Sphinx's Revelation was never that amazing of a card in Modern, so it's not too surprising to see it pushed out of the format even more. As more and more cards are printed, Modern will continue to go the way of Legacy where only the cheapest, most efficient cards see play.
For all the amount we complain, I think Wizards is doing a good job.
The goals of (1) making a product that sells well and (2) making the best game possible are sometimes at odds, and Wizards does a lot to try to satisfy both.
When I play Modern casually on Magic Online I still regularly see new decks. The main problem is that most of them just aren't very tuned in comparison to the established decks.
Went to Walgreens yesterday, and there were multiple other players there waiting for the store to unlock the packs (they're locked up on the hooks).
Fortunately, everyone was friendly, and we split up the available packs between us. I only wanted 8 because they were for my kids. But some people bought a *lot*.
It was funny though seeing everyone thereat the same time. We all looked at each other with a nod like "yup, I know why you're here"
After seeing and playing Khans, I think Wizards did a great job with the wedge theme. There are only limited three color cards, there's tons of mana fixing, they nicely focused on the enemy color pairs which overlap better with the wedges, and morph is great for smoothing the draws.
All these factors put Khans light years ahead of Shards in terms of playability.
I suspect they could continue this for two more sets, but are mainly changing it up for storyline and variety's sake.
Otherwise, super sweet. I'll be interested to see whether this gets Standard play.
I thought Rosewater was saying they were going to do something they've never done before this year.
The goals of (1) making a product that sells well and (2) making the best game possible are sometimes at odds, and Wizards does a lot to try to satisfy both.
Fortunately, everyone was friendly, and we split up the available packs between us. I only wanted 8 because they were for my kids. But some people bought a *lot*.
It was funny though seeing everyone thereat the same time. We all looked at each other with a nod like "yup, I know why you're here"
All these factors put Khans light years ahead of Shards in terms of playability.
I suspect they could continue this for two more sets, but are mainly changing it up for storyline and variety's sake.
The hardest part of Kamigawa for me was remembering all the card names. This would drive me crazy!