Quote from f1r3wa11For crying out loud, it was a staple in standard rdw until format bece lifegain happy. Don't believe me? Look at all the states lists and scg open lists from last October and November. There a meta games that volcanic hammer is better than searing spear. There are times spear is slow or char is bad for standard. There are also times that char is amazing.
Devil is the sale way, not the best red card ever but in the right meta he's amazing.
And that meta was last October and November. Right now, it's garbage. If you want to prove us wrong, then do some testing with Devil and regale us with your winning decklist at a regional or national event.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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@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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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