The current state of Magic

[Phoenix Ignition]

I admittedly don't play modern, but isn't ghost quarter far more prevalent than Tec Edge? Edge doesn't hit tron if they assemble it quickly so it's useless isn't it?

On paper you'd think so but in practice no. The only possible way they can assemble it turn 3 is if they don't play any other land than tron lands (which with 12 total in their deck is unlikely to happen), and they don't play any repeating tron lands. They play Explorer's Maps but you need 2 mana to activate that and like I said, unless they have two different tron lands as their first plays they won't be getting turn 3 tron. RG Tron frequently plays turn 1 green land to get Ancient Stirrings, so they'll rarely have Tron on turn 3.

In addition to that if you're playing Tec edges you're likely playing either blue or Death and Taxes. Almost every blue control deck has Remand, so if the tron player assembles it on turn 4 they get one activation (which you can normally remand), and then you tec edge whichever one you expect they don't have a repeat of. If you don't have Remand for whatever it is, you might be able to just Path it (Wurmcoil). Death and Taxes eats Tron for breakfast, it's one of their better matchups as Ghost Quarter + Tec Edge + Leonin Arbiter + Aven Mindcensor ruin their day.

Now all this isn't to say that Wasteland wouldn't help the format out a lot. Most broken/linear strategies in Modern right now would be extremely easily knocked down a peg with land hate. Dredge would have suffered a lot if people were able to waste their turn 1 land, Affinity + Infect's backup plan of Inkmoth Nexus wouldn't be nearly as effective, Tron would have to actually try hard to get the 3 pieces to stick, and a lot of the combo decks are on the tenuous edge of mana screw as it is. Eldrazi would actually probably benefit even though they play some broken lands, but that one's hard to say. They never would have had to ban anything from Bloom Titan since wastelanding one of those lands is game over.

[Begle1]

On paper you'd think so but in practice no. The only possible way they can assemble it turn 3 is if they don't play any other land than tron lands (which with 12 total in their deck is unlikely to happen), and they don't play any repeating tron lands. They play Explorer's Maps but you need 2 mana to activate that and like I said, unless they have two different tron lands as their first plays they won't be getting turn 3 tron. RG Tron frequently plays turn 1 green land to get Ancient Stirrings, so they'll rarely have Tron on turn 3.

A lot of Tron lists run Chromatic Star and/ or Chromatic Sphere... Turn 1 Tronland into Chromatic allows Turn 2 Tronland into Ancient Stirrings or Sylvan Scrying, which allows for Turn 3 Karn Liberated. Expedition Map has the perfect 1 CMC with 2 mana activation cost as well. So there's really quite a bit of redundancy to Turn 3 Tron, provided that you are lucky and get copies of 2 out of the 3 in your opening 8.

Those sequences leading to Turn 3 Karn/ All is Dust, Turn 4 Ugin/ Oblivion Stone are some of the most feared in Modern. Yet I'd be petrified to go for those sequences in Legacy; Force of Will or a Wasteland leaves you in a miserable state.



If Modern suddenly is cancelled, the Pop! of the price bubbles would be extreme. It's knocking on the door of Legacy price-wise, even if people don't entirely realize that. I mean, Mishra's Bauble is a $15 card, so there's gotta be a huge player-base, even if it isn't anybody's favorite format. And with Modern Masters 3 coming out, they're not going to kill it anytime soon.


It isn't an unenjoyable format, but I'll play any format with Magic cards, so I'll always be like an alcoholic saying "it's not a terrible drink". From what I've seen anecdotally, Modern at the LGS level is a blend of A. well-enfranchised, competitive people who'd rather be playing Legacy and, B. less-enfranchised players who are under the delusion that it's easier to build a brew for and less expensive or competitive than Standard.

[Dice_Box]

There is the group I sit in as well, people who enjoy the format for its merits and do not bother to take it seriously. I mean I sometimes play a deck that uses Life from the Loam and Stinkweed Imp to find Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. Then you can play Nameless Inversion and Crib Swap from the grave and beat down with Knight of the Reliquary. Its dumb, its not going to win, but its fun. You can do shit like this in Legacy too sure, but if you can play both Modern and Legacy, I find your more likely to do the dumb shit in the format that you care about a little less.

