How do you feel about Maro admitting that BFZ was a mistake?
>http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/because-salt-makes-mistakes-taste-great-2016-05-09
Apologies mean nothing without reparations.
Easily accessible Legacy and Modern relevant reprints when?
>>47167508
Admitting mistakes is what breeds success. I am glad he is willing to admit BFZ got fucked
>Time Spiral was a mistake
Huh?
>because all of the rare creatures can't be good
Is dis nigga srs? I don't see why all the rares can't be good. Give people a fucking reason to buy your product.
>>47167508
> Maro lists his worst mistakes
> Makes a list of the best sets in Magic
And this is why I stopped playing.
>>47167978
There will always be cards better than other cards, and if every rare was good some would be better than others and some would be worse. It doesn't matter if this creature is a one cost 1/1 with tap, bolt a target if every other rare is more powerful.
>Mistakes
>Kamigawa
>Time Spiral
>Lorwyn
>My three favorite blocks
Well, this explains why I haven't bought a pack since... Innistrad 1?
>>47168207
Well it's working for them, their sales keep going up, shame you're not in the majority
How long before MaRo admits thatMtGwas a mistake?
>>47168154
The problem isn't that some will be better than others, that's natural and expected. The problem is that they feel the need to make some cards, even rare cards, bad on purpose for no reason than to make the good cards look better in comparison. It's a way to pad the card count by funneling people into a more limited number of good cards and an extension D&D 3.5's "ivory tower design", rewarding system mastery by intentionally creating trap options for new players.
That's why it's shit.
>>47168097
>>47168207
He didn't say the entire blocks were mistakes or that the lore was bad. Only that players, especially new players, struggled with specific aspects of them. Which is ironic given his offhanded assumption that ivory tower design is good when it is the definition of fucking new players over.
>>47167783
>>47168343
>Time Spiral was shit because it brought back too many old mechanics and had too many in-jokes that flew over new players' heads
>Make the players do something they inherently want to do, not something you, the game designer, force them to do.
>If your theme isn't common, it isn't your theme.
>Every set is someone's first set.
>There are different types of complexity, and we have to monitor each type.
>When returning to a world, you have to return to the things that players loved about it the first time you visited.
Those are actually just all solid lessons, and magic will probably be better off in the long run for them.
>>47168343
>his offhanded assumption that ivory tower design is good
wtf ru talkin about m8
I think MaRo took away the wrong lesson from BFZ, and the Return to Innistrad suffered for it.
The reason people hated BFZ lore was because it was full of forced gloom and doom drama about a boring conflict that's been done to death in MTG. We already have the Phyrexians and many, many sets of them invading and terrorizing planes. The Eldrazi are just like the Phyrexians except way less interesting and way more cliche.
Originally Return to Innistrad was supposed to focus on the parts of Innistrad that didn't get a lot if screen time before. Distant coastal havens and the deep reaches of the wilderness. A set about a prosperous fantasy renaissance society (that's not constatly under attack by undead creatures) could be really flavourful and interesting, both mechanically and visually.
Instead though, we got what was essentially a retcon, backpedaling past every story development that happened last block because apparently the status quo is god now. And don't forget the forced drama and cliche evil invasion storyline. Gotta have that or else the Jacetice League would have nothing to do.
>>47168639
I stopped playing before phyrexia and just got back into the game with soi, reading back through the lore I missed made eldrazzi seem like watered down phyrexia.
>>47168430
Again, he didn't say the whole block was bad. Just that from the perspective of a new player it could be overwhelming due to the number of mechanics.
>>47168506
He said not all rare cards can be good. The premise underlying that assumption is that some of the cards have to be bad, and it's been said elsewhere that they do this on purpose. That is ivory tower because new players won't understand which trap option cards should be avoided while "enfranchised" players will know to throw them in the trash.
>>47168343
I must have misunderstood what he meant, I assumed that when he said they'd make some bad legendary creatures he meant they would all be compared and people would find some worse than others.
It is fair to note though that all we got was a single sentence on that bit and its hard to make a definitive opinion in either direction about what he meant.
>>47168639
Except Shadows over Innistrad is actually good, though.
>>47168343
>Only that players, especially new players, struggled with specific aspects of them
this legislating for retards shit is consolising mtg for chads, tyrones and beckys
>>47169182
>chads
>tyrones
I'm familiar with thos two, robot, but what the fuck is a becky? Isn't it a stacey?
>>47169182
Who?
>>47169182
>chads, tyrones and beckys
Explain each one of these player archetypes.
>doesn't mention how bad DTK was
shit article
Who else thinks 2-blocks are complete shit ?
>kamigawa
>timespiral
>lorwyn
>mistakes
I must have shit taste, because I fucking loved those blocks.
>>47169698
You loved it because you could handle the mechanics. New players couldn't, so they were mistakes.
>>47169698
I didnt love kamigawa but now when you look at EDH its better than specialy designed commander sets
Time spiral is just the best set aside from mirrodin.
>>47169749
Wasn't Time Spiral one of the single most popular sets ever?
>timespiral and lorwyn were mistakes because they only appealed to enfranchised players
>all these "my favorite set" posts
fucking reading comprehension
>>47169816
So a set's success is measured by how well new players can handle it?
>>47169843
a) Maro isn't even talking about success, he's talking about mistakes in design and design philosophy, like he always does
b) yes, you mongoloid. turning away new customers his how you make an unsuccessful product. He states about timespiral
>For the first time ever, tournament attendance was going up and sales were going down.
>>47169124
Not true. MaRo has directly stated that he purposely designs bad cards so that players feel good when they figure out what cards are good. This is a known part of his design philosophy.
>>47169816
My first set was timespiral and I had no problem understanding it. Cards with old mechanics literally told you what they did. As for the flavor/fluff, it felt like I was catching up with years of MtG lore that I had missed out on, and that was cool as shit.
On the note of Kamigawa:
>By making all of the rare creatures legendary, I guaranteed that we'd have to make some bad legendary creatures, because all of the rare creatures can't be good.
This is a problem with ivory tower design, not a problem with the legendary creatures.
>>47169146
>>47168639
To be fair, though, MaRO is the same nitwit that has stated that literally every expansion from here to infinity will be about the Jacetice League's adventures.
>>47169816
Except Lorwyn was literally my first set. It came out right when I started, so more or less all of the cards I was buying were a mix of Time Spiral and Lorwyn.
>>47170102
Is it really just 'marketing' that we're stuck with the Jacetice League? Or is it a Lightning situation? Because I don't mind seeing recurring characters and shit, I just cannot stand Chandra.Sociopathic firecunt
>>47170089
>I posted a Ren and Stimpy image. That makes your post incorrect.
>>47169427
I'm curious if they map to Johnny, Timmy, and Spike somehow
>>47170147
>>47167508
>axes (the plural of "axis")
>I was sitting across from an employee who was far less experienced, and the intricate web of tribal interactions was mind-melting to them.
Really? Both contempt for and pandering to your readership in the span of three sentences? And people continue to read this shit?
>>47169427
>>47170339
>People who are better than me
>People who are different from me
>People who I act differently around
>>47169109
There's a difference between understanding how something works and understanding if something is good or bad.
Ivory tower design is compatable with making things understandable to new players.
>>47167508
>I was sitting across from an employee who was far less experienced, and the intricate web of tribal interactions was mind-melting to them.
Who the fuck runs Goblin Wizard tribal in Lorwyn, and splashing both warriors and humans? This is a purely bullshit story, it has to be.
How much of a halfwit was this person sitting across from MaRo, the Whiny Autist himself? I have legitimately never had as much fun playing Magic as I did back in my boarding school dorm when Lorwyn came out, and we had over a dozen people all of whom were running tribal decks. Playing both duels, as well as everything from Emperor to Pentagram/Gem, and you knew that So-and-So was the best merfolk playing in the school, while What's-His-Name ran a killer Giant deck along with some Elemental jank as a second deck, and then there's me, running mono Green Goblins and mono Black Goblins, and then there's That-Other-Guy that runs an Elf deck and a Treefolk deck. But don't forget Fag-Man with his rushdown Faeries, or Molester-Man with his Kithkin deck!
