If diversity is a "good" thing, I can't find anything positive about the format because diversity is the reason I hate the format. If Magic is supposed to be just a "game", it certainly isn't priced appropriately to be sold in such a fashion. You literally have to spend an amount of money that the large majority of people really cannot afford and wealth redistribution is a complete joke and why MTG cannot be considered an e-sport. That's why if you have to make profit, the only path to doing that is winning all your matches. Any result that isn't first place in a lot of tournaments means you are losing money and time, especially when the format you are forced to play in PPTQs for 3 months of the year is a format you hate. I think if I was going to start liking Modern again, you'd would need to begin with needing better answers to everything. Anything that would reduce the amount of non-games you have to play. As it stands, any deck I choose to register, I am at the mercy of a poor pairing which is completely out of my control. I want to play games of Magic in Modern, but I cannot when the tools are not available to help with that purpose. I have no problem losing to someone who is head and shoulders better than me at playing Magic, I do however have a problem when I am losing to someone who just happened to have the perfect counter deck to my deck of choice and plays like garbage and I chose not to prepare for it because I didn't have room in my 75 to try and beat it. That's what diversity does, you have to gamble and coinflip your matchups that you have no control over.
Magic is a game. It is a high cost hobby, similar to other hobbies like Warhammer, or collecting guitars, of any number of hobbies that cost a decent amount of money.
This is the best answer to sis's issues. Magic really isn't an e-sport, nor has it ever really been so. WotC would like that to change, but, honestly, anything where the playing field isn't equal has a hard time being called a sport of any type.
Now, as a hobby, it shines. Diversity is a boon for those who enjoy trying different strategies and it often makes playing the game as a whole more fun, even if it makes occasional match-ups really crappy. This is why modern can be a great format for some (most?); it lets you play interesting and powerful cards and not necessarily the same ones as your opponent.
Pro magic is a marketing ploy, nothing more. Modern is a good format for what it is. But magic is the proto-gatcha game; their need to vary power levels to sell cards means that gameplay will always have a backseat to what sells. Real e-sports sell cosmetics, not randomized gameplay pieces.
Prismatic Moon 1G or 2G
Enchantment
Nonbasic lands lose all abilities and have T: add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
This provides a blanket Moon effect without shutting down an entire deck, allows counterplay, and could easily get through Standard.
And this looks close to unplayable. The point of a Moon effect IS to have non-games.
I don't know, the problem with moon is that you have to run very particular decklists to not screw yourself with the effect. Something like this could be fielded by a wide variety of decks to give some cover against tron and variants while also not actively hurting you. Moreover, it has the added effect of being largely unhelpful against more typical manabases. In this way, it could be effective, but narrow, which is solid place for a hate card to be.
Moon is so powerful, it has been a core part of the strategies that can run it. That, to me, isn't quite the same as a hate card, it just happens to function well as one.
At 1G, I believe prismatic moon would see sideboard adoption.
I agree with the above posters that it was likely an inking error (possibly running low on black ink for the border). I'm pretty sure I've seen something like that before (might even own one, don't feel like looking). Unfortunately, I doubt it is a desired misprint. But, I'm no expert about these things; I believe there is a magic facebook group. You could also post in the "misprint" thread here under the "market place cafe" forum; those people know their stuff.
For me, it happened the moment Mythic Rares were put into circulation. There was really no reason to trade after that point, outside of someone exactly needing the card you have, vice versa, and it being even. I've probably done the average of a trade per year after Mythics. Before, it was closer to 3 per week.
Happy trading.
I think I agree with this. I still trade when I am able, but the mythic rarity basically means that you are often trying to trade a bunch of stuff for one playable mythic. Prior to that, when value was more distributed across lower rarities, you had more rare-to-rare trades. Generally speaking, it is much more difficult to get a person to agree to a trade for several lower value cards for one high value meta card; typically they are saving that card for another high value meta card, not for random playables. There are exceptions to this, but, overall, the centralized value of mythics makes trading much worse. In contrast, it starts to make trading a bunch of $3-5 cards to the store more viable. Let's say you have a random assortment of cards in that range, totaling $60 in value. You are likely to find people to trade with for at least some of them, but those people likely only need a handful of the range, meaning they are unlikely to trade a single $30 card for 1/2 the lot. Most of the time, they will be open to trades of like-for-like, meaning you will have a different assortment of $3-5 cards OR, you might be able to trade up to something like a $10 card with some group of them. As a result, if you want that $30 mythic, the most reliable and time-efficient way is to trade the store. "Pimp" cards are a bit different as, due to the subjective value, you can sometimes find people willing to trade for several lesser-value playable cards, as it can be challenging to find others willing to trade a meta card for a same value "fancy" card, but most of the time that stuff gets traded to the store as well.
