not necessarily mean anything in particular for eternal. They can still print whatever they want. Conspiracy, Commander, and the Masters Series can still keep churning our wild and wacky cards for eternal. But, this new setup seems to shift focus away from Eternal and back to Standard and Draft. Coming from a Vintage/Legacy perspective, that's NOT what I want to see.
No more blocks = This is a neutral development. They now cram more of the riffs on the set's mechanics into a smaller package. That could mean more experimental designs are left on the cutting room floor, which is bad, or it could mean they do more work to differentiate cards from each other to flesh out the space they have. Hard to say how this affects us.
Core Set Returns = This is a bad thing. One of our sets is replaced by a 50% reprint set that has to be safe for Standard. This means that much less of a chance of powerful new cards or reprints. I am also concerned that a return to the Core series takes the focus off of the Masters series as the defacto reprint set. A set that exists to make sure people have Giant Spider and Lightning Strike is a fine thing, but it should be called the Planeswalker Intro Decks and it should not replace a block.
Gatewatch = Yeah, good riddance, but that doesn't have anything to do with any mechanical issues and is independent of any other changes they are making.
Fewer Masterpieces = Terrible decision. The Masterpieces were a GREAT way to barf out more copies of sought-after cards on a regular basis without tanking prices, but still giving us more supply. More supply = lower prices. This was the best decision they made in years, and now they're yanking it away.
Play Design Testing = Did you like how we've had tons of eternal playable in recent sets, and how sets have been awesome since we left the garbage can that was Theros? Well, screw you, because now we're going to make sure things are safe for Standard. I do not see a way in which this leads to less powerful and flexible effects. Kaladesh is going to join the pantheon of artifact sets with Urza (yes yes I know it was technically an enchantment-matters block but that was a stupid decision and I am going to ignore it) and Mirrodin, ushering us into a new era of Mercadian Masques and Kamigawa.
It's the perfect kind of cash grab. It's all reprints. If you need those cards, more supply will help you get them. If you don't need those cards, you ignore the set entirely. There's literally no downside. The same is true of Masterpieces.
They should do more "spark" flip 'walker cards. Those things were awesome.
Core Set Returns- there is no point in doing reprints if a. they aren't going to make standard better, or b. they aren't going to lower prices on cards played in eternal formats. These are both good reasons for doing reprints. Also yes you may be right that they will reprint useless stuff like Giant Spider and Cancel, but that is going to be in the common slots which eternal players don't care about anyways.
Play Design Testing- Standard is the backbone of Magic. Standard keeps powercreep under control and provides the incentive to buy booster packs which keeps WotC in business. So unless you want Magic to die you shouldn't be complaining about a move that is attempting to fix Standard. Also plenty of eternal-playable cards came from balanced standard environments, much of the stuff that's broken in standard doesn't even see eternal-play anyways.
They're redesigning core sets. I guess it's going to turn out more like Magic Origins, which was well-received for a "core" set. Thing is that nobody wants all the garbage that is normally attached to core sets, hence them selling so badly. Just make them a new set with good new cards and slap in popular staple reprints and it's good to go.
Masterpieces: Amonkhet masterpieces were generally shat on for the abomination they call a frame. They'll also run out of good reprints sooner or later. So it isn't suprising they're going to reduce the frequency.
Playtesting: I'm more suprised they didn't have an actual playtest team for Standard, out of all things. Standard might become less terrible in future, but is it going to reverse the trend of Modern taking over Standard in terms of popularity? Who knows - Standard is still a very limited format that is mainly competitive played due to price support, not because it's good.
@ morgan_coke: Flipwalkers are apperently very challenging from a print logistics point of view. I doubt we're going to see them very often.
My problem is not with the Core set existing. You can always not buy a crappy set. My problem is with the Core set REPLACING one of the block sets we would otherwise get. Those Giant Spiders and Cancels are taking the place of potentially new and interesting commons from new blocks. That's where I think there's a high risk of Eternal getting the shaft.
(Or worse, if they slow down on Masters series sets because the Core set exists...!)
True, but balancing things for standard aggressively sure sounds to me like it is going to impact how many cards slip through the cracks into eternal play. Beloved staples like Sol Ring and Memory Jar can't be printed if you've got a gatekeeper specifically there to stop them. Or, they get less likely, anyway.
Remember how terrible Theros was? A perfect storm of safe but awful mechanics? I would expect to see a lot more safe mechanics like Inspired, Tribute, Devotion, and so on in a world with people trying to keep everything under control.
The Amonkhet masterpieces were awful, and that's great. Print more ugly Forces of Will. Print'em in every set! Keep recycling the same cards in new frames, it's all good. We've already seen that Masterpieces don't tank the price of the original, but as they keep on doing this they'll keep introducing new supply of staples into the market. This will moderate prices. If you don't like them, you don't get them. Heaven knows I wanted nothing to do with any of the Amonkhet cards. I'm amazed they're dumping this program when it seemed like nothing but upside.
