[Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 07/13/2020)

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Post by CurdBros » 4 years ago

On the London Mulligan argument- Many of you have actually changed my mind a bit. That happens sometimes when we have civil and logical discussions I guess :). I originally thought that the London rule definitely was very bad for constructed magic (especially non-rotating or powerful formats) and it needed to go. However, after reading some of your posts I am not as sure as I was. I really like the idea (EDIT-sorry [mention]idSurge[/mention] ), that WOTC should have had a ban in mind for Tron in modern when the rule was implemented rather than just switching. Really only Tron, Neobrand, and some other combo/linear decks really benefited more from the rule, but all decks benefited from the rule at the same time. I originally wanted to go back to the Vancouver mulligan, but with a ban or two maybe the London mulligan rule still creates more real games of magic and could stick around. You have all made me doubt myself :). I think if the ban list is more accurately curated than the London Mulligan rule would be beneficial. I would be interested to try like a 50 game set of three different matchups with each rule and see which one ended with more "actual" games and if it rule exponentially helped the more combo oriented deck.

EDIT - *Sorry for the back to back posts*. I didn't realize no one had posted and should have put both on one post even though they were unrelated.
Last edited by CurdBros 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

No, wasnt me. A common argument for the London Mull is "if it makes X too good, ban X", but thats just not the right answer, because it will ALWAYS favor decks which are linear and function on <7 card hands, more so than typical Midrange or Control.
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Post by True-Name Nemesis » 4 years ago

CurdBros wrote:
4 years ago
True-Name Nemesis wrote:
4 years ago
Seems like WoTC finding YET another way to screw around with competitive play now for I wanna say the 3rd time since 2019 began?

https://magic.gg/news/2020-grand-prix-player-points-cap
I don't understand. So you have to spike the first two events you play in or decide which events you think you will do well in and let WOTC know that the other events don't count for your points. Isn't this a direct disincentive to go to more than two events? Magic is a grind/marathon not a sprint. I like when the grinders who are committed to attending events are rewarded. Am I reading this incorrectly?
By default it's the 1st 2 you attend UNLESS you specifically inform them before the round starts that you do not want this event counted for your points.

The real kick in the nuts here is that they announced this 1 day before the 1st event of the year.

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Post by CurdBros » 4 years ago

[mention]idSurge[/mention] - I should have went back and looked at who made the argument originally, but I am too lazy ;). I edited my post. I tend to agree that the london mulligan rule disproportionately helps the combo decks that don't interact. It does help the control and midrange decks, but not as much so in the end I think it's better to go back to the Vancouver mulligan. I will admit that I hadn't thought about the ban argument yet though. I also think going back to the Vancouver rule adds a bit more incentive to add deck manipulation to decks like serum visions, once upon a time, etc which I think is a good thing personally. I would love to see an unban of Preordain and a move back to the Vancouver mulligan rule.

[mention]True-Name Nemesis[/mention] - I just don't understand the reasoning behind this rule. Why limit the points to only two events that you have to chose before? Why not reward those who travel more and put in more effort over the long run? It just seems to disincentive people from attending multiple events to qualify. And I agree that the timing literally couldn't be worse unless they did it tomorrow morning.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Yeah. I mean I just dont see how the rule helps all decks equally, it cannot, when some decks work on < 7 cards and synergy between 3 or 4 cards tops, vs decks that run on card advantage or attrition.

We cannot have it both ways. either the LM is doing nothing, or it helps linear aggressive decks more so than traditional midrange/control, and linear decks dont need the help in Modern.
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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

True-Name Nemesis wrote:
4 years ago
Seems like WoTC finding YET another way to screw around with competitive play now for I wanna say the 3rd time since 2019 began?

https://magic.gg/news/2020-grand-prix-player-points-cap
Yikes. Everything about this is low-key, or maybe not so low-key, one of the worst pieces of Magic news I've heard in the last few months. This will have significant, negative impacts on paper Magic and Modern if it goes through.

On the surface, Wizards probably wants us to believe this incentivizes playing Magic "for fun," moving the GP scene away from regular grinders who play dozens of events in a year to try and qualify for an MC. It also may disrupt the usual pro scene in favor of Arena and local players, who can't afford/attend all the GP that grinders do, but can have comparable success on Arena. In those regards, this might seem like an okay shift that opens up competitive Magic and allows different players with different backgrounds and experiences to make it big.