>>47170569
Well, given there are no humans in the Lorwyn block, yeah, it is bullshit.
I could do his job better. He's had years to get this right. Oh, one of the most recent sets was trash? No shit? Maro and Wizards deliver mediocrity, after constantly rejecting calls for simple things like reprints.
>>47167508
>races went first as there were more of them
But... that's not true.
>Races
Elementals
Elves
Faeries
Giants
Goblin
Kithkin
Merfolk
Treefolk
Changelings
>Classes
Soldiers
Wizards
Rogues
Warriors
Shaman
Clerics
Druids
Archers
Knights
Assassins
Changelings
>>47170837
>race: Fluid
>class: Druid
Who is this?
>>47170919
No idea what you mean about Fluid, but Morningtide has the Blightsoil Druid, Heritage Druid, and of course the Gilt-Leaf Druid. Plus, it feels a little awkward to list Changelings as a seperate class, because every changeling also qualifies as a druid. Or a merfolk. Or a cleric. Or a Human Child.
>>47170982
And a Mutant Ninja Turtle.
>>47168639
*Citation needed
>>47170569
>How much of a halfwit was this person sitting across from MaRo, the Whiny Autist himself?
Well, it was a woman, so there's that. Otherwise he wouldn't have suddenly starting referring to an individual in the plural halfway through the paragraph.
>>47170919
Basically any angel except Aurelia, Teysa, Kiora, or Gisa.
>>47171449
Only one of those is an angel
>>47170102
That's because that's what Creative's decided they're doing (and likely Brand has forced them to do so that they have Recognizable Characters)
>>47171487
Yeah, I realized that afterward.
List of MTG Fluid Druids:
>Teysa
>Kiora
>Gisa
>Basically any angel except for Aurelia
>>47170619
>I could do his job better
>constantly rejecting calls for simple things like reprints.
How much you value that second bit shows that no, you couldn't. Stupid fuck.
>>47170569
>muh nostalgia
Tribal a shit.
>>47170569
>obvious simplification of the story from eight years ago
>oh no he got the exact combinations wrong, the story is bullshit!
Also, it's a lot more complicated when you're doing sealed, which is what you're doing at a prerelease. When you built your goblin deck, you didn't have to include some faeries and elves due to only having six packs to work with because sealed.
>Start out during Odyssey
>Love all the crazy graveyard shenanigans
>Play during Kamigawa
>Love the idea of the Legendary Theme and Support
>Play during Lorwynn
>Just great fun all around.
>Play during Time Spiral
>Absolutely adore the set specifically because of all the things he mentioned
If he called out Onslaught too, that would have been 5/5 of my favourite sets.
I mean, I get that Every Set Is Someone's New Set, but does that really mean we cannot have old things ever again?
>>47171610
No, it means we can't have the wonderful crazy batshit amount of stuff Time Spiral had ever again, except in supplemental products.
They could do Time Spiral 2 as a Conspiracy type deal.
It really was the best block, but I can honestly understand why it'd be confusing as all fuck to people who hadn't been in the game for a while.
>>47171517
>Aurelia
>not a Fluid Druid
Time Spiral was my first block, I don't know what other people struggled with.
>>47168339
>>47167508
I think he missed (or neglected to mention) that the other layer to the BFZ problem is that it returned to the less-popular ROE setting, but didn't include the ROE-style gameplay that the enfranchised players liked, so no one was happy.
As someone who started in the Time Spiral/Lorwyn era, I agree that they were needlessly complicated. They're some of my favorite sets, and they were still fun enough to get me into the game, but board stalls back then were the fucking worst.
>>47171517
>Aurelia
>not best girl
How can a man have such shit taste?
>>47169146
I really wanted to like it, but I feel underwhelmed when I compare it to Innistrad 1.
>>47170982
Who is this fluid druid?
>>47171757
>>47172305
>usurpers detected
>>47169109
wasn't it an "expert" set? fuck the newbs god damn they can play their core sets
>>47174265
Did YOU start with a core set, or did you start with whatever was the cool new set that just came out?
>>47174510
>with whatever was the cool new set that just came out?
This one and if you are too retarded to understand simple information you can go play with duplos.
>>47174974
The point is that nobody actually starts with the core sets, they start with the actual sets.
And for someone starting out, yes, Time Spiral was a whole shitload of confusing, because there were so many mechanics in there and so many weirdass one-off creatures that - while the words make sense - it's hard to understand WHY. Why does Cloudchaser Kestrel make things white, and why would you want to do that? Why does Cyclopean Giant make things swamps when it dies?
And on top of that, it's quite possible to end up with almost every card in a pack having a different keyworded ability, and that's kind of a lot of information to take in at once
>>47167508
Everything is a mistake for this filthy kike.
And it is because he's playing us from a marketing standpoint. In activism, politics and marketing, promises of change are more valuable than change itself.
>>47169843
There is a block where tourny numbers went up, and sales went down. Its a problem with your advertising is working and your product isnt selling.
>>47167508
I agree with him on the Zendikar thing. It seemed moderately interesting until they focused too hard on the Eldrazi. I hope we never ever go back.
I can't understand why they care so much about fucking over their return customers in favor of pandering to new players, but yet refuse to print good cards. How many people start to get into it, want to build their own deck, see the price tag on the cards they need from 5+ years ago and say "fuck that"?
>>47176223
A lot if people stay kitchen table for their time in the game. I know my nephew just plays precons with his friends at school
>>47169427
Chad plays because the game is popular, he has lots of dispossably income and he got bored of Call of Duty.
Tyrone plays because he can sell the cards Chad leaves in the table after every draft for drugs and playing casual magic while stoned is actually fun.
Becky plays because she wants to fuck both Chad and Tyrone, preferably at the same time.
I'm glad they admitted to the mistake of BfZ. That gives me hope that if they ever revisited Kamigawa, they wouldn't outright scrap the very Japanese flavor of it in favor of a completely pop culture Japanese flavor.
I'm a bit confused about Odyssey block. Me and my friends loved the hell out of that block, and all the graveyard nonsense.
Lorwyn I can understand. The switch to a focus on job classes rather than races was kind of weird, when Onslaught pulled it off nicely (some colors focus on race, others on jobs). But I think Onslaught also succeeded by not being completely invested in tribal themes, whereas it seemed unavoidable in Lorwyn.
>>47167508
Bfz was my 2nd orerelease and the first one i built my own deck, i went 3-1. If the numbers on the cards werent either insignifigant or 1hit ko the set would have been fine.
>>47171610
If he ever calls Onslaught a mistake I'm quitting until he leaves WotC.
Onslaught was the perfect combination of intro-level magic, with powerful spells, combat tricks, card interactions, library manipulation, combos and rules hell situations.
You could teach someone to play magic entirely with ONS block cards and afterwards the only deck they wouldn't be able to pilot competently would be Dredge, the basic functions of everything else are in there.
>>47167508
MaRo is the mistake.
>>47176322
I bet it's all Torment's fault.
You know, for giving black some fucking power.
Imagine how underpowered black would be compared to the rest if Torment had never happened.
There's a thing no one is getting: the only thing WotC cares about is money. Fuck your nostalgia, fuck your interesting sets, fuck your creative designs, etc. They're money vampires.
Fuck Maro and WotC in general. All those sets we love are memories, all those cool cards are never going to get reprinted. We're stuck with the Jacetice League, awful flavor and 1 or 2 "good" cards per set.
Also, remember they only test for standard, sealed and draft, so fuck your modern and legacy, only new players have money.
>but muh modern masters
Fuck you too.
>>47169783
Not among new players, which means it was a failure :^)
>>47171610
>Start out during Urza's
>Nothing will ever compare
>>47176509
Nothing comparesto you.