These changes feel a bit like a dumb move. After having read their response, I understand the intent more. No competitive-playable promos=fewer competitive players to grief more casual FNM folk. What they fail to understand is that a lot of somewhat casual folks are friends with/influenced by/taught by the more competitive people. Magic is a game of value, whether everyone wants it to be or not. As soon as something has a whiff of being poor value for the somewhat competitive folk, that same sentiment is going to impact the decisions of less competitive people. The competitive people may not be their largest group, but they are their most vocal and likely most influential.
Regardless of intent, this feels like taking something away. That never goes over well. FEM-competitive players are going to grouse, and it could sour the whole FNM shebang--which is pretty bad considering the problems standard has had to deal with recently.
Also, nothing like trying to scare away your biggest fans from something.
I'm hoping all of the recent upheaval is really a "righting the ship" set of changes rather than the flailing of desperation. Whatever has been going on the last couple of years in Magic has been bad for it and the current bannings are evidence of just how far afield we have wandered. I'm really concerned as the last time I felt we were really in "ban-whack-a-mole" with standard was around Urza's Saga. While none of the cards banned really have been of the caliber of brokenness of that time period, I don't think I've ever been aware of another time when WotC seemed felt the need to ban so many lines of play (more recent bans typically focus on one to two dominant strategies or card combinations). It just suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of both the standard environment and, likely, the game as a whole. I suppose I'd hoped they'd grown out of that.
I feel like the recent changes are positive; but I am more concerned now about the game than I have been in a very long while.
As much as people including myself might want SFM unbanned, I think it has a pretty low chance of actually getting unbanned. I think there are two things WotC will find paramount in this discussion:
-future design space limitations
-legacy and modern decks both featuring the card
While there are a few different angles from-which to view SFM, I think WotC will not unban it in order to avoid making modern look more like legacy, and to avoid constraining future design space. These two factors IMO, combined with a general lack of impetus to act, will result in SFM not getting it's deserved unban.
I agree with this. Probably just less of a headache for them to keep it on. Not exactly a great reason for something to stay banned, but I really think the limiting-future-design-space thing has traction. Sure, equipment is powered down now, but it may not stay that way. Plus, no one has faith in their ability to avoid "oops too powerful" cards in any context. SFM magnifies any potential problem down the line.
Regarding JTMS, a recent Channel Fireball video has one of the hosts mentioning that he asked Forsythe about the possibility of an unban. The answer was "never". Not only due to balance issues but because of how hard it would be to ban such an expensive card again should it prove necessary. Not worth it for WotC.
In said video he said he asked him 3 years ago or so. Also, we know, based on Aaron's tweet, that they are hearing the JTMS unbanning arguments and they would bring it up for discussion when modern is brought up.
Regarding the SFM comment. No, that's not why SFM is banned. It was a problem for standard, it is not a problem for modern. They don't consider modern when printing new cards. Also keep in mind that literally ALL the equipments they have printed since Batterskull/swords are pathetic to say the least. There is not such thing as "inevitability of printing a more busted card thatn Batterskull".
SFM, JtmS and MM all received bans based on the same justifications and Standard performance wasn't the justification. It was that they were all Great in Legacy which is still true, even more so for SFM now that top is banned as top decks pushed SFM strategies out of the meta and we are seeing them return.
Given the history of Magic it seems far more likely that they will inevitably print something else broken, because of course they said the same kind of never going to happen again things after Jitte and then Skull clamp.......thats kind of the problem with accidents that produce broken things they are not intentional so how can you intentionally not do something that you never had intended to do in the first place.
You put a flag up on equipment as to make sure it doesn't slip through just like anything else in life. It's not like other things in the game there are only a select few every set so it's not hard to double and triple check them to be sure they're ok. Even more so now with a new test group in the works for feedback. Jitte is the reason sfm is good in legacy and it'll never be legal in modern.
I mean, that is the problem with SFM, I would bet. Even if it would be OK now, having it in the format means they have to be careful about what they do with equipment in the future or risk re-banning him or the new toy. WotC has basically said they want to do the minimum in terms of testing and designing for modern, but at the same time they dislike the bad press from bannings. When you look at it that way, I don't think SFM is coming off. Even if being more careful about equipment wouldn't take that much effort, it is still effort that detracts from their main focus of making cool stuff for standard.
The thing killing the game is the price multiplier factoring into costs on cards. 10 dollars on a single isn't much, but when you need 4x of that card, that suddenly is 40 usd. If a card already costs 40 usd, now it's 160 usd a playset.