Under that surface level, however, this news is a nightmare. First of all, this announcement is the classic, archetypal Wizards communication blunder. They're announcing this 24-48 hours before the first GP of the year? With no context, rationale, or explanation about how player points works? This is a major leap backwards in terms of Wizards communication and bodes very poorly for future communication to come in 2020. Second, this is the kind of announcement that disincentivizes a core group of players from regularly attending paper GP. This will result in lower attendance across the board, especially for formats that top players think can't be solved or gamed. This is where we hit the major, negative Modern impact; even at its absolute healthiest, Modern (indeed, most nonrotating formats) are not the preferred choice for pros. Top players would much rather grind out Standard/Limited on Arena, solve those formats, and then jump into two GP in those formats to try and spike a known metagame. This will significantly disadvantage Modern and Pioneer, formats that are much more open and, more importantly, can't be iterated the same way as Arena Standard. When Pioneer comes to Arena, that leaves Modern in an even worse position.

The final reason this announcement is a disaster (final I'm mentioning now; there are probably many more cons) is that it undermines the long-term optics of Grand Prix. Think GP attendance stinks this year and Wizards is shifting more and more towards digital MTG? Wait until 2021 and Wizards reflects on the last year of GP attendance in 2020, finding even lower attendance than before. This is the sort of self-fulfilling announcement that makes GP worse, justifies further reductions in GP, and justifies further shifts to digital MTG away from large paper events. It's like when Wizards embedded MC streams to artificially inflate viewer count, justifying further investment in Arena-based MTG. Of course, Modern, with no current Arena future, is seriously hurt by this shift. Not to mention paper MTG generally.

I don't often play the "right points" game, but I'm going to call it out here. In late 2018 and early 2019, I and a few others predicted Wizards would seriously commit to Arena-based gameplay with Arena MC events and other high-level Arena play. Many dismissed these predictions as alienating of the core paper demographic, logistically difficult, and too radical even for Wizards. Obviously, we saw lots of 2019 Arena play at high levels in a big way that pushed out paper MTG. We're going to see it again in 2020 and worse, we're going to see it at Worlds. Wizards is going to continue this push and announcements like this are part of their long-term arc to significantly reduce paper MTG events in favor of regular Arena esport grind. I predict we get to a point where Magic Fests are relatively rare, multi-format events that Wizards bills as a "community get together." They will happen once every 1-2 months in a few countries, and the idea will be to consolidate all high-level GP paper play to these scarce events. Everything else will ultimately be Arena. We're not there yet but we are absolutely on that arc.
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Post by CurdBros » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
True-Name Nemesis wrote:
4 years ago
Seems like WoTC finding YET another way to screw around with competitive play now for I wanna say the 3rd time since 2019 began?

https://magic.gg/news/2020-grand-prix-player-points-cap
Yikes. Everything about this is low-key, or maybe not so low-key, one of the worst pieces of Magic news I've heard in the last few months. This will have significant, negative impacts on paper Magic and Modern if it goes through.

On the surface, Wizards probably wants us to believe this incentivizes playing Magic "for fun," moving the GP scene away from regular grinders who play dozens of events in a year to try and qualify for an MC. It also may disrupt the usual pro scene in favor of Arena and local players, who can't afford/attend all the GP that grinders do, but can have comparable success on Arena. In those regards, this might seem like an okay shift that opens up competitive Magic and allows different players with different backgrounds and experiences to make it big.

Under that surface level, however, this news is a nightmare. First of all, this announcement is the classic, archetypal Wizards communication blunder. They're announcing this 24-48 hours before the first GP of the year? With no context, rationale, or explanation about how player points works? This is a major leap backwards in terms of Wizards communication and bodes very poorly for future communication to come in 2020. Second, this is the kind of announcement that disincentivizes a core group of players from regularly attending paper GP. This will result in lower attendance across the board, especially for formats that top players think can't be solved or gamed. This is where we hit the major, negative Modern impact; even at its absolute healthiest, Modern (indeed, most nonrotating formats) are not the preferred choice for pros. Top players would much rather grind out Standard/Limited on Arena, solve those formats, and then jump into two GP in those formats to try and spike a known metagame. This will significantly disadvantage Modern and Pioneer, formats that are much more open and, more importantly, can't be iterated the same way as Arena Standard. When Pioneer comes to Arena, that leaves Modern in an even worse position.

