The current state of Magic

[sadface]

That gif just confuses the shit out of me, honestly. I'm not really understanding the rotation period.

Standard rotates once per year, one year (i.e. 4 sets) at a time. When the fall set of 2017 (Ixalan) is released, all sets older than the fall set of 2016 (BFZ, OGW, SOI, EMN) rotate out of Standard. When the fall set of 2018 is released ("Soup"), all sets older than the fall set of 2017 (KLD, AER, AKH, HOU) will rotate. And so on.

[Fox]

Now we have Aether Revolt, where the set is so underpowered that Fatal Push ($8-9) is the most 3rd most expensive card in the set.

The set with energy is underpowered; say what you will but R&D have nailed irony.

[Richard Cheese]

Did you have to buy packs/cards in Duels? My guess is the client isn't going anywhere, but they'll eventually shut the server down and provide no updates.

You don't have to, you can grind the in-game currency pretty easily. The packs are also semi-random, you're guaranteed to get a whole set in a certain number of packs, and never more than the playable amount of a single card. So if you really wanted to have a set or even certain cards the day it came out, you could spend something like $30-$40 and be done with it.

Maybe part of the issue is that they weren't monetizing it enough?

[Lord Seth]

The banning of Aetherworks Marvel confuses me greatly. Yes, the deck is dominant. But only about as much as Monoblack Devotion or Abzan were (the latter rested comfortably around 30% for about one and a half years). The especially odd thing is that a big reason for the deck's power is Ulamog, who's due to rotate out in a few months. Why not just tough it out and let rotation take care of it?

EDIT: Upon reflection, it's possible they had concerns regarding incoming cards interacting with Aetherworks Marvel like did Ulamog, which I guess makes some sense if true. I'm a little surprised that such a thing isn't mentioned in the banning announcement, though... they use a lot of words to talk about it, but don't answer that obvious question.

[Lord Seth]

So.. yeah. Got back in because they were doing a real cycling block again.. but you can't play a cycling deck anymore, even in standard, because they didn't reprint Slide or Rift or anything playable because.. reasons.

I'll be fair and say that there might be better cards enabling cycling in Hour of Devastation.

Don't even get me started on what a mess digital is. Right now it's Eternal: Play Brainstorm. Modern: Play garbage in a big format with zero answerx, so it's either speed kill or ramp/cheat to stupidity. Standard: Play broken card of the week until it gets banned then move to the next one, because answers=LOL.

Modern doesn't have zero answers; in fact, it's got some some great answers. Thoughtseize, Path to Exile, and Fatal Push (with fetchlands) might not be at the level of Force of Will or Swords to Plowshares but they're still pretty great answer cards. The problem is lack of variety. Path to Exile is an excellent removal card, possibly the second best ever printed after Swords to Plowshares... but White has basically nothing else going on in the format, so the card is underutilized. Thoughtseize and Fatal Push are great, but aren't of any use to you if you're not in Black. In contrast, Blue gets stuck with Mana Leak as its best counterspell. What the format needs are better White cards (Stoneforge Mystic is looking more and more like a good unban) so you can get more usage out of Path to Exile, and a counterspell better than freaking Mana Leak. That would better diversify answers so they can be played in a greater variety of decks.

Gonna sell out again and never look back I think. New World Order has been an unmitigated disaster, it fueled growth for awhile, but all them chickens coming home now.

New World Order was just the idea that new players get scared off by complicated or confusing cards, so all the complicated or confusing cards should be put in higher rarities so they don't see them as often. That's literally all it was. It had nothing to do with general design of cards. One can perhaps blame New World Order for higher prices (because cards that are confusing or complicated tend to be good cards, which results in higher rare/mythic rare proliferation), but that's really it.

Now we have Aether Revolt, where the set is so underpowered that Fatal Push ($8-9) is the most 3rd most expensive card in the set.

I don't know if it's a lack of power so much as a lack of confidence. All these bannings in Standard are making people more leery of investing in the format, which means lower prices.

Fatal Push, on the other hand, is a Modern staple. People have a lot more confidence in investing in that format, so it manages to retain value because so much of its demand doesn't come from Standard play.

[Zombie]

New World Order was just the idea that new players get scared off by complicated or confusing cards, so all the complicated or confusing cards should be put in higher rarities so they don't see them as often. That's literally all it was. It had nothing to do with general design of cards. One can perhaps blame New World Order for higher prices (because cards that are confusing or complicated tend to be good cards, which results in higher rare/mythic rare proliferation), but that's really it.

NWO came with Shards, if memory serves, and at least to me Alara block was the first truly different one - Lorwyn was a beginning of something new, to be sure, but it still straddled a line.

[Lord Seth]

NWO came with Shards, if memory serves, and at least to me Alara block was the first truly different one - Lorwyn was a beginning of something new, to be sure, but it still straddled a line.