See, I don't really agree with this. Magic has always been expensive, especially for top tier decks. Sure, the advent of $40 mythics is relatively new, but you used to spend quite a bit on a range of necessary rares (most rares are now pretty cheap). Cost to play the game is an issue for standard, but it isn't the issue for most. The game has thrived in many environments despite high prices at various times. The problems we are seeing is more that the game has ceased to be fun for at least some people.
As for buying packs vs. singles, packs have rarely, if ever, been a particularly smart choice. However, to echo some of SavannahLion's sentiment, they are now possibly the worst they've ever been. Mythics soak up all of the playability and the value, meaning that, instead of spending $160 on a few playsets for a deck, you only spend it on a playset of one mythic. It is also hard to justify buying into standard when 90% of your purchases will lose all value upon rotation. This is also compounded by the fact that the vast majority of cards one gets in a standard legal pack aren't even standard playable. Chaff has always existed (and is likely necessary to some extent), but amount of chaff to playable has become severely out of whack recently.
I don't think price is as much of an issue for Modern, however. Expensive formats have always existed, and they are kind of aspirational in nature. It gives people something to work towards and trade into, either with other players or shops. When I played vintage, I was able to trade into several pieces of power in that manner. It wasn't easy, and it took a while to get a functioning deck together, but it was a cool long term project, while I was playing mostly standard at the time (this was before the rise of legacy as an ideal format). Although WotC doesn't fix supply issues completely for modern, the master's sets, for all of their flaws, do address it in some ways. Without them, Goyf would be at Lotus prices. Either way, it is in WotC's interests to have a bar for modern entry, at least while they are trying to support standard as the premier format.
All together, here would be my suggestions for WotC:
1. Flatten the power differential in Standard packs; mythics should have a bit less power, while everything else should be a bit better; I'm sure that they can make solid draft environments with less unplayable chaff and good mythics will still be desired even if they aren't the only thing of any value in a set.
2. Drop the price on modern master's packs, increase the supply somewhat (still limited, but more easily available) and be willing to occasionally introduce new modern/legacy/vintage legal cards through these sets. I think their concern will be that setting modern legality with master's sets will be counter-intuitive for some, but modern players are used to complexity and checking legality anyway, so the actual impact in terms of player confusion would likely be negligible. Moreover, increasing the accessibility of masters sets somewhat, would drop some prices, but still support them. Once they can directly print to address the format's needs, they may actually be able to shrink the banlist at times.
The point I'm making is that more and more people are going singles for constructed because it is globally being pushed (and rightly so) that packs are a bad sell outside draft and limited, which is mostly played at the start of a season. Then stores have to buy mass amounts of booster boxes to get cards to sell to players and race the draft and limited openings to turn profit, getting saddled with a relentless stream of bulk fodder just to stock the cards getting used in constructed.
Wizards developers should know what cards are basically down powered versions of another card, so why are they forcing singles sellers to open tons of boxes instead of printing seller only card sets and providing better moderation? That way prices stay at least somewhat more controllable and actually gives a purpose to the wpn program.
Because it would eventualy hit the open market, only takes one store to start selling em. I know if given the oppertunity to purchases full sets from my store say at $100 or foil sets at $200, Much cheaper then buying boxes hopeing to get what you want when you can pay 1 fix fee and get EVERYTHING you want, it creates a price cieling for sets (at least until they are out of print) The last thing single sellers want to do is create a price ceiling.
But that is why they'd have to be wpn stores. If a box gets sold directly wizards can track that to a specific source and they lose the privilege to get those sets. Not to mention get to know important information about the set far ahead of non wpn locations. Moderation is your friend.
And in before someone says they can't hope to track them: oh yes they can. They can track some of the most obscure stuff imaginable via intentional print defects, order numbers, region of distribution, etc. The store would get pretty screwed if they tried to sell a limited run time locked vendor only distributable product.
And if the store sells them in a way that doesn't use a way that is traceable for any reason the distributor who sold that product will get the flack.
I'm not sure I understand your suggestion. Several times I've heard you present arguments about how to make magic cheaper (I don't disagree with you, it is expensive), but this one would likely kill the game. First off, why would anyone buy packs if wpn stores just have the singles (and relatively cheap)? At that point, really we are just going the route of a living card game, rather than a collectible one, aren't we? Like it or not, the collectable nature of Magic, as well as associated values, is really one of the major reasons the game, as a product, works.
Again, maybe I'm just not understanding your proposition.