For Paper, there's little downside.
But for MTGO, those masterpieces are pure cancer. Since pretty much all the value is concentrated on those, the rest of the cards are worth nothing. And since masterpieces can only be acquired via treasure chests on MTGO and can't even be redeemed, the EV of the sets are abyssal now. An Amonkhet booster costs ~3.30 tix from bots, with an expected EV of 0.43 tix. Drafting cost didn't really get lowered, but the returns are now utter garbage.
That's a good perspective. I don't play MTGO, so I had not even considered the impact there. Can't you just sell your garbage masterpiece to a bot for a premium?
Amonkhet is a low value set in paper too. I have not seen a box opened yet that was worth more than its purchase price. I draft a fair amount too, so I see shit opened.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
As a player, though, I like that the Masterpieces push the price of new cards down just like I like how they push the cards they reprint down. Seems like all upside.
Do we know if it is actually affecting how much product is getting moved from distributors? Is the low EV hurting the bottom line for Wizards, or is it just making players more able to buy cards?
Hrm... these actually seem to be pretty good changes, at least in theory. In fact, I'm not seeing anything I particularly dislike.
Only having large expansions is actually a pretty good idea that, looking back, it's surprising they didn't do earlier. Smaller sets never seem to be as popular and, as noted, are generally disliked in terms of draft experience.
I do still think that the problems resulting from the lack of Core sets could have been solved by Wizards of the Coast by simply better distributing the normally reprinted cards into expansions (yes, I know some cards couldn't be put into expansions because of flavor, but there's plenty of cards that didn't have the problem that weren't being printed). Still, they seemed either unwilling or unable to do it, so if that's a problem that can't be fixed without returning to core sets, then bring back to the core sets. I do wonder what they're going to change about them, though... he talks several times about how they're going to be revamped but never gives any real detail on that.
The differing size of "blocks" is another good idea. You don't need to either stretch or shrink it to a particular size; you can do 1, 2, or 3 as applicable.
I don't really care one way or the other about Masterpieces or the Gatewatch.
So really, on the whole, some good ideas here. Of course, they could screw it up, but in concept it's pretty good. The most obvious potential problem is that having three large sets might put some extra strain on them when it comes to making cards, as there's more cards to make.
Premium? Ha ha, good one. Those are worth less than their normal counterparts.
If the EV is higher than the box price, the LGS is better off opening them themselves. Or they jack up the price up to eleven, as previously seen on former Modern Masters sets or various FTV sets that weren't garbage.
We only know that LGS sold slightly less product last year. And the reason for that could very well be the very shitty Standard.
If the masterpieces are not sought after, and thus have a low price, doesn't that mean they are not absorbing much of the EV of a set? In other words, I'm confused. If no one wants Masterpieces, then how does their existence lower the price of Amonkhet online?
I like the changes a lot personally. Core sets needed to return. And I like the idea of having discreet draft environments for each set. Albeit this is coming from someone who finds draft to be the most entertaining sanctioned format. IMO draft is closer to the original vision of Magic i.e. not everyone has access to 4x of every card they want so you have to build your deck having limited selection. It's as close as we'll get to the good ole' pre-internet days of playing with your friends and not even knowing the names of all the cards let alone having access to any of them with a few mouse clicks. But I digress.
Doing away with blocks is better as well. Less forced choices and more discretion to make the best product they can is the best. Change I like the most is probably the deemphasis on the gatewatch planeswalkers. It's really boring seeing the same names over and over.
Or it could just be the world we have now except where Felidar Guardian didn't get printed, Smuggler's Copter had Crew cost of two, and Emrakul didn't have a stupid mindslaver on cast ability attached to it.
Intuitively it would suggest the latter. X% of the box EV is wrapped up in masterpieces. If you're a new-ish player or just a player trying to get into Standard there's an inverse relationship between X and your incentive to actually crack open a pack.
You got it all wrong.
MTGO's economy is linked with its Paper counterpart via Standard set redemption, since it's the way how people can turn online collections into actual hard $. When WotC increased the redemption fee from 5$ to 25$ per complete set, the price of a completed set pretty much fell by the same amount. Once the day comes where WotC completely gets rid of redemption, all hell will break lose - but that's a story for another day.
Long story short, if the Paper set isn't worth much, then the Online version is bound to be worthless as well.
Now most of the EV in Paper Standard sets is concentrated in the masterpieces, leaving little value for the rest of set, aka the Standard-legal cards. And that little pile of low value is exactly what MTGO's online set price is bound to, since masterpieces can't be redeemed. Or to put it into actual numbers (pulled from Goldfish):
Amonkhet's set value is 15% normal card prices, 85% masterpieces.
And MTGO's set value is bound to those 15% (instead of 100% without masterpieces).
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