[Phoenix Ignition]

From what I've seen anecdotally, Modern at the LGS level is a blend of A. well-enfranchised, competitive people who'd rather be playing Legacy and, B. less-enfranchised players who are under the delusion that it's easier to build a brew for and less expensive or competitive than Standard.

Your categories are weird and make me question your judgment. I've played all formats extensively at one time or another, except perhaps Standard since I only tried that right when I was getting into Magic, and I can say that Legacy is the stalest by far. In order of enjoyment I'd rather play Modern, Old School, Vintage, Pauper, competitive EDH (barf), and then Legacy, in that order. Some people enjoy playing the exact same Brainstorm shell with slightly different win conditions, but most people I know don't. Vintage is at least up front about how broken Blue is, and there are some strategies to fight it consistently.

Just look at it (image credit Janchu88, but quotes aren't allowed in locked threads)

Modern is still much more open a format than Legacy, especially for dumb brews. They make it into top 8s of big tournaments all the time. If you're not playing the tier 1 best deck at the time it doesn't mean you're delusional thinking you can win. Except for Legacy where the "brew" is just Blue Shell + whatever new OP creature they printed. I've 4-0'd with Death Cloud twice now in Modern, which to me means the format is closer to where Legacy was in 2008 when you could play metagame decks that weren't 1) Blue shell or 2)Red Elemental Blast.deck

[maharis]

SCG has a good article on standard bannings, their interaction with digital strategy, and the implications for MTG. The end is pretty hardcore. Good on SCG for printing this.

These are some of the considerations against an aggressive banning policy, especially in Standard. This isn't necessarily to say the recent bans were a mistake, but to show some of the factors at play – factors overcome for the sake of more pressing concerns. With Wizards of the Coast's announcement of a new digital push and the thrust of recent developments, it's clear that they're trying to figure out how best to tailor and monetize Magic for mobile platforms, with their distinct interface advantages and disadvantages.

The big question is how close Magic can and should be tailored to these digital mediums and payment structures so that its original appeal is retained and the game doesn't just terminate in a clunkier version of Hearthstone. The drive toward digital adaptation is in tension with another possibility – coming to terms with Magic's partly analogue nature and the fundamental limits it presents, such as tangible cards that can't be instantly remade and intricate mechanics that tend to play better over a table than on a tablet.

The new approach to Standard bannings is part of an overall plan to compete with digital-native games. The challenge is difficult, and the particular approach is riskier than it looks, destabilizing the game on several levels to allow it to do what games like Hearthstone can do more seamlessly by design. So it's an open question. Most recently, six of the same deck just finished in the Top 6 of Pro Tour Aether Revolt.

Now what?

http://www.starcitygames.com/article...gic-Cards.html

[Lemnear]

SCG has a good article on standard bannings, their interaction with digital strategy, and the implications for MTG. The end is pretty hardcore. Good on SCG for printing this.

These are some of the considerations against an aggressive banning policy, especially in Standard. This isn't necessarily to say the recent bans were a mistake, but to show some of the factors at play – factors overcome for the sake of more pressing concerns. With Wizards of the Coast's announcement of a new digital push and the thrust of recent developments, it's clear that they're trying to figure out how best to tailor and monetize Magic for mobile platforms, with their distinct interface advantages and disadvantages.

The big question is how close Magic can and should be tailored to these digital mediums and payment structures so that its original appeal is retained and the game doesn't just terminate in a clunkier version of Hearthstone. The drive toward digital adaptation is in tension with another possibility – coming to terms with Magic's partly analogue nature and the fundamental limits it presents, such as tangible cards that can't be instantly remade and intricate mechanics that tend to play better over a table than on a tablet.

The new approach to Standard bannings is part of an overall plan to compete with digital-native games. The challenge is difficult, and the particular approach is riskier than it looks, destabilizing the game on several levels to allow it to do what games like Hearthstone can do more seamlessly by design. So it's an open question. Most recently, six of the same deck just finished in the Top 6 of Pro Tour Aether Revolt.

Now what?

http://www.starcitygames.com/article...gic-Cards.html

LOL. Ripperino Standard.

So they will keep pushing strategies without providing answer to them and if they noticed that they fucked up a bit too much, so a single strategy becomes to powerful, they just ban it, because they cant just NERF & BUFF cards like Hearthstone does?