>>47176566
Was meant for >>47176527
>>47176566
>>47176585
>get (you)
>it was for someone else
kill me
>>47176493
>only new players have money
This is what puzzles me the most.
The average Commander deck at my LGS is worth $2k+, there are dozens of players and everyone has at least three decks, they buy every precon that contains alt art or quirky new gameplay modes.
There's 50+ local Legacy players, they casually buy boxes if the new cards they want aren't in store because online shopping/trading with grognards is "too much trouble".
And T2 players? They entirely stopped showing up because Jace was too expensive but while they were around they didn't buy shit other than singles.
Noobs don't buy shit, they don't have money. Casuals buy shit, alot of shit, but they buy it at Wal Mart/Target and don't care if Thoughtseize may be in their boosters they most probably will think it sucks. Commander and Legacy players have money and they spend it indiscriminatedly.
It's just false numbers from a shit marketing department that doesn't want to admit they're catering to the wrong crowd and that's why sales were down all 2015 long and just starting getting better with SOI.
>>47176618
Turns out the failure was (you)
>>47176618
Nothing compares to (You) also, anon.
>>47176678
This HAS to mean they're dealing under the table with investors and 3rd party distributor's. Or they secretly are the investors.
>>47170020
And it's precisely the reason competitive players don't buy booster packs outside of drafting. And also the reason cards like Jace and Avacyn creep up to 50+ dollars. The game would be way more accessible for everyone if they didn't purposefully design bad cards. People could actually trade for what they need. Instead booster packs are like glorified lottery tickets.
>>47176825
the thing is, there shouldnt be any reason we cant have the best of both worlds
if every card was legit constructed strong, there would be issues, but theres no reason for the gap between the constructed playable and the other 90% of the cards you get in packs to be so wide
>>47176460
I remember Faceless Butchers and Laquatus' Champions galore during that time. But I also remember GU madness and all the green and white stuff in Judgment. It was a fun time, and I could still get by with my stupid red deck.
![tumblr_n7cdvfpOJK1tophcho1_1280[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/S4PE4Ao.jpg "tumblr_n7cdvfpOJK1tophcho1_1280[1].jpg")
>>47167508
Everything after 7ed was and continues to be a mistake. Pic for unapologetic but self-aware.
>>47176891
>theres no reason for the gap between the constructed playable and the other 90% of the cards you get in packs to be so wide
Of course there is.
You need to open 110 packs aprox. to get a specific mythic.
You need 4x of those mythics.
And by "you" I mean every players who expects to compete, like at least half of the 2004 people at GP New York this past weekend.
Avacyn sold 110,000 packs by herself.
>>47171517
>Kiora
Ehhhhhhh. She's got a really fucked up face.
What was the mistake of Theros block, outside of Born of the Gods having maybe 3 good cards?
>>47177381
Uninteresting setting.
Is it just me, or does he learn the wrong lesson EVERY SINGLE TIME!? Maybe this is why modern magic is terrible...
>>47176223
I don't think we ever can come back without major asspulls, which I guess isn't too rare in Magic these days.
Barring some shenanigans Zendikar is basically a blighted wasteland for the most part.
>>47177381
The enchantments and keywords.
If it has a keyword on it in Theros block, it's unplayable.
The setting was okay, but underexplored. There's no reason at all a Return to Theros couldn't be amazing if done right.
>>47177411
I feel like it would've been so much better if it was just actual greek mythology instead of fake greek mythology. Arabian Nights style.
>Time Spiral set was a mistake
no, FUCK YOU
>>47167508
>>47177381
>very watered down Greek mythology
>enchantments matter themes that weren't ever realized due to overcosted enchantment and a lack of support until it was too late
>tribute, strive, inspired, and monstrous were really shitty mechanics powerlevel wise on top of being boring
The gods are neat EDH bait and there were a smattering of other good cards, but it is easily one of the most forgettable sets in recent years.
>>47177504
I respectfully disagree. I don't think they could have done it justice. I do wish they had stolen just a bit more from real-world mythology. The few things they did steal (Macar, Pyxis of Pamdemonium) are fantastic.
>>47169843
>The unorthodox Limited gameplay was embraced by the enfranchised players, who still today list the set as among one of the best Limited environments ever made, but was firmly rejected by the less-enfranchised players, who were just lost. Basic strategies that had always worked became traps where less-enfranchised players would lose time and again. As a result, the set sold poorly,
>As a result, the set sold poorly
$$$$$$$$$
>>47177579
'Set sold poorly' means 'we failed'. Yes it makes them less money, but it also is a big warning sign that people didn't like it. Would you prefer that they only made sets that people hate?
>>47177573
Hmm, now that I think of it a little more you're probably right. Like how would the god cards work? Greek gods were pretty powerful.
>>47177487
I should specify NON evergreen keywords.
This guy has it right, I feel like we're saying the same thing with different words. >>47177561
In addition to the gods, I also liked how featured Scry was. It's one of my favorite mechanics and it's the perfect way to boost the power level of a weak spell without making it too good.
>>47177667
technically speaking scry was on future sight
>>47177561
Honestly, they should've either had enchantment matters through the entire block, or stuck to their guns and not had any enchantment matters stuff in the entire block, not that 'put it in the last set' shit.
>>47177637
Greek gods may have been immortal, but they weren't unstoppable. They could be subdued, effectively killed or imprisoned for eternity. Just make them indestructible, and splash a light 'non-destructive removal' theme into the set.
>>47177573
I think my issue with Theros's setting is that while it was Greek enough, it wasn't "Magic" enough.
Take Kamigawa or Khans block. Both are heavily inspired by real world cultures, but are still their own thing. They bring new ideas or remix them in novel ways that make them distinct enough from their source material to stand on their own.
Theros starts as a knock-off of Greek myths and culture and then does nothing with it.
There's not even a strong visual theme there. For most blocks you could take art not featuring major characters and still have a feel for where it is coming from, but Theros art removed of a card border just looks like every other Greek inspired setting.
>>47167508
>I didn't realize my mistake until the Employee Prerelease for Morningtide. I was sitting across from an employee who was far less experienced, and the intricate web of tribal interactions was mind-melting to them. The Goblin Warrior could be affected by Goblin tribal and Warrior tribal, but the Goblin Wizard was affected by Goblin tribal and Wizard tribal. And then there was the Human Wizard. Goblin tribal would affect the first two but not the third, while Wizard tribal would affect the last two but not the first. Now add in ten more creatures and the board was impossible to digest for most of the players. For the first time, we saw people leaving the Prerelease after only one match.
So basically, most players are fucking retarded, but we need to make the game even more retarded to keep up. When is Wizards going to get rid of this jew? Before or after MTG collapses entirely? We've already lost core sets exactly as I predicted we would half a decade ago.
>>47167508
Haven't even read the article yet, but I took a super long hiatus after the original Ravnica block, after playing Odyssey->Champions of Kamigawa.
Those were some shitty fucking sets, let me tell you. Mirrodin standard was one of the worst times for magic ever. Champions was also masques-level bad when it came out, despite having my favorite mechanic of all time (splice). I have a love-hate relationship with Champions, but on the whole, it was the last time I played seriously.
BfZ was my return to magic, and it wasn't bad. I rather liked it, but they have designed the environment around a bunch of chase cards to jew you into a specific deck.
Are you playing blue? Cough up $320 bucks for jaces alone. Green? Well collected companies will run you $90, get them while they're cheap.
There's something ridiculously expensive in every color that you absolutely need in order to make a deck work. For example, back in the day, I couldn't afford Arcbound Ravager (it was a $20 bill back then too), so I just played a version of affinity that ran atogs instead (and it was fine).
I don't know. I'm not as salty about it because I have a bunch of cards that are modern playable, and are appreciating in value. I just threw together a Gifts Ungiven deck that I only needed about $200 more in pieces to finish. It's my favorite deck to play and I'm sure that I'll get years of mileage out of it. Unless Wizards bans Gifts for some fucking reason.