The final reason this announcement is a disaster (final I'm mentioning now; there are probably many more cons) is that it undermines the long-term optics of Grand Prix. Think GP attendance stinks this year and Wizards is shifting more and more towards digital MTG? Wait until 2021 and Wizards reflects on the last year of GP attendance in 2020, finding even lower attendance than before. This is the sort of self-fulfilling announcement that makes GP worse, justifies further reductions in GP, and justifies further shifts to digital MTG away from large paper events. It's like when Wizards embedded MC streams to artificially inflate viewer count, justifying further investment in Arena-based MTG. Of course, Modern, with no current Arena future, is seriously hurt by this shift. Not to mention paper MTG generally.

I don't often play the "right points" game, but I'm going to call it out here. In late 2018 and early 2019, I and a few others predicted Wizards would seriously commit to Arena-based gameplay with Arena MC events and other high-level Arena play. Many dismissed these predictions as alienating of the core paper demographic, logistically difficult, and too radical even for Wizards. Obviously, we saw lots of 2019 Arena play at high levels in a big way that pushed out paper MTG. We're going to see it again in 2020 and worse, we're going to see it at Worlds. Wizards is going to continue this push and announcements like this are part of their long-term arc to significantly reduce paper MTG events in favor of regular Arena esport grind. I predict we get to a point where Magic Fests are relatively rare, multi-format events that Wizards bills as a "community get together." They will happen once every 1-2 months in a few countries, and the idea will be to consolidate all high-level GP paper play to these scarce events. Everything else will ultimately be Arena. We're not there yet but we are absolutely on that arc.
I have to agree. Your last paragraph in particular seems extremely likely. They have already implemented the "commander zone" or whatever it's called at GP's, sorry Magicfests, to get more players to consider it a gathering rather than a tournament. The name was changed to magicfest for that purpose as well. They have stopped covering paper events and have now disincentivezed people from attending. They can only blame themselves for a drop in paper play. But if that was the plan all along then there is no blame since the plan is working. I just don't know if WOTC really understands or concentrates on the social aspect of magic. Magic is popular first and foremost because it is a great game, maybe the greatest game ever made.

However, another MAJOR reason it's popular is the social aspect of the game. Kitchen table magic makes up a much larger portion of the player base than a majority of serious magic players realize. It's how all of us learned and picked up the game. Local stores thrive on this social interaction. When local stores shut down or people start to play other games when they get together the overall game will suffer including their treasured Arena. That doesn't even crack the surface on people who are just looking for a place they feel they belong. Those who aren't as interested in sports, etc. Heck players like Todd Anderson who had a tough home life and looked forward every day to go to the game store and feel safe and protected with friends he could enjoy the game with. He has shared this on stream and in article so I feel safe in sharing this information about his personal life. It's supposed to be magic "the gathering", I realize the way of the future is digital, but I feel like WOTC needs to make sure they remember where their bread is buttered.

Lastly, from a purely profit driven view, if you don't give an incentive for players to become pros your game will eventually fizzle and die. The reason games like DOTA and league of legends is such a successful esport is because many of the people watching can see themselves becoming a world champion. They know that they can attend events get better and have an avenue to get there. There are of course many hurdles along the way and a lot of hard work and time investment, but it is something that is possible. Pro magic makes is seem more like the 2018 MPL lottery. If you happened to be one of the 30 people on the list and/or one of the lucky individuals that was chosen by WOTC you basically have a pretty free ride for a while. The road to joining the MPL is so daunting and confusing and the group of players is so small, it seems like getting there is much more based on luck than hard work or skill. I am much less impressed when I see Javier Dominguez have a 5-4 record on day one and squeeze into day two of a "pro tour" event with 60+ players, then go onto to win then I am when a "PT" then when someone goes 13-2 over a tournament of 500+ players and then goes onto win. They earned it more in my personal opinion. All we can do is continue to let WOTC know if their product is not something we enjoy, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears lately and the allure of the digital short term profit may be clouding their judgement.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
The final reason this announcement is a disaster (final I'm mentioning now; there are probably many more cons) is that it undermines the long-term optics of Grand Prix. Think GP attendance stinks this year and Wizards is shifting more and more towards digital MTG? Wait until 2021 and Wizards reflects on the last year of GP attendance in 2020, finding even lower attendance than before. This is the sort of self-fulfilling announcement that makes GP worse, justifies further reductions in GP, and justifies further shifts to digital MTG away from large paper events. It's like when Wizards embedded MC streams to artificially inflate viewer count, justifying further investment in Arena-based MTG. Of course, Modern, with no current Arena future, is seriously hurt by this shift. Not to mention paper MTG generally.
If the pro's aren't playing in the GP, there's less of a need to watch it, so less of a need to broadcast. Instead they can focus on sponsored streams on Twitch which have a fraction of the broadcasting cost.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