[wcm8]

All they need to do is print decent ANSWERS to problems. The format can self-regulate as long as there is access to decent sideboard cards.

There is no reason that a card like Shatter isn't printed in the same set as an artifact heavy block. I understand some hesitation in allowing for, say, Ancient Grudge, at least initially when the block first comes out (so as to allow for players to use the shiny new toys), but the following block should certainly have access to Ancient Grudge or equivalent.

And not every set has to have a Swords to Plowshares, but what's wrong with having Doom Blade?

It seems like a lot of cards don't need to be banned when there are sufficient ways of dealing with them. That's why Legacy is mostly able to regulate itself -- if anything becomes too problematic, generally there is an answer tailor-made to respond to it. This is especially obvious when you have things like Daze and Force of Will -- counterspells that can technically answer everything, un-counterable cards aside.

[tescrin]

Honestly it seems goofy that they don't have Daze, or at least Force Spike in standard fairly often. The whole point of blue is slow the opponent down a bit by them wasting resources (mana put into a countered spell, mana not spent for fear of being countered, mana spent multiple times for bouncing.)

Daze is such an intricate part of the flavor of legacy play that I think they need to jam it in. Counter protection, should help with giant tron spells, and without brainstorm it's a risk to run.

[Barook]

Honestly it seems goofy that they don't have Daze, or at least Force Spike in standard fairly often. The whole point of blue is slow the opponent down a bit by them wasting resources (mana put into a countered spell, mana not spent for fear of being countered, mana spent multiple times for bouncing.)

Daze is such an intricate part of the flavor of legacy play that I think they need to jam it in. Counter protection, should help with giant tron spells, and without brainstorm it's a risk to run.

Manal Leak is considered too strong in Standard and you want to give them Daze?

It isn't really fun to play around Daze and considering they overcost so much stuff for Standard, getting your expensive spell countered by a free spell rubs even more salt into the wound. I agree Standard would be better off with cheap answers, but Eternal-tier free counter magic isn't the way to go.

[Zombie]

Just give us back
Rune Snag
Cryptic Command
Spellstutter Sprite
Cursecatcher
Delay
Draining Whelk
Mystic Snake
Sage's Dousing
Faerie Trickery
Flashfreeze
Glen Elendra Archmage
Guttural Response
Mana Tithe
Negate
Pact of Negation
Remove Soul
Trickbind.

... that was one Standard format. Damn, times have changed. And that's not mentioning useless paperweights like Counterbalance.

[Fox]

All they need to do is print decent ANSWERS to problems. The format can self-regulate as long as there is access to decent sideboard cards.

This sentiment has issues. Land heavier formats and now advocating for "answer" cards, that don't advance how a deck wins, more quickly accelerates a format towards hellbent state of topdeck and deploy 1 card wincons (i.e. the best creature at a given mana cost). This approach removes strategy from the game, which is why standard is especially unfun to watch or play.

Modern at least has multiple types of combo, and if we ignore the no real LD/countermagic interaction, you'll get games of "you do your thing, I'll do mine" where both players are focusing on being proactive. The ships in the night matches are more likely to have very strange interactions rather than "I'm going to mull to [insert hate card], and then you can't possibly win." Standard generally lacks multiple types of competitive combo decks, so 'swing with creature' decks are reduced to needing answer cards if a combo deck becomes viable. In modern the combo decks/overall strategies are generally too linear to have novel interactions.

In terms of the mardu vehicles debacle, I don't see how standard gets healthier if you were to say reprint a hoser like Null Rod (even though it's reserved list). Start printing dedicated artifact kill spells and it's just a pointless grindfest of who draws better. Start printing cards like Goblin Welder, LD +/- Kataki effects, Dack Fayden, Meekstone, etc and you allow players to create decks that can accidentally screw over a deck like vehicles while proactively trying to distort the rules of the game. Sadly R&D wants people to keep playing straight-up so you see answer cards or an answer on a creature with no requirement to put work into distorting the gamestate.

[Lord Seth]

I admittedly don't play modern, but isn't ghost quarter far more prevalent than Tec Edge? Edge doesn't hit tron if they assemble it quickly so it's useless isn't it?