>>47170130
Planeswalker canc- I mean cards make more money.
>Put a jew in charge
>Game becomes a cynical cashgrab to the point of destroying itself exactly like all other media have already done
The only questions I have at this point are 1: are people really surprised a jew destroyed the game when put in charge? and 2: why in the fuck do people defend this toxic kike? Oh that's right - status quo zombies.
>>47177757
WotC doesn't know how to play their game, and are terrible at it.
MaRo is also responsible for Urza's Block.
>>47177833
>Urza's Block
Please don't remind me. I can only handle one set of nightmares at a time.
>>47176393
Let me tell you, Onslaught limited was fucking awful though. There was some TRASH in that fucking set, my friend. It's hell trying to put a tribal deck together when there are 2-3 tribes in each fucking color.
>>47176801
Or maybe they just have jobs and can put money into a hobby? I could drop 18k on a tier 1 vintage deck right now, but I'd rather use it on something actually useful.like all your mothers
>>47177750
>Theros starts as a knock-off of Greek myths and culture and then does nothing with it.
Despite Theros being my favorite block I have to agree with you, especially on this point. The whole plane needed more world building.
>>47177701
I'm not saying Theros invented scrying, just that it made good use of it.
>>47177846
>We didn't knooooow that resuing your graveyard for only 3 mana was overpowered
>We didn't expect Bargain to be as powerful as it was
>Surely, no one will re-use the freecards with high tide and hit people with giant Strokes of Genius
>pffft Time Spiral isn't broken, it costs 6
>Tolarian Academy? Pffft who runs artifacts anymore?
>Windfall isn't overpowered
>Goblin Lackey is fine
>Voltaic Key wont ruin formats
>Memory Jar nbd
That whole block is that kike's fault
This >>47169816
He mentioned Kamigawa because the legendary theme didn't work. It was the legendary thing that he was calling a mistake
Timespiral was bringing back and having 20 some odd keywords across a bunch of different cards. That's a lot to take in, but I think that's more of a case for why they should have 'expert level sets' or something. Sets where the design team can go overboard with complexity for a side-product.
Lorwyn was similar to time-spiral, in that having tribal interactions for both classes and creatures could lead to confusing things. I think their main mistake was doing both class and race tribal in the same block. Having one or the other would have likely turned out better overall.
He's not calling the entire sets or blocks mistakes, just certain aspects of them
>>47177750
>For most blocks you could take art not featuring major characters and still have a feel for where it is coming from, but Theros art removed of a card border just looks like every other Greek inspired setting.
Now hold on just a fucking second. The last thing you want to do is encourage the kike to make block-specific references in cards. That's why anything from a block dealing with the Cancerlight always seems so insanely, jarringly out of place in literally any deck that isn't built around a storyline with it in it. Hinterland Harbor? Cool. That could be anywhere. Even when you do something specific like a Selesnya Guildmage it still fits in just about any deck because it has great flavor without seeming out of place. But fucking Hull Breach? And it's green and fucking red. A green and red destruction of a fucking spaceship? But a new border or new art on that card all you want, there's no way to divorce it from the Weatherlight. Unless you don't give a shit what you put in your deck as long as you win it's going to be at least a little odd looking.
>>47177985
It's odd, as much as I hate the kike, I've never thought much about Urza's being his fault. Probably because I focus on modern so much I don't much think that far back, but holy shit that's like one of Wizards' legendary blunders. I swear to god the only reason some people have jobs at this point is because they're jews. Just like J. J. Abrams. Kike couldn't make a decent movie literally to save his life, yet we'll never see the end of him just because he was born with a big, fat hooknose.
I would never fire MaRo.
He serves as the perfect punching bag for all the Wizards' Magic problems even if it's not his fault. And even when it's not his fault he's the mouthpiece. All the criticism is focused on him which serves as the perfect distraction from addressing the real source of all the problems; the man is the perfect insulation to the people - whoever they are - that are making all the business decisions that impact the decisions that prevent the game from being good.
The only reason to fire him is if he ever became irrelevant, but at the rate people are using his ideas and opinions as fucking gospel even if he was never involved, that is never going to happen.
Donald Trump is like MaRo, people shit all over Donald Trump without realizing that he is just one man and his power and popularity represents a greater problem in that there are hundreds of millions of people who fail to see how bad of an idea it would be to give this man executive powers.
>>47177915
I actually dug into some of the design notes for Theros, and there's some neat ideas there, but none of it shines through in the cards very well.
There's 3 major city-states, divided as WU, WR, and WG (not counting the WB necropolis), but the WU one is literally Athens and the WR one is literally Sparta, and the color pairings don't even have a very strong identity.
And it's basically that, for the entire block. There's plenty of Greek stuff lying around, but it doesn't feel like it fits together.
>>47178026
>It was the legendary thing that he was calling a mistake
They just didn't do it competently. It wouldn't have been hard. They were just stupid. Wizards? Being fucking retarded? NO!
>That's a lot to take in
Yeah, it's not a beginner set, but then it's supposed to be the exact opposite so what the hell's the problem? This "Everything has to be for beginners" bullshit is just a ploy to grab more money from casual players. Yet, hilariously, they got rid of core sets. Wizards doesn't know what the fuck it's doing at this point.
>Lorwyn
>HURR mommy I'm too fucking retarded to understand a subtype. Please clean my poopy pants.
The only apology for Lorwyn block should come from all the brokenly overpowered shit they printed in it.
>>47178076
>a new border or new art on that card all you want, there's no way to divorce it from the Weatherlight
I dunno. I think you could do new art for it of a wurm or a dragon attacking a normal sailing ship and that wouldn't be too out of place.
It's fine for cards to be generic, but they should also have good flavor and design in their own right.
>>47178113
Well, it didn't help that all the flavor text was about people being badasses instead of actually explaining or fleshing out the world.
It's obviously part of their design to not explain the story through the flavor text. Somewhere, for some (good) reason, research has shown that world/plot-based flavor text is something players don't want or would be something that would lessen the attractiveness of the set.
The people who want their flavor are obsessive enough to read the notes, the people who would be repulsed by the flavor, you just don't want to scare them away.
>>47177856
Limited is for faggots.
ONS Block constructed is GLORIOUS.
>>47178076
He was on the team, and they all damn near got fired for Urza's. If such an misstep took place in any other industry, their heads would have been all chopped off. You can't look at a card like Time Spiral and think "this is a fair and balanced card." People whine about how blue is overpowered now? They haven't seen SHIT
>>47178100
This is about MTG, not your soapbox. Sage, because I dont feel like arguing with a bernout
>>47178100
>He serves as the perfect punching bag for all the Wizards' Magic problems even if it's not his fault. And even when it's not his fault he's the mouthpiece. All the criticism is focused on him which serves as the perfect distraction from addressing the real source of all the problems; the man is the perfect insulation to the people - whoever they are - that are making all the business decisions that impact the decisions that prevent the game from being good.
Not defending that piece of shit, but this is actually a really good point. He's a great cover for Wizards' incessant incompetence.
>Give red nothing but shit creatures because color pie!
>Give blue everything because color pie!
I still say fire him. Lay bare the worms crawling beneath him and fire them too and clean house at Wizards.
>>47178142
>wurm attacking a ship
How? Is it flying? Oceanic?
>dragon attacking a ship
This is probably the ONLY way you could finagle this to work. But even then the target is absolutely NOT going to be a ship because 1: ship isn't even a subtype anymore (lel) and 2: it was a creature subtype when it was. The fucking card makes zero sense. The only reason this worked for Hull Breach was because the Predator (bizarrely) was an artifact.
>It's fine for cards to be generic, but they should also have good flavor and design in their own right.
Exactly as I stated with the Selesnya Guildmage. You know damn well that card not only comes from a specific plane but only from a specific guild on that plane, and yet you could mix it with Zendikari or possibly even Lorwyn cards and it wouldn't be jarringly out of place. The Weatherlight saga was always my least favorite part of Magic. The flavor was shit and they made it like a jail that any cards they printed around it could never escape.