More updates, more bad news for Modern:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2020-01-10

This article includes zero mention of Modern but some concrete steps towards Pioneer becoming the Arena nonrotating format of choice:
State of the Game wrote:We've also added Pioneer Set Remasters onto the in-concept list, which will include the Amonkhet remaster, as well the additional sets we're working in conjunction with Magic R&D to help bring the most relevant Pioneer cards to MTG Arena. And as we continue to expand the available formats and ways to play, we've started to concept out a rework to our play blade to make organizing and finding these events easier.
R&D will also be working on this project, which means even less Modern support as their attention is split. I will try to incorporate this red flag in my Fixing Modern article on Monday, but honestly, this is yet another datapoint that drives me to concluding Modern is a dead duck. Wizards is going to go all in on Pioneer, Arena, esports, and their current trajectory regardless of what enfranchised players want. The only hope is that there's enough support out there to get some kind of commitment to Modern events, and/or a commitment to Modern on Arena. But as it stands, it's looking very bad and I still expect Modern will be in a horrible place by 2021. The Pioneer pressure and deafening Modern silence is overwhelming.
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Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
I disagree here too. If we use the definition provided a while ago that linear is essentially a word for counting the number of decision points, then it stands to reason that a linear deck has very little variation in their cards. All decks are going to run roughly the same number of cards, and the same numbers of different cards, but a linear deck might be evaluating the subtle difference between tutoring for Urza's Mine/Urza's Power Plant, while a non linear deck can be deciding on wanting to win via using Supreme Verdict into finisher or grindy 1 for 1 trades with incremental advantage in any given game.

Thus, since a linear deck will have a lot of similar cards, a deep mulligan doesn't actually significantly alter the decision tree of a game. Where as a deck with a lot of non linear aspects will have their range of potential actions significantly reduced.
That definition is a really shallow simplification. Linear decks rely on synergy between a given number of cards and not caring what the other deck does. The key metric is how many pieces it needs and how many redundancy it can achieve. The current problem is that the top linear deck either:
  • Have too much redundancy. (Tron)
  • Require too few pieces. (Splinter Twin, Neo)
  • Have too many angles of attack. (Urza)
It has nothing to do with decision points. The actions needed is to tune and reduce these problems via surgical bans.

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Post by robertleva » 4 years ago

[mention]ktkenshinx[/mention] RE the new GP points format:

I completely agree with your assessment, but I disagree with the fallout you describe.

First, you are right, this ultimately is a blow to paper and a boon to digital magic. But fear not sir, if paper magic was going to really die it would be dead long ago. There's something unique about sitting in person playing that digital magic cannot simulate. And this is coming from a person who is heavily invested in MTGO. There is interest in paper magic, WOTC can screw up their game for years and years and we will still come out by the thousands in person to play at our local big event.

The good news here is we may be finally be able to break free of the cycle where "pros" are the ones who set trends. This is really huge for the meta game in the long run in my opinion. I think this will lead to more attention and thus popularity given to the people actually developing new strats. Agreed, it was really %$#% of them to announce it 2 days before the GP. They should be announcing the changes for NEXT year to give people some time,
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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

pierreb wrote:
4 years ago
Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
I disagree here too. If we use the definition provided a while ago that linear is essentially a word for counting the number of decision points, then it stands to reason that a linear deck has very little variation in their cards. All decks are going to run roughly the same number of cards, and the same numbers of different cards, but a linear deck might be evaluating the subtle difference between tutoring for Urza's Mine/Urza's Power Plant, while a non linear deck can be deciding on wanting to win via using Supreme Verdict into finisher or grindy 1 for 1 trades with incremental advantage in any given game.