As someone who plays a lot of Modern, I can say Ghost Quarter is way more prevalent than Tectonic Edge. In fact, I've barely even see Tectonic Edge played for quite a while. Normally it's only played when you're already running 4x Ghost Quarter but want more copies.

Neither one (by themselves) works very well as mana denial, unlike Wasteland. Ghost Quarter just makes them get their basic land and Tectonic Edge you can't use until they have 4 lands, so you're not doing much in the way of mana denial if you're just knocking them down to 3, especially in a format where 4-drops are generally uncommon unless you're on a ramp strategy.

Since they're lousy at mana denial, people play them instead to try to get rid of utility lands, like manlands, the Tron lands, Cavern of Souls, and Eldrazi Temple. And Ghost Quarter is much more effective at that job than Tectonic Edge due to it not requiring mana investment and being usable right away.

Even if your goal is for outright mana denial, Ghost Quarter is still better because it can be used in conjunction with Crucible of Worlds or Life from the Loam to actually blow your opponent out over time (or Leonin Arbiter to turn it into a Strip Mine), whereas Tectonic Edge is not so good at that.

[Admiral_Arzar]

As someone who plays a lot of Modern, I can say Ghost Quarter is way more prevalent than Tectonic Edge. In fact, I've barely even see Tectonic Edge played for quite a while. Normally it's only played when you're already running 4x Ghost Quarter but want more copies.

Neither one (by themselves) works very well as mana denial, unlike Wasteland. Ghost Quarter just makes them get their basic land and Tectonic Edge you can't use until they have 4 lands, so you're not doing much in the way of mana denial if you're just knocking them down to 3, especially in a format where 4-drops are generally uncommon unless you're on a ramp strategy.

Since they're lousy at mana denial, people play them instead to try to get rid of utility lands, like manlands, the Tron lands, Cavern of Souls, and Eldrazi Temple. And Ghost Quarter is much more effective at that job than Tectonic Edge due to it not requiring mana investment and being usable right away.

Even if your goal is for outright mana denial, Ghost Quarter is still better because it can be used in conjunction with Crucible of Worlds or Life from the Loam to actually blow your opponent out over time (or Leonin Arbiter to turn it into a Strip Mine), whereas Tectonic Edge is not so good at that.

I also play a lot of Modern and can confirm this. The only time I see Tec Edge is usually in addition to Ghost Quarter (and often Spreading Seas) in a Ux hard-control kind of list. These lists are actually a problem for Tron and Valakut.dec, which otherwise are rough for Control in general. I will also second the earlier statements about Modern being better for brewing at this point. I see all kinds of different decks, whereas in Legacy usually I'm the one on the brew while most everyone else is on some blue deck, DnT, BR Reanimator, etc.

[phonics]

In terms of the mardu vehicles debacle, I don't see how standard gets healthier if you were to say reprint a hoser like Null Rod (even though it's reserved list). Start printing dedicated artifact kill spells and it's just a pointless grindfest of who draws better. Start printing cards like Goblin Welder, LD +/- Kataki effects, Dack Fayden, Meekstone, etc and you allow players to create decks that can accidentally screw over a deck like vehicles while proactively trying to distort the rules of the game. Sadly R&D wants people to keep playing straight-up so you see answer cards or an answer on a creature with no requirement to put work into distorting the gamestate.

This is exactly what I see as the divergent philosophy that new card design has taken from the past. WOTC wants everything to fit into the rulesbox and snuff out anything that even touches the edges.

[rufus]

... WOTC wants everything to fit into the rulesbox and snuff out anything that even touches the edges.

I don't think that's the case at all. They did a bunch of whacky stuff in commander. They do seem to want an obvious chase card is obvious meta game though.

[Lord Seth]

Shareholder earnings remarks

Go to Page 7.

Game category up my 9%, led by PIE-FACE (the fuck is this? ) and then MtG as the fastest growing games.

I've also looked through the other shareholder papers. Nothing disproves the slowed down growth of Magic, especially how certain categories are lumped together.

Hrm... it's true categories are lumped together, but looking at previous years when growth was supposedly higher, that was true then also. There might not be anything disproving the slowed down growth, but that doesn't mean it's proving it either.