>>47178113
Yep. I remember pulling some Akroan soldiers and a battlefield forge and wanting to make an Akroan deck, but there's not enough to support it. Three whole sets and there's not quite enough to tie it all together. Everything is too unfocused.
And minotaurs are a fucking joke. They're a guaranteed trash common, they're not even subtle about it. Nobody ever pulled a minotaur and was happy about it.
>>47178122
How would you have done a legendary theme differently?
As for Time Spiral, that's basically what he was saying. It's not a beginner set, but I think that's part of what made them realize that blocks should be. I mean, it's fine to have non-beginner stuff, but if somebody wants to start playing Magic the Gathering, but the only set out when they want to is Expert Level Nostalgia, then a lot of people are stuck waiting a year for it to go away. It makes plenty of sense from a business perspective to not do that, though at the same time, it would also make a lot of sense to still do those expert blocks and sets as a separate thing. Think along the lines of Modern Masters, except it's all new cards using mechanics from anywhere, as complex as they want.
The Lorwyn complaint was honestly the weakest of the three. I don't agree with his reasoning for wanting it gone, as keeping track of what's a wizard or whatever isn't that difficult. I just think mixing class and race tribal can get kind of obnoxious with set themes. It's less interesting to mix together goblins and merfolk by including wizards and using wizard support than just having goblin and merfolk cards that boost the other tribe or otherwise work neatly into a strategy together. Like how you didn't need Soldier cards to make Giant and Kithkin tribals work together.
>>47178222
I was happy when I pulled a Tahngarth and Boros Reckoner
>>47178248
I mean in Theros
Mea Culpa
>>47178222
Yeah. That's the sort of thing I mean. Akroa seems like it could be a neat place, but you can't make a deck out of it, so it doesn't get that sort of solidarity.
Minotaurs are odd because they're some minor tribal subtheme. They don't work without their lords at all, and individually they feel rather weak.
Theros had a lot of mis-steps in terms of matching flavor and mechanics.
>>47177880
That's the point.
Eternal players have money and spend it a lot in LGS.
Casual players have money and spend it a lot in Wal Mart/Target.
Standard players may or may not have money but they don't spend it either at big box or at the LGS.
And yet they keep making the game catering to them rather than the people who actually buy shit.
If they put in more power cards eternal players will buy more and casuals won't buy less.
If they put in more alt art, trendy new planes and cute tribal stuff casual players will play more and eternal players won't buy less.
If they make you play Avacyn or go home, Eternal players won't buy that shit because Avacyn is babby tier in their formats, and Casual players won't buy that shit because it's fifty fucking dollars because of T2 grognards.
They're shooting themselves on the foot but because they're motherfucking idiots they'd rather stick to the plan and say we the consumer are wrong for not playing the game the right way.
Everyone but a handfull of artists needs to get fired and replaced by competent designers, PR, marketing and promoters before the nerd fad subsides or they're going down because of their own weight.
>>47178199
Oh not just Time Spiral. ANY of the cards with that "Rewind" mechanic bullshit. What the fuck were they thinking?
>We need to make blue vastly more powerful
NO.
>balance
Magic: the Gathering has rarely seen balance in its entire existence. The color pie is like an abrahamic religion to these fucknards that they think it's heresy to go against. M'lord color pie says Red gets exclusively shit cards (outside of the overpowered Mythic ones), so that's just the way it's going to be for eternity. To this day I can not fathom why they make Red such a shit color. M'lord color pie says blue gets LITERALLY EVERYTHING. And they've still never fixed the "blue problem", except temporarily for a set or two. Then it's right back to "give blue everything". I'm honestly surprised they finally got around to giving Green some adequate creature removal a few years back.
>>47178222
The Minotaur stuff is for tribal decks. They actually printed some decent Minotaur lords - some I would even consider a tad bit overpowered. I'm more irritated they made them Black. That just doesn't seem right to me.
>>47178335
I can understand why they went Black, as the Greek Minotaur ate people, though I think they mainly did it because they needed a BR god to fill space and they figured a Minotaur god would fit the bill.
Really, Minotaurs in Theros just feel like they're there to fill space as an RB tribe, but it's not a Tribal set, and no other color pairings had a focus like that.
>>47178201
>clean house at Wizards
This is basically what has to happen. It's not just MaRo, it's all the others.
It's like police precincts, if it's a corrupt hellhole firing the one guy who gets caught doing something wrong isn't going to fix the problem. You have to utterly purge all the bad apples.
The problem is that unlike public services like fire departments, the expertise of Magic card design and its legacy are in the hands of maybe 20-30 people and you can't just import others from outside (like transferring doctors from one hospital to another). If you were to annihilate half of them you could not rebuild - they certainly could not continue developing the game without breaking the 4-sets a year + supplemental product schedule they have now.
Do you think Hasbro could tolerate a year of no sales to allow for re-training of a fresh and motivated team? Fuck no. They're going to keep this rickety train running and there's no time for maintenance.
In fact, I almost applaud how dumb the commons and uncommons have become with New World Order. Because if I were big-dick CEO I would be saying, "Man, these developers are kinda getting long in the tooth, they're going to be retiring or leaving the company and we need people to replace them." There's no chance you're going to replace the expertise of these developers, even if they've become shit. So what you do is you force these developers to make the game design easier for new blood to pick up for the inevitable day they retire. Here's a set skeleton, you need X creatures at this CMC 2 and their P/T is going to be like this. If you can't come up with something new just print a vanilla 2/2 for 1G.
You will never be able to replace their expertise in balance and fun, but you can teach how to follow a skeleton and iron out the creative challenges later. I bet there's a fucking "Dragon/Angel/Demon" design spreadsheet attached to all the things that those colors do.
>>47178236
>How would you have done a legendary theme differently?
Well for one thing I would have printed a HELL of a lot more FUNCTIONAL cards that dealt with it and made more permanents Legendary. When you play around a mechanic that by its very nature requires only one of each card, you need to either commit to it or abandon it. And Kamigawa chose the fucktard route: to shit around in the middle. You can't do that with Legendary and that's why it's a fail. I can't believe I have to actually type this shit out. Where's my fucking paycheck, Wizards? I have at least the logic god gave a five year old. That makes me overqualified to be a Team Lead.
>It's not a beginner set
This is not even remotely a good excuse.
>then a lot of people are stuck waiting a year for it to go away
Hey, mabye they shouldn't have gotten rid of core sets, huh? I sure fucking wish they'd print another Archenemy set though. I might finally buy cards again, but I doubt it lol.
>still do those expert blocks and sets as a separate thing.
You mean exactly like the model they had with Portal, Starter, Core Sets and Expansions? Oh wait. They got rid of all that. It would amaze me they haven't tried to get Portal right yet if I didn't know they were trying to turn every set into beginner babby shit, complete with shiny Yugioh mythic chase gamebreaking bullshit.
>The Lorwyn complaint was honestly the weakest of the three.
The only thing it's an argument for is firing literally everyone at Wizards for being literally retarded.
>But how an my grandmother be both old AND a woman? I don't get it!
That's fucking Wizards' employees. How the fuck do you even get hired there? Is it just pure jew nepotism or something and they're only hiring the cousins they liked fucking the best or something?
...can we just do Invasion Block again? I'd be fine with that
Or just stop focusing on draft formats since it's clear with SoI that they can't even get that right
>>47178335
Maybe I suck at judging cards then, or was too focused on the shitty red ones.
Man, I can't figure out red either. It's the weirdest color. Thematically it should get some cards or mechanics that go to blue. It should get better creatures than blue. It should have a huge flavor and mechanic variety, because it's identity can take any shape. None of these things are true.
Add in the mechanics that have no synergy with each other and the complete reliance on artifacts and other colors to be useful and it just feels unnecessary.