But as noted, "New World Order" had nothing to do with card design, set design, or anything like that. It was entirely about what rarity cards were given based on their perceived complexity.

Granted, giving that a name as dramatic as "New World Order" (which I do think is a stupid name) does make it sound like it was a lot more than it was, which may be why players keep referring to it as whatever they don't like about modern design, but all New World Order was about was adjustment of rarity.

[Darkenslight]

The banning of Aetherworks Marvel confuses me greatly. Yes, the deck is dominant. But only about as much as Monoblack Devotion or Abzan were (the latter rested comfortably around 30% for about one and a half years). The especially odd thing is that a big reason for the deck's power is Ulamog, who's due to rotate out in a few months. Why not just tough it out and let rotation take care of it?

EDIT: Upon reflection, it's possible they had concerns regarding incoming cards interacting with Aetherworks Marvel like did Ulamog, which I guess makes some sense if true. I'm a little surprised that such a thing isn't mentioned in the banning announcement, though... they use a lot of words to talk about it, but don't answer that obvious question.

Well, there's that new Nicol Bolas guy...he seems a little good on Turn 4.

[rufus]

...
Granted, giving that a name as dramatic as "New World Order" (which I do think is a stupid name) does make it sound like it was a lot more than it was, which may be why players keep referring to it as whatever they don't like about modern design, but all New World Order was about was adjustment of rarity.

I think that part of the issue is that the phrase "new world order" already means something. So we have "New World Order" which is the rarity/complexity of cards thing, and we have "new world order" which is the shift to higher efficiency threats in the form of spell-creatures and planeswalkers and slower enablers and answers (or whatever else it could mean in context).

[Crimhead]

New World Order is the flagship of the (unnamed) design philosophy which puts pleasing newbies above satisfying experienced players.

Can we please drop this pedantic bull shit of correcting everybody who uses the term more loosely? What purpose is that supposed to serve?

[Barook]

New set stuff

The more or less important stuff
- FTV: Transform, aka flipcards (aka we reprint Baby Jace - yawn)
- Masters25 next year
- new Unset in December (who the fuck buys this shit?)
- Return to Dominaria April 2018 (given their track record with Return sets, I don't have my hopes up)

[Crimhead]

- new Unset in December (who the fuck buys this shit?)

If there's a silver bordered token plus a full art basic in every set, I think it will sell.

Nice that they're finally doing a fourth Unset, though. Hope it's called 'Unzipped'.

[Barook]

If there's a silver bordered token plus a full art basic in every set, I think it will sell.

Full basic art wasn't enough the last times. This is going to fail horribly.

At least there's hope Maro gets hit by the backlash since the third Un-set has been his pet project for years. If it was greenlight, then it was because of him nagging for a while now.

Edit: There are only 4 months between Iconic Masters and 25th Anniversary Masters. What the hell are they going to reprint as chase cards at this pace?

[Crimhead]

Full basic art wasn't enough the last times. This is going to fail horribly.

Last time they didn't give us tokens. The combination might be just enough push it - especially if the tokens are double-sided and they give us things that are used in popular constructed decks.

Anyway, Legacy players are probably not the target. This is for the kids who missed the last three Unsets.

Regarding other news, it sure would be sweet if they would break tradition and print a few new cards for the duel decks.

[sadface]

Nice that they're finally doing a fourth Unset, though. Hope it's called 'Unzipped'.

It's the third un-set, and it's called 'Unstable'.

[maharis]

- FTV: Transform, aka flipcards (aka we reprint Baby Jace - yawn)

Selling the shit out of these at the GP then, hope some modern deck is using them

[Crimhead]

It's the third un-set, and it's called 'Unstable'.

1. Unlimited
2. Unglued
3. Unhinged
4. Unstable

Get's 'em every time!

Number of Cards: 216-ish

LMAO!

[supremePINEAPPLE]

New set stuff

The more or less important stuff
- FTV: Transform, aka flipcards (aka we reprint Baby Jace - yawn)
- Masters25 next year
- new Unset in December (who the fuck buys this shit?)
- Return to Dominaria April 2018 (given their track record with Return sets, I don't have my hopes up)

Garfield has been confirmed to be on the design team for dominaria so that's cool at least.

[Barook]

The only way this could realistically sell is they included non-tournament legal, silver-bordered Reserve List cards for the casual Commander crowd who don't care about borders/legality.

Garfield has been confirmed to be on the design team for dominaria so that's cool at least.

This actually gets my hopes up. Garfield knows his shit, as he has proven when he came back for the original Ravnica and Innistrad sets.

[Crimhead]

Garfield has been confirmed to be on the design team for dominaria so that's cool at least.

Best news yet.
I wasn't even excited until now. :)