[Darkenslight]

This sentiment has issues. Land heavier formats and now advocating for "answer" cards, that don't advance how a deck wins, more quickly accelerates a format towards hellbent state of topdeck and deploy 1 card wincons (i.e. the best creature at a given mana cost). This approach removes strategy from the game, which is why standard is especially unfun to watch or play.

Modern at least has multiple types of combo, and if we ignore the no real LD/countermagic interaction, you'll get games of "you do your thing, I'll do mine" where both players are focusing on being proactive. The ships in the night matches are more likely to have very strange interactions rather than "I'm going to mull to [insert hate card], and then you can't possibly win." Standard generally lacks multiple types of competitive combo decks, so 'swing with creature' decks are reduced to needing answer cards if a combo deck becomes viable. In modern the combo decks/overall strategies are generally too linear to have novel interactions.

In terms of the mardu vehicles debacle, I don't see how standard gets healthier if you were to say reprint a hoser like Null Rod (even though it's reserved list). Start printing dedicated artifact kill spells and it's just a pointless grindfest of who draws better. Start printing cards like Goblin Welder, LD +/- Kataki effects, Dack Fayden, Meekstone, etc and you allow players to create decks that can accidentally screw over a deck like vehicles while proactively trying to distort the rules of the game. Sadly R&D wants people to keep playing straight-up so you see answer cards or an answer on a creature with no requirement to put work into distorting the gamestate.

Annul would have been a good start to hard-hose Vehicles; a reverse Winding Constrictor would be cool to see in Amonkhet, and for the love of GOD give us some decent graveyard hosers! I mean, this isn't really that hard. Cards like Fatal Push help, don't get me wrong; but as it stands, we have a dearth of powerful one-on-one removal in Standard, and all of the good mass-removal doesn't hit the problem cards.

[Barook]

Good article on current R&D:

Future Future League: Failures and Fixes

[Darkenslight]

Good article on current R&D:

Future Future League: Failures and Fixes

Oh, yeah. That is a really good, and more importantly, valid criticism of the design of the testing that Wizards does. By all means, push cards like Reflector Mage. But don't just have glaring misses like Crazy Cat Lady and Iam'Rakul. There are three BIG misses, adding on to the BIG miss of Siege Rhino from Khans block. There have been more misses in the last eighteen months than there have been in the last Ten Years, just looking at Standard. Modern's also had a couple of Big Misses that should have been caught, but those are marginally more tolerable, given the suite of answer cards available.

The core rpoblem is that there are relatively few Hard Answer cards in Standard. In Shadows over Innistrad block, for example, there was a wonderful chance at reprinting Stony Silence, which could have been a huge flavor win as well as a powerful 'signal hoser'. Or we could have had a card like Rest in Peace in Kaladesh, which would also have been a flavor win. Yes, those cards are absolutely powerful, but they're also effective, and in particular, narrow Hard Answer cards for particular strategies. Would the Vehicles deck have been so dominant at the Pro Tour had RIP or Stony Silence been in Standard? I find that extremely unlikely. It also has a side-hate solution, dealing splash damage to other deck whose nut-draws were just as vicious as the Vehicles decks, like Delerium.

[s&s]

WotC doesn't make significant money off event attendance. (I expect that large WotC events are put on at a loss.) The money is in selling cards, and WotC doesn't deal in most of the cards that legacy players are interested in.

As for the simile, auto manufacturers do make money off the 'repair network' and from selling parts.

Ultimately none of that shit is my problem. I can throw my money at other things.

Looking at WoTC - their digital department, their FFL testing, their communication with the community .. its a pretty poorly lead company, can see them go belly up within a decade easily.

Find a business model that allows to support various formats or expect to lose players. Sure, there are standard players that bring in more revenue then me, there are also tons of players that do not (I used to be top customer at my LGS..).

Stopping support for older formats is in no way going to increase the income WoTC generates. It simply doesnt' work that way.

"oh you stopped supporting my favorite, complicated format, in which I've invested money and more importantly time .. let me just spend a few thousand on standard boxes while I throw all my outdated cards in the bin!"

Again, it doesn't work like that. Growth of standard has diminished, driving away players from older formats, I don't see which part of this scenario benefits WoTC, then again I didn't think Smugglers Copter would be healthy for standard either, so what do I know :)