>>47176393
Onslaught by itself great, but the block is pretty shit. Legions was an all creature block because "oops, we forgot to print creatures in onsluaght!" and Scourge was just bad
>>47178393
>I can understand why they went Black, as the Greek Minotaur ate people
I knew someone was going to say something like this. But that still doesn't make them black. So do Whales and Dragons. And I'm tired of Hydras being Green and Red. If anything should be black it's fucking Hydras. This is that "Garfield Legacy" shit again. Because one fucking Hydra was printed in Red early on, now Red is the Hydra color. Hydras should be fucking Green and Black. I love how much these plebtards are slaves to the color pie, yet they can't even get it right.>>47178312
>They're shooting themselves on the foot but because they're motherfucking idiots they'd rather stick to the plan and say we the consumer are wrong for not playing the game the right way.
This probably pisses me off most about Wizards. I haven't bought even second hand cards in something like two years and I may never again. And the reason is everything is aimed at tournament play and I do not give a fuck.
>Everyone but a handfull of artists needs to get fired and replaced by competent designers
I would say literally everyone there needs fired.
>marketing and promoters before the nerd fad subsides or they're going down because of their own weight.
Yep. I've been calling it for years and it's GOING to happen.
>>47178393
>Really, Minotaurs in Theros just feel like they're there to fill space as an RB tribe
They absolutely are. It's pretty obvious.
>>47178393
BR god could have been a vampire, greeks had vampires.
>>47168501
This. I still remember the urza era decks that I first played with. It was the mono green deck, the one with the gorillas. I loved that deck, the smell.
None of that really matters but good lessons.
>Lorwyn
Fuck. Fucking fuck! I don't even know how to express the feels of outrage. I just want to see more of this block. Almost all of my favorite cards for mechanics, art, and flavor are in the block.
>>47178550
The problem is blue.
Blue and red are the spells colors.
What happens then?
Tiago is red, Ponder is red, wheel effects are red, looting is red, but no, red is not the favorite child of the developers so it gets all it's good stuff taken away and given to blue.
>>47178572
>Because one fucking Hydra was printed in Red early on, now Red is the Hydra color.
Hydras have been the Green iconic creature (on par with dragons, demons, etc) for a while now if I recall. Did that change suddenly when I wasn't paying attention?
>>47178574
Yeah but were they called vampires in mythology?
That's the problem with fucking people. If it sucks blood, is kinda undead, and enslaves the living and you don't call it a vampire, people lose their shit. You have that same thing and call it a vampire in a setting where tradition dictates that vampire-the-word did not exist yet the creature did, they'll lose their shit.
In this case I'm assuming you're talking about the Hecate and their like and I'm sure there's someone in some Wizards office saying, "What the fuck is that? You can't market obscure shit like that. We barely have enough room for Trojan Horse and Hercules references. We'll use that shit if we run out of ideas, which we won't if we ever go back to Theros again; we'll just milk Hercules references until it fucking hurts."
What you're describing is a lose-lose situation.
>>47178396
>It's like police precincts, if it's a corrupt hellhole firing the one guy who gets caught doing something wrong isn't going to fix the problem. You have to utterly purge all the bad apples.
Absolutely. Wizards is going to kill MTG at this rate. And they simply will not listen to the more intelligent players. They only listen the MASS of players, so they do stupid fucking shit like start printing: "Designed by []" in flavor text (disgusting) or double strike. When I learned double strike was a player-created ability, I wasn't even remotely surprised. The problem with this game is that most of the players are even shittier at card design than Wizards is - and that's a serious fucking accomplishment. When you let them design cards you get Jace the Pile Driver for 1 colorless mana that wins the game in one turn.
>There's no chance you're going to replace the expertise of these developers, even if they've become shit. So what you do is you force these developers to make the game design easier for new blood to pick up for the inevitable day they retire.
I don't know if that's exactly why they're doing it but this continual dumbing down of the game is a fatal error and it's going to kill it.
>Here's a set skeleton, you need X creatures at this CMC 2 and their P/T is going to be like this. If you can't come up with something new just print a vanilla 2/2 for 1G.
It was only an 'opeless fancy
>You will never be able to replace their expertise in balance and fun
I would debate such a thing ever existed at Wizards. It just wasn't as shit as it is now. I will admit there is some good at times. Despite all the bitching, Theros did give a lot of good fodder for Enchantment decks and the art was fitting with lots of celestial themes.
Also, has anyone else noticed that the artwork is starting to get WORSE? Is Wizards hemorrhaging so much money it can't even afford good art anymore?
>>47178636
Holy fuck you're right. I saw this just yesterday.
>brewing EDH with Arjun self-mill in mind
>notice that both Jace's Archivist and Magus of The Wheel do the same thing, but the blue one is leaps and bounds better and repeatable despite it being a red mechanic.
WHY
H
Y
Just because it has the poster boy in the name?
>>47178675
They didn't call eidolons as spirits, returned as zombies or tritons as merfolk because that's what subtypes are there for. They could have easily had vrykolakas in and if the vampire subtype wasn't enough for some people, those people desserved bullying not pandering.
>>47178769
BLUE
L
U
E
>>47178312
>Eternal players have money and spend it a lot in LGS.
So LGS make money here.
>Casual players have money and spend it a lot in Wal Mart/Target.
WalMart/Target keep restocking from Wizards; Wizards and retailers make money.
>Standard players may or may not have money but they don't spend it either at big box or at the LGS.
Filthy standard peasants. Also, Walmart/Target only stock the latest sets, so even casuals are buying the latest shit.
So Wizards is only making money directly in one scenario. Therefore they're going to keep pushing new sets because they don't make anything in third party sales.
>>47177757
>So basically, most players are fucking retarded, but we need to make the game even more retarded to keep up
That's why I'd fucking love if they brought back mana burn and damage-on-the-stack.
>>47178550
>Man, I can't figure out red either. It's the weirdest color.
It's literally the dump color. Has been forever. And they've never bothered to fix it.
>Herp derp time to print yet another instant with "shit can't block this turn"
>Throw in a cat and a barbarian and some shitty burn spell. Fuck it.
How the hell do you make a card game LITERALLY about fucking magic and screw up the color of fire and dragons??? EVERY SET.
>Thematically it should get some cards or mechanics that go to blue.
Nailed it. Red should be the artifact color as it's the color of the forge. Blue artifact sympathy makes ZERO sense.
>It should get better creatures than blue
They should just stick to logical costing for all creatures. If you make a fucking 3/3 vanilla creature IT SHOULDN'T COST FUCKING FOUR MANA. And you shouldn't make it cost that much because it's the "wrong color". There are ways to balance the game without being retarded. You just have to not be retarded. And there's the rub. That's why it pisses me off so much when the kike says shit like "Oh well we make shitty cards intentionally to teach beginners what not to use." Literally why? There will always be better and worse cards for each situation. Wizards are just uncreative hacks.
>>47178574
Ooo that would have been neat. You will absolutely never have a job at Wizards.
>>47178662
Green's fine. I just have a problem with the fact that they come in basically only Green and RED when it should be Green and BLACK. The original Learnaean Hydra was literally a poisonous swamp creature. How the fuck much more Black can you get?
>>47178769
>WHY
>H
>Y
For some reason Richard Garfield had a raging hardon for Blue from day one. And everyone since has tried to be the best imitation of Richard Garfield as possible because they think they'll fuck up less that way, and in truth they probably will because they're asshats.
>>47178940
I'm still weirded out by the loss of mana burn. I never overspend on my spells anyway, but I would probably just take the damage if I did because it seems bizarre not to. I mean in what other game in existence do you spend more mana on a spell than it costs??
>damage-on-the-stack
No. They were right to get rid of this. There are a lot of very complicated reasons why it's best damage stay off the stack. Even Wizards is forced to get things right some of the time.
>>47178980
>It's literally the dump color. Has been forever. And they've never bothered to fix it.
They've (the developers of the game) stated multiple times that Green is the odd-man-out of the color pie. Everything else is well defined and Green is just... there.