This is actually a good move. What I take from this is that FFL was really a secondary responsibility for those on the team. Honestly, you want a group that can focus solely on interactions and play without having to worry about flavor, creating cards, crafting a limited environment. All that other stuff is important, but I feel like it is a good idea for people, who have no investment in the creation process, to be overseeing how it actually plays. We've seen plenty of times where they thought some subtheme they created would be a dominant strategy and then missed the less restrictive options. Part of that may be due to bias in the creation process, like a focus on creative interactions you had a hand in creating. I have to imagine designing cards feels rewarding when you do something clever or different or make a new playstyle. Competitive magic isn't like that. Novel strategies will typically be avoided unless they are the best thing in the room. However, those novel strategies probably take much more effort to create and tune.
@Manite: Your not wrong that it is possible to have environments too skewed towards answers. Also, bolt in standard was pretty limiting for creatures. That being said, I firmly believe that all viable threats should have viable answers in the same environment, at least for standard anyway. Doom blade, or a similar effect, feels like a largely necessary card to me.
I'm part of the "we need better counterspells crew," but for standard, that doesn't mean counterspell explicitly (for modern, however, it does). The best environments forced you to choose your threats acknowledging that you would see main-deck answers in a lot of decks. Most of the stuff you listed is side-board stuff at best. Narrow answers have a place, but some broad answers are necessary for balance. With good answers, the threat power level can be pretty high. Without it, you end up in problem town. Splinter twin existed in standard previously and was not a problem deck. The copycat thing was a problem because it was closer to putting splinter twin into homelands, where it was far and away the best thing. Do you really feel like having only planeswalker and creature centric decks makes for a fun environment?
Also, just a small note - Mark Rosewater has stated that they are planning some form of change to company policy following this Cat-astrophe. (Sorry.) As far as I understand, however, it's not coming to be for a while though due to the long development cycle.
I may have missed that. Where does Maro get into there being a policy change? I know about the intention of making answers better going forward, but is this something else?
While other users reply, I just wanted to give you the actual source.
letsbehonestaboutmagic asked: The biggest issue I have with the banning of felidar is that it is either dishonest or inconsistent with things Wizards has said before. It has been said by Wizards repeatedly that one tournament, or one weekend, or one week is not a good measure of a format, that you have to give it time to adjust. So either the emergency ban was based on level of complaints and not data or you ignored your own rules about letting a format adjust. Either way, this is what hurts my confidence in magic
We made a decision. There was a large outcry from the audience. We then got some strong data pointing out that things weren’t likely going to get better. You would have more faith in us if we just let Standard be horrible for a large number of weeks?
Look, we made a mistake and as a result got ourself into a spot were there was no good answer, so we picked what we thought was the better answer of the choices we had.
I understand that mistakes like this shake the players’ faith in us. I don’t want you all interpreting me explaining why it happened for me dismissing the concern.
We messed up. We’re owning up to it and we’re trying to take steps to learn and ensure we don’t repeat the same mistakes. I promise you behind the scenes we’re taking serious action to change how we do things. (More info on this to come soon.)
Please just remember, due to our reaction time, these changes will take a while to get to all of you.
In short, we screwed up, we’re sorry. We’re working hard to regain your trust.
Thanks, I hadn't seen that particular mea culpa. It sounds like they are having a hard time balancing business decisions with game-related R&D. There seems to be this pressure for MTG to be more than it is (either a franchise or Hearthstone, or both; as well as more profitable) and I think the game is on its weakest footing this last decade. I'm not sure what they are going to change, but hopefully they see that this particular model is not working well.
Here's what I think. I think they said somewhere that BFZ was the best selling block or large set of all time when it got released. This is of course surprising seeing how messy the set was mechanics wise. Magic has had a really good run recently in regards to sales. But the upswing has to stop sometime. And I think pretty much everyone at this point agrees that the current design process and philosophy has created some awful standard formats the last year or two. I'm not sure what they're going to do about it business/ban wise (But they're definitely going to change something, as promised), but I'm very sure they're going to create better answers from a design standpoint from now on.
The ironic thing is that the whole idea of making answers worse was to increase interaction (even those that hate creature combat must admit that creatures is where player interaction mostly happens) by making creatures more durable. But instead creatures with too much board impact severely hampered the ability to counter another player's board state. With the board impact of creatures so potent, it has made deck building more one sided, lessening interaction in that respect.
Personally I think that even though it's a horrible business decision, it was much better than not to ban Felidar Guardian as an addendum. I've lost trust in WotC but I'd trust them less if they hadn't. Imagine standard with an even more overpowered copycat combo. Jeeze.