Thus, since a linear deck will have a lot of similar cards, a deep mulligan doesn't actually significantly alter the decision tree of a game. Where as a deck with a lot of non linear aspects will have their range of potential actions significantly reduced.
That definition is a really shallow simplification. Linear decks rely on synergy between a given number of cards and not caring what the other deck does. The key metric is how many pieces it needs and how many redundancy it can achieve. The current problem is that the top linear deck either:
  • Have too much redundancy. (Tron)
  • Require too few pieces. (Splinter Twin, Neo)
  • Have too many angles of attack. (Urza)
It has nothing to do with decision points. The actions needed is to tune and reduce these problems via surgical bans.
That's a definition, but not the one we were talking about a while back before all this current modern on fire ban talk. A linear deck can care about the opponents cards. In not caring what the opponent does you're essentially describing solitaire. This would make prison, primarily linear but something like Lantern has many, many decisions while ultimately guiding those decisions in such a way that it eliminates the opponent from the game. It's non linear, with a lot of synergy, and ultimately seeks to ignore the opponent.

Alternatively, something like Neoform has few decisions, it is very linear while KCI often played out largely the same but also involved many, many decision points it is a far more complex deck and as such isn't linear.

The real problem with these complaints though is that linear is not an innately bad characteristic.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

robertleva wrote:
4 years ago
The good news here is we may be finally be able to break free of the cycle where "pros" are the ones who set trends. This is really huge for the meta game in the long run in my opinion. I think this will lead to more attention and thus popularity given to the people actually developing new strats. Agreed, it was really %$#% of them to announce it 2 days before the GP. They should be announcing the changes for NEXT year to give people some time,
Not really, it just shifts the influencers from pro players to popular streamers. Who are probably a little less skilled, thereby popularizing less competitive decks. That makes the job of being a current pro easier, in that people really good at the game have a huge advantage over everyone else, but you also have to redefine what it means to be a pro, since the money goes to streamers with personalities people like. See the difference between Cuneo when he streamed and Cheon. Cuneo is 1000 times a better player, but Cheon has a more popular personality/following.

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Post by CurdBros » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
More updates, more bad news for Modern:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2020-01-10

This article includes zero mention of Modern but some concrete steps towards Pioneer becoming the Arena nonrotating format of choice:
State of the Game wrote:We've also added Pioneer Set Remasters onto the in-concept list, which will include the Amonkhet remaster, as well the additional sets we're working in conjunction with Magic R&D to help bring the most relevant Pioneer cards to MTG Arena. And as we continue to expand the available formats and ways to play, we've started to concept out a rework to our play blade to make organizing and finding these events easier.
R&D will also be working on this project, which means even less Modern support as their attention is split. I will try to incorporate this red flag in my Fixing Modern article on Monday, but honestly, this is yet another datapoint that drives me to concluding Modern is a dead duck. Wizards is going to go all in on Pioneer, Arena, esports, and their current trajectory regardless of what enfranchised players want. The only hope is that there's enough support out there to get some kind of commitment to Modern events, and/or a commitment to Modern on Arena. But as it stands, it's looking very bad and I still expect Modern will be in a horrible place by 2021. The Pioneer pressure and deafening Modern silence is overwhelming.
I hope roberleva is right that paper magic will never die, because it looks like they are doing everything they can to make it hard on paper magic. From a business standpoint (I am a small business owner) I can see why WOTC would want to concentrate on standard and pioneer and, more specifically, on digital products. It costs far less in the long run to make digital products, the games growth is mainly digital, and they make a lot more by having people constantly updating their decks for the most fresh formats. HOWEVER, they must also concentrate on the foundation of the product (I am a real estate guy). The entire magic home is built on a foundation of a physical card game. In addition, a majority of players are actually kitchen table players (I'm not sure if that is true anymore, but it was). WOTC really has to make sure that they don't disenfranchise these players because the players that have been with the game for a long time;

a) likely have more money as they are more likely to be working with disposable income
b) drive more people to the game via word of mouth or enjoyable experience
c) are much more likely to want to continue to invest in their collections than a new player who may play once and either catch on or leave for another shiny new digital game