>>47178997
Wizards has stated a lot of things multiple times. Wizards is also proven retarded. Your move.
>>47178804
That's a good counterpoint and I find more reason behind it than my thinking. Maybe they're just rationing the references for the next time we go to Theros.
>>47178701
The artwork is becoming more safe. Easier to design and requires less art direction. I don't really pay attention to the art anymore.
To follow up, I believe there are plenty of people at Wizards in touch with what players think is fun. On one hand there is card design that drives the sort of fun that sells - these are the face cards you see on Intro Decks - they just scream potential fun to new players. On the other hand there's the sort of word salad design that makes people fucking excited - Ken Nagle is king at this. See Wrexial.
I'm not saying this is the fun you or I appreciate. But it's certainly an understanding of what people want. It's easy to teach that you must print Dragons and Angels, that's just a given. But to design cards the way Ken Nagle does, that's a special sort of talent; that's the single minded design of a man who hates Time Walks in EDH; he doesn't just dig up a per-existing design like Darksteel Colossus to design Blightsteel.
A part of me disliked the God Equipment in Theros. Another part of me, the Cube part of me, looks at Hammer of Purphoros - an Artifact Enchantment that makes more Artifacts and sends Lands to the yard and I'm like, "This card is EXACTLY what I want" while my more critical part shakes its head in shame.
>>47178997
And they are wrong.
It has mana acceleration and big mana monster and big monster growth and big monster protection in regeneration and shroud. Thematically and mechanically it is consistent and effective.
>>47179106
>mechanically it is consistent and effective
I'll agree with that.
Whenever I'm drafting with inexperienced players Green is always so reliably thematically bankrupt that people are discouraged to draft it because of how familiar they are with ramp and pump, which makes it fairly open.
The seeded archetypes will be fought over but you will always get your 3/3 3CMC creatures and crappy Giant Growths and somehow, I just get there more often than not. Draft Gx, always reliable; even if it's dogshit werewolves.
>>47179067
>The artwork is becoming more safe
No I mean the quality is simply getting worse. Khans was a fucking UGLY block. People's faces looked disfigured and shit. There were pretty cards, but the standard I'd come to expect from Magic art once Wizards pulled its head out of its ass and cleaned it up dropped.
>what players think is fun
The problem is, they exclusively listen to retards when they make these claims.
Wrexial makes you excited? Do you work for Wizards? I can understand someone getting excited over Autochthon Wurm. But Wrexial? Literally why? Maybe if you like sea monsters or something.
>But it's certainly an understanding of what people want
SOME people want. The people Wizards keeps pandering to. The people who play Magic ONE fucking time, then sell off their collection or play the pro circuit for three years and do the same because they're casual, netdecking ape-spawn. Wizards is just trying to make as much money as possible with the same cynical model that destroyed all other forms of media in the 90s: mass produce garbage with minimal effort until your company eats itself. It's a policy of entropy.
> just dig up a per-existing design like Darksteel Colossus to design Blightsteel.
Oh god, you sent bile into my mouth. Why did you do this?
> But to design cards the way Ken Nagle does, that's a special sort of talent; that's the single minded design of a man who hates Time Walks in EDH
Hi, Ken Nagle. Will you please go on a shooting spree and kill all your co-workers?
>A part of me disliked the God Equipment in Theros
Eh, they're alright. There are way more things that bother me about the game than forgettable artifacts for EDH decks. Wait, are you talking about the Legendary artifacts or Godsend?
>while my more critical part shakes its head in shame.
Why? I mean it's not perfect, but why hate on it?
>>47179106
Exactly. Green has a very clear theme. Red is just a pile of shit with occasionally good burn spells.
>>47179159
>Green is always so reliably thematically bankrupt
This is, again, that balancing thing Wizards seems to be incapable of doing. Blue has always been the overpowered "everything" color, Red has always been the pile of shit color and Green has always been the pushover color. I honestly think these morons think this is a good thing.
>>47178913
You miss the point.
Casuals don't whine when Thoughtseize is standard legal, standard little shits do.
If your biggest income doesn't care about something, your second biggest income (eternal players and LGS stock) actively wants that something, and only the people who are buying the least possible throw a shit fit about that something being in.
WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY DESIGNING SETS CATERING TO STANDARD GROGNARDS?
Because they're idiots who chose their primary audience wrong and like every idiot who majored in business, would rather watch the company die than admit they were wrong.
>>47179017
>Wizards is also proven retarded.
Can't argue with that.
Red has high power creatures with typically low toughness at low cost. It's the color of fast aggression and burn spells which excel at clearing the battlefield or doming the opponent. Red has trouble dealing with large creatures, where it needs multiple cards to deal with single threats by way of damage (it has very few "destroy" outright effects); and historically Red cannot deal with enchantments, but excels at destroying artifacts.
Red is incredibly flavorful and very fleshed out.
>>47178980
>Blue artifact sympathy makes ZERO sense.
But anon artifacts are made by very smart people, who are blue like me, and very smart like me, my mommy says so.
>>47168343
>The problem is that they feel the need to make some cards, even rare cards, bad on purpose for no reason than to make the good cards look better in comparison
There's actually a reason you're missing. Card evaluation in Limited depends on having a few generally shitty cards, and a few that are playable only in the correct shell. This is true at every rarity, otherwise the correct choice is to play whichever 3 colors your rares land in (and celebrate whenever you get 2 or more in the same color because hell yes), because you automatically first-pick them no matter how deep you are. Shitty rares encourage newer players to be willing to pass on cards that don't help their deck, even if they're at rare, and that teaches them to learn to evaluate cards in general.
The problem isn't that there are bad rares, it's that there are too few good Commons and Uncommons, and when those do happen it's usually because WotC fucked up their own evaluation. Rare shouldn't be "better", it should be "stuff that can't be common in Limited", like evasive bombs or cheap universal removal.
>>47179241
>Because they're idiots who chose their primary audience wrong and like every idiot who majored in business, would rather watch the company die than admit they were wrong.
This. This. This. FUCKING THIS. Literally the tale of every company since the 90s. I don't even understand how corporations like Microsoft are still in business. They must just be litigious as shit when anyone makes a better operating system.
>>47179265
>Can't argue with that.
Well of course you can't argue with that. It's objective fact. The sky is blue, water is wet, the designers of Magic have the IQs of slime mold.
>Red has high power creatures with typically low toughness at low cost.
Eh debatable.
>Red is incredibly flavorful and very fleshed out.
I want Mark Rosewater to leave right now.
>>47179267
Lol. And that's basically the only justification you can make for it. I mean the best explanation is "Blue is the color of geniuses and wizards, therefore artifacts." It's pretty tenuous. When you consider the fact that artifacts can be made of just about anything, including wood, hell even GREEN has a stronger claim on artifacts than fucking Blue would. Blue would LITERALLY be the LEAST matching color for artifacts flavor-wise. White makes sense because of soldiers, combat and relics, Red has been explained, Black (do I even need to?), and again Green has been explained. But Blue's flavor? Literally "A wizard did it."
>>47179274
>There's actually a reason you're missing
We covered this. Wizards are hacks. >>47178980
>The problem isn't that there are bad rares
FUCK. NO.
>it's that there are too few good Commons and Uncommons
Now this I will definitely agree with. But then, there aren't enough good cards in any rarity, including Mythic.
>>47179233
As mentioned above, think about how underpowered black would be if Torment had never happened.
WotC pretty much wants the game to be WU midrange vs WU control. Or at least they design it that way. There is also a very noticeable hypocrisy there. If Delver and UW Control are untouchable it's ok, rotation will fix it, but if it's Bu Faeries, Jund or Mono Black Devotion, the format is broken and everything was a mistake.
I bet they're still salty they had to ban CAW Blade.
>>47179389
>WU midrange vs WU control.
Alright. I think I've tasted enough bile for one thread. I'm gonna duck out before I actually vomit.