Yeah, I agree. The ban needed to happen; I'm still surprised they didn't do it sooner. I'll give WotC this, they are trying and they are listening. This whole MTG thing is a lot more complicated that we sometimes give them credit for. There are only so many things that they can do, and, at a certain point, they just have to wait. I mean, it could be worse, they could always be games workshop. I think GW resents the idea of rules at all in some ways.
That doesn't lessen the frustration of those who bought/traded into copycat on the faith that it was around for a few weeks only to be screwed out of their deck in two days. That, I think, is a fairly unique complaint for MTG, and one that has a lot of weight.
people talking about this shaking their confidence is hilarious to me, because the timing of this ban did the exact opposite for me. I loved it, because the real thing hurting the game and stifling the creativity of any format is the spikes. They contribute nothing to the meta, buy the least product, do the least amount of thinking and testing, and yet they walk into tournaments, fnm's, etc... and walk away with all the prize support. This timing on the ban was perfect; it showed that WotC cares about the health of the game, not the meager one time investment of the net deckers. They fix, or at least give the format a chance to be fixed, with the ban, and by delaying it they caught at least some of the problem players buying into decks they can't use now. You can call me a hater if you like, but the truth is no one likes playing net deckers, no one. Sure some will say it helps you get better, but if that's true then this should have been the best standard ever. You only had two decks to learn how to beat. Right? exactly. everyone hated it. that's how every FNM is because there is always one or two people coming in with the newest busted deck, with an attitude problem, pretending they are better than everyone when they did no work or thinking themselves. Having played across different areas of the US since 1993 it has always been exactly the same. its not one store, or one meta, or one standard. It's us. and our inability to handle even the chance of not winning every game.
Jeez man, calm down. Netdecking is kind of an outmoded term; I mean, how would you stop it? If you did stop it, how does that make things better? At the end of the day, you are just limiting your knowledge of how a system of game pieces work together. I've only been playing since 1996, and people used to copy decks out of inquest, it is just how a thing works. People copy strategies in every game ever made, it is the nature of rule-sets. I get the frustration of having this great original idea and then not being able to implement it because, at the end of the day, it isn't good enough in the current meta. I know a lot of "spikes" who deal with that exact issue. Everyone has to manage their desire for innovation, doing something they like, doing something powerful, and winnning in every MTG metagame. If anything, WotC's current design problems are likely, in part, due to a desire to let less competitive players play big stuff and have it be good. I have never seen a "spike" complain about removal or answers being too good; with my less competitive friends it is an occasional gripe. Also, most competitive players want there to be some variance in the competitive environment; I don't think anyone likes two-deck metas, regardless of what is in it.
I don't consider myself a spike, but I do think you get better playing against those who invest time, money, and resources at being the best in an area. Yeah, some decks are no fun to play against, but that is not always true of "net-decks." I've also seen a lot of people fall flat on their face by bringing high performing decks that don't take into account the local metagame. I will say, I doubt you get better at the game by playing against people who don't care about winning, not that there is anything wrong with that.
Also, I'm going to call you out a bit on the whole ban having "caught at least some of the problem players buying into decks they can't use now." First off, regardless of what you enjoy about MTG, you should be invested in its continued health. Circumstances like the current one are brutally detrimental to the game. It really should shake your confidence in MTG, they said one thing, then did another. I think it was for the right reason, but that is the very definition of an untrustworthy act. Second, you are complaining about "spikes" like they are bad people in some way; have a little empathy for people who enjoy the game differently than you are who got a bit screwed the recent announcement. They are not "problem players" any more than anyone else is. If you really want to play something without netdecking, play a novel format; I promise you, out of any random group of people, someone will care about winning more, "spike" is a relative term.
Also, just a small note - Mark Rosewater has stated that they are planning some form of change to company policy following this Cat-astrophe. (Sorry.) As far as I understand, however, it's not coming to be for a while though due to the long development cycle.
I may have missed that. Where does Maro get into there being a policy change? I know about the intention of making answers better going forward, but is this something else?
While other users reply, I just wanted to give you the actual source.
letsbehonestaboutmagic asked: The biggest issue I have with the banning of felidar is that it is either dishonest or inconsistent with things Wizards has said before. It has been said by Wizards repeatedly that one tournament, or one weekend, or one week is not a good measure of a format, that you have to give it time to adjust. So either the emergency ban was based on level of complaints and not data or you ignored your own rules about letting a format adjust. Either way, this is what hurts my confidence in magic
We made a decision. There was a large outcry from the audience. We then got some strong data pointing out that things weren’t likely going to get better. You would have more faith in us if we just let Standard be horrible for a large number of weeks?
Look, we made a mistake and as a result got ourself into a spot were there was no good answer, so we picked what we thought was the better answer of the choices we had.
