mike

joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yea I love it too, for all Arena's issues I think watching Arena gameplay is a lot better than MTGO or even paper for me. I just want them to add the rest of the cards! Come on already!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Haha, I love that. Good lesson there lol

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I honestly don't see a reason to ever unban them. These three have been proven to be unsuitable for the format, and if people really want to play them, I don't see why they wouldn't just be made available in Tier 4. Or some Tier that has no banned cards for the people who want to play that way.

Not to mention that these cards were the heart of the entire controversy that ended the Commander Rules Committee and caused the death threats to come out from some players. That alone would be enough to me to never bring these cards back to the format ever again.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I will secod MakePlayingCards.com as someone else mentioned. However, with the tariff situation this may end up being far too costly to do anymore. We will have to wait and see. I have used MPC a lot in the past and it's always a great experience. The S33 is just like a Magic card.

If you just want to flat rate the cost and have the easiest experience, I would go with https://www.mtgproxy.com/. I've seen good youtube reviews of them and I'm about to order some PreModern proxies soon from here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

First off, I didn't realize MaRo did this for Tempest too. This is awesome.

Tempest block is when I started but Urza's block was my favorite. I was a little too young to go out and draft those sets but I remember following every spoiler and loving every card that came out in Saga, Legacy, Destiny. I also remember my peak excitement as a child was getting a USG booster box for Christmas and cracking a Gaea's Cradle. Needed 4 of those for a deck and I didn't have the $80 for a playset (lol).

Crazy that MaRo was the only designer for Urza's Destiny. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what a designer does here, but that seems really short staffed at a time when the game was very popular.

Original Goblin General (Goblin Marshall) was very much like a Deranged Hermit and I think the tweak they made was better. I really liked the take he had on Echo + Death Triggers. I think that is just a great example of tradeoffs in the older game. It was a cool idea to staple cycling as a (2) + Sacrifice mechanic for permanents.

It would be pretty incredible if they brought Urza's block draft to Arena for an event. I think that would definitely get be back playing regularly.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

I think this is just insane and super confusing. Another huge indicator that the Marvel sets (and probably all of UB) should have never entered Standard. Just make them Commander-only, and you never have this problem. They could release certain UB sets to Arena and not have to push the others if there were digital licensing issues.

Now, instead, we have a huge break in paper/digital that will presumably last and repeat forever. This makes deck list sharing and importing more difficult. This makes watching the game much more difficult. This makes learning the limited environment much more difficult. This is just way confusing and way stupid imo. I guess it's a huge win for Arena players who didn't want Marvel in the game but that's about the only positive I can come up with.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think this has to be it. No way Marvel wants "Spider man card game" to turn up Arena first in search results over Marvel Snap. And this confused me when they first announced a Marvel set given that Snap was already a thing.

I think this is a win for Arena, but it will be super confusing not having the same card names/artwork across paper and digital especially for anyone who plays both. Have to learn everything twice I guess. Deck list importing just got a lot harder too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Still, it’s made me much less interested in Standard given that it was nice to have a lower power format but now it feels almost as fast as other formats.

I remember heavily playing 4c Party back when it was in Standard and that was a viable deck in the format. It would not even get 1 win in the current meta by a long shot. Standard right now feels like what Modern was before Horizons and I just don't think there exists a slow constructed format anymore. Nor do I think there will ever be one again.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I can't help but feel a lot of this could be fixed by creating a separate game. At first I thought UB should be the separate game, and I still do, but it's clear Hasbro will never do that. Perhaps the best outcome could have been a game that returns to the old frame, the old release schedule, the old artwork, and the old play/card design philosophy and just sell it as Classic Magic or something. I would play the crap out of that game, and it would still even be Standard legal since all of the cards are compatible with the original game.

I know it's just a dream at this point, but I think there is still a huge demand for something that's basically premodern with new cards.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is very well written, and one of the best pieces of content we have on this site. You are really amazing, Evu. I have much more to say in another comment after I finish reading everything in full, but I just wanted to echo that I've felt this way for about a year myself, probably longer. It's just getting too hard to enjoy the game, and it's even harder with MTGZone because I really WANT to enjoy the game and be active here and in other communities but I just can't find the love anymore.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

every card that sees play these days does so many things that it’s not even comparable to old standard anymore

This is my biggest gripe with design overall. It has shown its effects most predominantly in Standard since Standard was one of the slowest formats, but I think this problem has caused every format to get a lot faster.