Short term profit is the name of business right now and politics (not to be discussed here) and we have all seen the kind of issues that can cause with large business , real estate markets, and even governments (again no specific government). A short term view is healthy as long as it does not completely disregard the long term health of the game. I would be flabbergasted if there wasn't at least one old timer near the top of wizards that doesn't understand that.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

All i think while reading these posts is '%$#%$#% I gotta sell out of paper, completely.'
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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

CurdBros wrote:
4 years ago
A short term view is healthy as long as it does not completely disregard the long term health of the game. I would be flabbergasted if there wasn't at least one old timer near the top of wizards that doesn't understand that.
I think they've changed the long term view of the game. I've been watching a lot of the moves Wizards has made since their new President stepped into his role a couple years ago now. It seems incredibly clear at this point that they want to kill the paper game. It also seems clear that R&D is getting instructions from the top to take far more risks with the cards (or spend far less time developing them).

If I was going to make an analogy to video games here. They're taking a modern day approach where games can and are forcibly patched online in order to be played, as that allows for ongoing revisions. While Magic up to this point has been more along the lines of an older console game (think NES, SNES) where what you shipped is all that people got. There were no patches and a company would succeed by releasing something fun that wasn't broken without the ability to update.

Edit: Essentially, I think their measurement of long term health is no longer the same as what players have previously considered to be the measurements of long term health. I think they see paper markets as either subpar or unsustainable, a desire to eliminate the secondary market, and to be able to charge retail rather than wholesale prices for cards. To put that final point into perspective, Wizards charges about $2/pack wholesale, and it costs them about 50 cents/pack to make and distribute (maybe less now) so they make $1.50 on every pack. In digital there's no printing or shipping costs, the price per pack is $0 (development costs are excluded in both of these), while they sell for $3. It's double the profit per pack. So even with all else being equal, if they lost less than half their players, they would profit.


[mention]idSurge[/mention]
All i think while reading these posts is '%$#%$#% I gotta sell out of paper, completely.
I hear something different. What I hear is that I need to cash out of MTGO now, and give up on ever playing it again. If I want to play online it's X-Mage or nothing. It also seems to me like cards that are in the gap between Legacy and Pioneer are about to tank. Not just because of a lack of ability to play them, but because they've also been saturated beyond their original printing levels due to several waves of reprints. When the demand drops here, it's going to drop hard.

I don't see my paper Legacy staples taking much more of a hit any time soon, but I don't think I'll get much opportunity to play them either. Kind of glad at the moment that I didn't decide to go full Masterpiece with my Affinity deck.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago



This renews at least a tiny bit of faith into WOTC.... let's see if they can keep it going with Monday's announcement too. :hmm: :party:

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

True-Name Nemesis wrote:
4 years ago
Seems like WoTC finding YET another way to screw around with competitive play now for I wanna say the 3rd time since 2019 began?

https://magic.gg/news/2020-grand-prix-player-points-cap
Look at this link again, they changed it allready again... Unbelievable, lolololol

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Yep already backed out.
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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago


This renews at least a tiny bit of faith into WOTC.... let's see if they can keep it going with Monday's announcement too. :hmm: :party:
Remote consultants are a good addition to the team, as it saves Wizards some money but also puts more veteran eyes on design/development decisions. A+ all around, and I hope we see this hiring/contracting practice used more. I suspect this will directly impact Standard and Limited the most, followed by Pioneer and maybe Modern, but a) that still trickles down to Modern eventually, and b) I'd rather at least a few formats be playable than have a moribund Modern and a bunch of other broken formats too.
Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
True-Name Nemesis wrote:
4 years ago
Seems like WoTC finding YET another way to screw around with competitive play now for I wanna say the 3rd time since 2019 began?