I understand that mistakes like this shake the players’ faith in us. I don’t want you all interpreting me explaining why it happened for me dismissing the concern.
We messed up. We’re owning up to it and we’re trying to take steps to learn and ensure we don’t repeat the same mistakes. I promise you behind the scenes we’re taking serious action to change how we do things. (More info on this to come soon.)
Please just remember, due to our reaction time, these changes will take a while to get to all of you.
In short, we screwed up, we’re sorry. We’re working hard to regain your trust.
Thanks, I hadn't seen that particular mea culpa. It sounds like they are having a hard time balancing business decisions with game-related R&D. There seems to be this pressure for MTG to be more than it is (either a franchise or Hearthstone, or both; as well as more profitable) and I think the game is on its weakest footing this last decade. I'm not sure what they are going to change, but hopefully they see that this particular model is not working well.
Also, just a small note - Mark Rosewater has stated that they are planning some form of change to company policy following this Cat-astrophe. (Sorry.) As far as I understand, however, it's not coming to be for a while though due to the long development cycle.
I may have missed that. Where does Maro get into there being a policy change? I know about the intention of making answers better going forward, but is this something else?
- After Felidar was spoiled a pro wrote an article just about the very next day outing the combo. They said they missed it. Instead of a pre-ban, they actually posted an article highlighting the combo as if it were something good for everyone to see. It's not just hindsight that shows they're wrong, pros have been telling them since discovery that combo was degenerate and going to warp the format. Did they not remember why they banned splinter twin?? Here we are now.
*Snip*
I just wanted to highlight that, while they certainly missed the cat combo, Splinter twin was never a problem in standard. I think this is important to mention, as it reflects that a major part of the current problem (as others have mentioned) is their current design philosophy. They have been tuning threats up since at least M10 and tuning answers down for the last few years at least. On top of that, the loss of the core set and shift to two block design has likely proved to be a more complex problem than they were expecting. On top of THAT, the expectation of what blocks would be in standard shifted after theses sets were designed but before we got them. That is a lot of changes to a process that has functioned, more or less, for the last 20ish years.
It is also worth mentioning that the current standard's woes are somewhat unique. I remember caw-blade being busted and that sucked, but the format was kinda cool outside of that. However, it just seems like current standard is kinda miserable for some reason. Hopefully this ban helps it, but I don't know that I have felt this way about past standards, even when I didn't like them.
This is the best answer to sis's issues. Magic really isn't an e-sport, nor has it ever really been so. WotC would like that to change, but, honestly, anything where the playing field isn't equal has a hard time being called a sport of any type.
Now, as a hobby, it shines. Diversity is a boon for those who enjoy trying different strategies and it often makes playing the game as a whole more fun, even if it makes occasional match-ups really crappy. This is why modern can be a great format for some (most?); it lets you play interesting and powerful cards and not necessarily the same ones as your opponent.
Pro magic is a marketing ploy, nothing more. Modern is a good format for what it is. But magic is the proto-gatcha game; their need to vary power levels to sell cards means that gameplay will always have a backseat to what sells. Real e-sports sell cosmetics, not randomized gameplay pieces.
I don't know, the problem with moon is that you have to run very particular decklists to not screw yourself with the effect. Something like this could be fielded by a wide variety of decks to give some cover against tron and variants while also not actively hurting you. Moreover, it has the added effect of being largely unhelpful against more typical manabases. In this way, it could be effective, but narrow, which is solid place for a hate card to be.
Moon is so powerful, it has been a core part of the strategies that can run it. That, to me, isn't quite the same as a hate card, it just happens to function well as one.
At 1G, I believe prismatic moon would see sideboard adoption.
Again, I wouldn't get my hopes up.
I think I agree with this. I still trade when I am able, but the mythic rarity basically means that you are often trying to trade a bunch of stuff for one playable mythic. Prior to that, when value was more distributed across lower rarities, you had more rare-to-rare trades. Generally speaking, it is much more difficult to get a person to agree to a trade for several lower value cards for one high value meta card; typically they are saving that card for another high value meta card, not for random playables. There are exceptions to this, but, overall, the centralized value of mythics makes trading much worse. In contrast, it starts to make trading a bunch of $3-5 cards to the store more viable. Let's say you have a random assortment of cards in that range, totaling $60 in value. You are likely to find people to trade with for at least some of them, but those people likely only need a handful of the range, meaning they are unlikely to trade a single $30 card for 1/2 the lot. Most of the time, they will be open to trades of like-for-like, meaning you will have a different assortment of $3-5 cards OR, you might be able to trade up to something like a $10 card with some group of them. As a result, if you want that $30 mythic, the most reliable and time-efficient way is to trade the store. "Pimp" cards are a bit different as, due to the subjective value, you can sometimes find people willing to trade for several lesser-value playable cards, as it can be challenging to find others willing to trade a meta card for a same value "fancy" card, but most of the time that stuff gets traded to the store as well.