I'm 100% with you, and I desperately want a non-limited, much slower format but I don't know how on earth we get there with Hasbro/WoTC making it pretty clear that they care way more about sales revenue than the game being fun.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

I personally think these are all positive bans. It’s unfortunate that bans are needed every cycle lately, but these are all good ones to me.

Breach is a card that should never have been printed. Yawgmoth’s Will was already insane, and printing the same thing for 1 mana cheaper was a huge mistake imo. This is just now finally catching up to reality. There was talk of banning Mox Opal but I think that is too premature when the obvious issue right now is Breach.

Sowing Mycospawn should never have been printed. And Troll was enabling too much efficiency for Blue/Black decks. I think both of those were the right hits right now. I know there’s tons of talk about banning Reanimate, Daze, Entomb, etc but these are absolutely the right hits for now in my opinion. I think waiting to see what a format without Troll looks like is better than hastily banning any of the core cards. I’d like to see Bowmasters gone next.

 

tylerja-blog asked:

"That’s the nature of Magic. It adapts to the needs of the collective whole. It used to upset me, but I came to realize it is one of the game’s greatest strengths. It becomes the game its players need/want it to be." Is to me, a market-friendly way to say "sloughs emotionally invested players in pursuit of the unremarkable, but widely palatable middle"

Many players like to assume the core of the people making the changes aren’t enfranchised players, but it’s exactly the opposite. Why, for example, is Universes Beyond so popular? Because the people who play the most Magic really adore it.

We’re not ignoring the hard-core Magic players, we’re doing what they say they most want through their actions and in market research.

Magic is a business. Ignoring our core customers would just be bad business.

We make changes because Magic players, and especially our hard-core enfranchised players, want it. Maybe in this particular case it’s not you in particular (or maybe it is, I don’t know), but it’s not us ignoring “emotionally invested players”.

 

izzipurrito asked:

I know this is a big ask, but...

Please no more direct to Modern sets.

If you guys must, at least make it so that it is Standard legal so it is Standard level in power.

 

Some distributors have posted their Aetherdrift order pages and revealed that starting with Aetherdrift, the booster boxes will have 30 packs instead of 36.

I believe it's been stated that the per pack MSRP will not change, meaning the overall box price will just go down accordingly by 1/6th.

A Duskmourn Play booster box is $138 on TCGPlayer, or $3.83 per pack. They are $4.25 when bought individually.

The new MSRP for Aetherdrift $5.50 per pack. If they keep the same price of $140 per box, that would work out to about $4.66 per pack when buying a box. And if they left it at 36 packs it would cost about $168 per box which I think everyone in the world realizes is just far too expensive to buy.

 

For fans of sudden victories, unexpected upsets, and comebacks that come out of nowhere, the 20 Ways to Win Commander deck is loaded with jaw-dropping win conditions that will leave your friends and foes speechless. Now, you'll never have to rely on old-fashioned ways of winning ever again! Featuring ten cards with brand-new artwork in dazzling rainbow foil, this 100-card Commander deck is ready to play (and win) right out of the box.

 
 

Hi Mark,

From one Marvel fan to another, what does the chance of getting access to the otherwise mechanically unique Secret Lair Marvel cards in a later product look like now after the feedback was passed on? Still low? Impossible?

All the unique mechanical cards from the Marvel Secret Lair will appear later in the same mechanical form, possibly with the same name, in some product.

 

Here are some of the biggest brained, 300 IQ Magic plays ever caught on camera!

Some great plays, some of these are more like "tricks" but all of them are really impressive and fun to watch.

 

The Professor gives us his thoughts on the recent Universes Beyond announcements.

 

cross-posted from: https://mtgzone.com/post/1034993

Now an update for @MTG_Arena! Pioneer Masters is coming December 10th 2024! Pioneer Masters brings many cards to MTG Arena for the first time as we work towards our goal of parity with competitive Pioneer in tabletop.

 

Now an update for @MTG_Arena! Pioneer Masters is coming December 10th 2024! Pioneer Masters brings many cards to MTG Arena for the first time as we work towards our goal of parity with competitive Pioneer in tabletop.

 

cross-posted from: https://mtgzone.com/post/1024695

Get 'em while they're hot!

 

Get 'em while they're hot!

view more: ‹ prev next ›