https://magic.gg/news/2020-grand-prix-player-points-cap
Look at this link again, they changed it allready again... Unbelievable, lolololol
I normally like to avoid hyperbole about Wizards social media. At the same time, it's so hard to take them seriously when they make so many bad decisions, particularly in the realm of communication. 2020 is not off to a great start. Wizards is becoming (more) notorious than ever for announcing a decision that is fundamentally boneheaded, receiving significant player outcry, and then rolling back the decision. Between social media outreach that is inconsistent and spotty, organized play decisions that hurt players, Play Design that breaks multiple formats to their foundations after existing solely to not do that, multiple Arena announcements/rollbacks, and other nonsense, it just has me puzzled. The level of multi-department incompetence is just baffling at times.
Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010

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Amalgam
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Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

This is also a company that released an online game without a friends list then proceeded to take over 1 year to implement it. I can't name one other company that feels as incompetent as wizards does sometimes. How do you make an announcement and then backtrack it within 24 hours because of how bad it was in the first place

Aazadan
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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Remote consultants are a good addition to the team, as it saves Wizards some money but also puts more veteran eyes on design/development decisions. A+ all around, and I hope we see this hiring/contracting practice used more. I suspect this will directly impact Standard and Limited the most, followed by Pioneer and maybe Modern, but a) that still trickles down to Modern eventually, and b) I'd rather at least a few formats be playable than have a moribund Modern and a bunch of other broken formats too.
Magic has no end to the number of current/former pros who currently work in gaming. Almost all of them have proven themselves to be poor developers/designers. Playing games is a very, very different skill set from making games. I'm not overly familiar with the specifics of Patricks actual work in things he has made but I've listened to enough commentary from him on cards and development decisions that he at least sounds like he knows what he's talking about which is an opinion I've never picked up from several others doing similar work like Kibler, LSV, or Sam Black.

Wizards has been doing this for a couple of years now to what I think are poor/mixed results given the quality of cards we've been seeing.

I think Patrick Sullivan is a very good hire for them for now, but I already think they have several competent people in R&D. I don't think Moderns (or more broadly, Magics) current issues stem from a talent pool issue. I think their main issues right now are process issues, and a heavy dose of interference from upper management.

Aazadan
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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
This is also a company that released an online game without a friends list then proceeded to take over 1 year to implement it. I can't name one other company that feels as incompetent as wizards does sometimes. How do you make an announcement and then backtrack it within 24 hours because of how bad it was in the first place
I can name several. In the industry I'm in (VR/AR development for serious games/training), assuming I put my company as competent (without going into specifics, this could really be argued either way), I think I would only label 3 companies in the entire world as competent in the field right now. And everyone else as a joke.

I've worked in/with enough gaming companies in the past that I also know for a fact that most of them simply have an illusion of competence. Many companies have dedicated employees, and WotC is no different. They want to do well, and will work to the best of their ability. Not everyone is overly capable though, there's a lot of cargo culting that goes on in the industry without understanding why things work which often leads to failure.

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Post by CurdBros » 4 years ago

Wow. That was a fast turnaround on the announcement. They had to know it was a bad idea. Maybe they thought, "let's throw it out there and maybe no one will see it" or "maybe it won't go over that bad".

[mention]Aazadan[/mention] - I agree with you. That's why I said in my original post that as a business decision for WOTC that digital is definitely more profitable because the cost to create cards is so much less (no printing, no shipping, etc). From a purely profit standpoint it's the way of the future. I am just an old fart (in my early 30's) that doesn't like it :)

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Post by robertleva » 4 years ago

We need to call out WOTC for what it really is: It's a company that has has a product that is awesome and relevant, but the company that created the product is operating on principles that were outdated 20 years ago when they first adopted them. Saying that wotc is tight lipped regarding company to player communication is like saying that the ocean is wet. They trickle out a few paragraphs a year, and a few decisions a year. This is utter %$#%$#% by today'd modern gaming standards.

We as gamers deserve a million times better. We deserve bi-weekly ban list updates for every format. They should never let a format rot for 6months until their next decision. They should also be very interactive with the community such as letting the people know what the %$#% they actually intend to do with Modern. Ktk has written an amazing article to this effect.

[mention]ktkenshinx[/mention] Somewhere in your article please please please suggest that they adopt a modernized approach to communicating with their customers. An official forum where devs could post and respond is the very fking least we deserve.
Robert Leva
Creator of Modern's 8Rack Deck
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