Regardless of intent, this feels like taking something away. That never goes over well. FEM-competitive players are going to grouse, and it could sour the whole FNM shebang--which is pretty bad considering the problems standard has had to deal with recently.
Also, nothing like trying to scare away your biggest fans from something.
I feel like the recent changes are positive; but I am more concerned now about the game than I have been in a very long while.
I agree with this. Probably just less of a headache for them to keep it on. Not exactly a great reason for something to stay banned, but I really think the limiting-future-design-space thing has traction. Sure, equipment is powered down now, but it may not stay that way. Plus, no one has faith in their ability to avoid "oops too powerful" cards in any context. SFM magnifies any potential problem down the line.
I mean, that is the problem with SFM, I would bet. Even if it would be OK now, having it in the format means they have to be careful about what they do with equipment in the future or risk re-banning him or the new toy. WotC has basically said they want to do the minimum in terms of testing and designing for modern, but at the same time they dislike the bad press from bannings. When you look at it that way, I don't think SFM is coming off. Even if being more careful about equipment wouldn't take that much effort, it is still effort that detracts from their main focus of making cool stuff for standard.
See, I don't really agree with this. Magic has always been expensive, especially for top tier decks. Sure, the advent of $40 mythics is relatively new, but you used to spend quite a bit on a range of necessary rares (most rares are now pretty cheap). Cost to play the game is an issue for standard, but it isn't the issue for most. The game has thrived in many environments despite high prices at various times. The problems we are seeing is more that the game has ceased to be fun for at least some people.
As for buying packs vs. singles, packs have rarely, if ever, been a particularly smart choice. However, to echo some of SavannahLion's sentiment, they are now possibly the worst they've ever been. Mythics soak up all of the playability and the value, meaning that, instead of spending $160 on a few playsets for a deck, you only spend it on a playset of one mythic. It is also hard to justify buying into standard when 90% of your purchases will lose all value upon rotation. This is also compounded by the fact that the vast majority of cards one gets in a standard legal pack aren't even standard playable. Chaff has always existed (and is likely necessary to some extent), but amount of chaff to playable has become severely out of whack recently.
I don't think price is as much of an issue for Modern, however. Expensive formats have always existed, and they are kind of aspirational in nature. It gives people something to work towards and trade into, either with other players or shops. When I played vintage, I was able to trade into several pieces of power in that manner. It wasn't easy, and it took a while to get a functioning deck together, but it was a cool long term project, while I was playing mostly standard at the time (this was before the rise of legacy as an ideal format). Although WotC doesn't fix supply issues completely for modern, the master's sets, for all of their flaws, do address it in some ways. Without them, Goyf would be at Lotus prices. Either way, it is in WotC's interests to have a bar for modern entry, at least while they are trying to support standard as the premier format.
All together, here would be my suggestions for WotC:
1. Flatten the power differential in Standard packs; mythics should have a bit less power, while everything else should be a bit better; I'm sure that they can make solid draft environments with less unplayable chaff and good mythics will still be desired even if they aren't the only thing of any value in a set.
2. Drop the price on modern master's packs, increase the supply somewhat (still limited, but more easily available) and be willing to occasionally introduce new modern/legacy/vintage legal cards through these sets. I think their concern will be that setting modern legality with master's sets will be counter-intuitive for some, but modern players are used to complexity and checking legality anyway, so the actual impact in terms of player confusion would likely be negligible. Moreover, increasing the accessibility of masters sets somewhat, would drop some prices, but still support them. Once they can directly print to address the format's needs, they may actually be able to shrink the banlist at times.
I'm not sure I understand your suggestion. Several times I've heard you present arguments about how to make magic cheaper (I don't disagree with you, it is expensive), but this one would likely kill the game. First off, why would anyone buy packs if wpn stores just have the singles (and relatively cheap)? At that point, really we are just going the route of a living card game, rather than a collectible one, aren't we? Like it or not, the collectable nature of Magic, as well as associated values, is really one of the major reasons the game, as a product, works.
Again, maybe I'm just not understanding your proposition.
@Manite: Your not wrong that it is possible to have environments too skewed towards answers. Also, bolt in standard was pretty limiting for creatures. That being said, I firmly believe that all viable threats should have viable answers in the same environment, at least for standard anyway. Doom blade, or a similar effect, feels like a largely necessary card to me.
I'm part of the "we need better counterspells crew," but for standard, that doesn't mean counterspell explicitly (for modern, however, it does). The best environments forced you to choose your threats acknowledging that you would see main-deck answers in a lot of decks. Most of the stuff you listed is side-board stuff at best. Narrow answers have a place, but some broad answers are necessary for balance. With good answers, the threat power level can be pretty high. Without it, you end up in problem town. Splinter twin existed in standard previously and was not a problem deck. The copycat thing was a problem because it was closer to putting splinter twin into homelands, where it was far and away the best thing. Do you really feel like having only planeswalker and creature centric decks makes for a fun environment?
Yeah, I agree. The ban needed to happen; I'm still surprised they didn't do it sooner. I'll give WotC this, they are trying and they are listening. This whole MTG thing is a lot more complicated that we sometimes give them credit for. There are only so many things that they can do, and, at a certain point, they just have to wait. I mean, it could be worse, they could always be games workshop. I think GW resents the idea of rules at all in some ways.
That doesn't lessen the frustration of those who bought/traded into copycat on the faith that it was around for a few weeks only to be screwed out of their deck in two days. That, I think, is a fairly unique complaint for MTG, and one that has a lot of weight.
Jeez man, calm down. Netdecking is kind of an outmoded term; I mean, how would you stop it? If you did stop it, how does that make things better? At the end of the day, you are just limiting your knowledge of how a system of game pieces work together. I've only been playing since 1996, and people used to copy decks out of inquest, it is just how a thing works. People copy strategies in every game ever made, it is the nature of rule-sets. I get the frustration of having this great original idea and then not being able to implement it because, at the end of the day, it isn't good enough in the current meta. I know a lot of "spikes" who deal with that exact issue. Everyone has to manage their desire for innovation, doing something they like, doing something powerful, and winnning in every MTG metagame. If anything, WotC's current design problems are likely, in part, due to a desire to let less competitive players play big stuff and have it be good. I have never seen a "spike" complain about removal or answers being too good; with my less competitive friends it is an occasional gripe. Also, most competitive players want there to be some variance in the competitive environment; I don't think anyone likes two-deck metas, regardless of what is in it.
I don't consider myself a spike, but I do think you get better playing against those who invest time, money, and resources at being the best in an area. Yeah, some decks are no fun to play against, but that is not always true of "net-decks." I've also seen a lot of people fall flat on their face by bringing high performing decks that don't take into account the local metagame. I will say, I doubt you get better at the game by playing against people who don't care about winning, not that there is anything wrong with that.
Also, I'm going to call you out a bit on the whole ban having "caught at least some of the problem players buying into decks they can't use now." First off, regardless of what you enjoy about MTG, you should be invested in its continued health. Circumstances like the current one are brutally detrimental to the game. It really should shake your confidence in MTG, they said one thing, then did another. I think it was for the right reason, but that is the very definition of an untrustworthy act. Second, you are complaining about "spikes" like they are bad people in some way; have a little empathy for people who enjoy the game differently than you are who got a bit screwed the recent announcement. They are not "problem players" any more than anyone else is. If you really want to play something without netdecking, play a novel format; I promise you, out of any random group of people, someone will care about winning more, "spike" is a relative term.
Thanks, I hadn't seen that particular mea culpa. It sounds like they are having a hard time balancing business decisions with game-related R&D. There seems to be this pressure for MTG to be more than it is (either a franchise or Hearthstone, or both; as well as more profitable) and I think the game is on its weakest footing this last decade. I'm not sure what they are going to change, but hopefully they see that this particular model is not working well.
I may have missed that. Where does Maro get into there being a policy change? I know about the intention of making answers better going forward, but is this something else?
I just wanted to highlight that, while they certainly missed the cat combo, Splinter twin was never a problem in standard. I think this is important to mention, as it reflects that a major part of the current problem (as others have mentioned) is their current design philosophy. They have been tuning threats up since at least M10 and tuning answers down for the last few years at least. On top of that, the loss of the core set and shift to two block design has likely proved to be a more complex problem than they were expecting. On top of THAT, the expectation of what blocks would be in standard shifted after theses sets were designed but before we got them. That is a lot of changes to a process that has functioned, more or less, for the last 20ish years.
It is also worth mentioning that the current standard's woes are somewhat unique. I remember caw-blade being busted and that sucked, but the format was kinda cool outside of that. However, it just seems like current standard is kinda miserable for some reason. Hopefully this ban helps it, but I don't know that I have felt this way about past standards, even when I didn't like them.