>I bet they're still salty they had to ban CAW Blade.
Oh you know they are.
>>47178990
>I mean in what other game in existence do you spend more mana on a spell than it costs??
Exactly. It almost never comes up if you're playing correctly, but it's a rule that can still fuck you over if you make a mistake. It serves no purpose but to occasionally punish people for making mistakes that gameplay naturally punishes you for anyway (because you might want those lands untapped later). When a rule serves no fucking purpose, it should be cut.
>>47179383
>it's that there are too few good Commons and Uncommons
Too true. It's like Pokemon now. Buy a pack, ignore 3/4ths of the cards, hope there's a big shiny one in the back.
>>47179383
>I don't even understand how corporations like Microsoft are still in business
Shareholders.
I don't know exactly what the incentives are to owners to allow over 50% of their shares to leave their control, but they do ultimately lose majority control to raise capital. And it doesn't matter what their vision is of building an empire, someone else with more money than you will buy you out, appoint a board that will oust you, and appoint a guy who will make them money.
And eventually, the corporation will be not representative of the will of the long-bought-out owner but will be it's own thing, a money generating machine that is impervious to the criticisms of quality - the CEO decides what quality means and he answers to the board, who answers to the profit-minded shareholders. Like, do you think that the people who own shares in video game companies actually play games? Fuck no.
Consider drug empires. At some point, they get so big and are protected by so many legitimate assets and companies that you'll never connect the street-level drug busts to the guy who is making all the money nor can you (legally) investigate the many legitimate businesses to find the source of the money. In the case of corporation that produce a crappy product, you will never be so rich that you can buy out the other shareholders to re-institute the definition of true quality.
And if someone makes a truly superior product, you buy it, and maybe kill it, or absorb it into your own structure. This is especially relevant to Wizards. They have essentially entered (unofficially) into an agreement with the only independent critics of their product, namely the CFBs and SCGs, by protecting their business model by limiting reprints into the secondary market and providing them "exclusive" things like spoilers - way easier than buying media reporters like corporations do.
>>47179383
>But then, there aren't enough good cards in any rarity, including Mythic
I don't agree about Mythic. Mythic should be the Timmy and Johnny bin. For cards that are primarily Standard and Modern staples, prices are driven by Spikes, and that means putting the shit that wins games at Mythic is going to lead to expensive tournament staples due to low supply, and that's bad for everybody who doesn't make money selling cards.
If a Mythic is going to be a powerful, efficient card, it had better be a situation where it couldn't have worked at any other rarity for some reason, and WotC should take steps to flood the market relative to other mythics (for instance, releasing a Duel Deck or something with a copy).
Common and Uncommon need to have better cards just to compete with Rare. There need to be bad cards in order to teach people card evaluation, but as it stands right now, if you get a bad Rare then you got a bad pack. That's absolutely a problem. I'll agree that making every Rare good will solve that problem, but I think it's the wrong solution to pursue - on the one hand having bad cards creates teachable moments for beginners, and on the other it creates a safety valve for development (especially with weird effects that, if competitively-priced, can warp formats in unexpected ways). What's important isn't that every card be good, it's that every pack be good, and that can be accomplished by ensuring that there's adequate density of good low-rarity cards. If you miss out on a good Rare you've still got a good archetype-defining Uncommon or two or a few efficient cross-block staples like Bolts or something.
>>47179546
>true quality
It bothers me that you cannot get pure cocaine.
I don't use drugs. But if I did, there would be some nagging feeling in the back of my head that no matter how much money you have the system is so fucking stupid that you cannot get pure product.
>>47179546
>even my children's card game is a dystopian nightmare.
I'm sure that's the wrong way to phrase it, but I'm too heartbroken to care. Hold me, /tg/.
>>47179604
This is what happens when you let jews design systems.
Capitalism is unsustainable and self-defeating, it's goal is it's self-destruction because absolute profit means the end of the economic cycle. And it won't even get that far, you can only make states "competitive" to a point before suicide by fire looks better than continuin their slavery to your system.
Think about this, they tell us we have to be wary of North Korea and Iran because they could make functional nukes, at the same time we're destroying the economies and quality of life of places like India, Brazil, China, Mexico and Russia WHO ALL HAVE FUNCTIONAL NUKES!
>>47168207
He never calls them worst sets, he just indicates that those sets scored better with heavily enfranchised players and thus sold poorly or did something else that was less than ideal.
He lists lessons that in his opinion make better sets for everyone. Read the article, it's pretty good.
>>47179604
Don't worry anon. I'm making my own card game that will be way better than Magic and I'll never sell out andI'll get bored and stop working on it in six weeks, sorry...
>>47179546
>They have essentially entered (unofficially) into an agreement with the only independent critics of their product, namely the CFBs and SCGs, by protecting their business model by limiting reprints into the secondary market and providing them "exclusive" things like spoilers - way easier than buying media reporters like corporations do.
This is vertical integration. You buy your suppliers, you buy your distribution network or distributors, you buy the magazine that promotes your product.
>>47179592
>You will never get to play Vintage because the powers that be don't want you to have it
The idea that we have to use Chinese bootleg to play a card game is just mindblowing
>>47179604
It's what happens when we place growth ahead of the greater good. And that's not me hating on capitalism even though it's a statement that is hating on capitalism.
It's our world. It's better that we grind at all the work and value and exploit all the resources and room until we cannot do it anymore, and by that time those who were there at the beginning are old, retired, and dead and to ensure that you don't put hundreds of thousands of people out of work you sell the good thing, the good company, even you risk it becoming a shadow of its former self. And in time, we will forget that it was once great, greater than it is today.
Nearly every business student studies Ben & Jerry's in school. I suggest you follow what they were all about. They put social justice at #1 even at the cost of their bottom line; but in time, they retired, and now are under control of a huge mega-corporation. Most business schools laud the company as an example of how you don't have to be profit-driven to be successful, what they don't mention is what happened after the company was sold to Unilever, which went and dismantled all the good even though they had no reason to.
And I know with certainty that Ben and Jerry are silenced by NDAs, otherwise nobody would have bought their company.
>>47179383
> the people who manufacture items of power having access to them in their color is poorly supported compared to the color that thinks anything unnatural that didn't grow our evolve is evil
I am not sure how retarded someone can be, but your pushing the envelope. Red getting access is great now, but claiming blue is the weakest color for it proves you are as smart as you think MaRo is.
What has been the most budget friendly standard? I want to say RTR-THS, or even maybe THE-KTK but I wasn't around for much before that.
>>47179770
>And that's not me hating on capitalism even though it's a statement that is hating on capitalism
I had the same thought. That's why I erroneously said "dystopian" when I really meant capitalist. I don't really want to blame the system, but I guess I have to a little. Not trying to be an edgy anti-Semite, or a fuckin' commie, but damn.
>>47176678
>It's just false numbers from a shit marketing department
Uh huh, and that's why their sales keep going up?
>>47179733
I actually got paid to stop working on a card game I designed in college.
>>47179835
Their sales are going up. Absolutely. To claim that and have it be a lie on their quarterly and annual reports would be misrepresentation and the legal liability for fraud would put the company under. I'm no lawyer so I don't know if those words are the correct words, but bottom line: you can't fucking lie on your company reports to the shareholders.
The problem isn't that their sales are going up. Sure, more and more people are entering the game, the marketing from the video games is bringing in tonnes of people.
The problem is whether the growth is sustainable. Small shops in small cities and towns are shutting down. They've expanded distribution to Target, Gamespot, and Walmart, but that does nothing to build communities and eats into LGS revenues. Sure, more LGSs will open up after others close, because retail is the easiest fucking business to start up, but when your local community fucking dies, it dies forever; the amount of attrition you lose from it dying will be so great that it cannot be revived.
And maybe, that's a good thing. The last thing you want is veteran players reminding younger places that cards like Black Lotus exists or that there was once a time when Dual Lands weren't dogshit or scaring them away with cards that cost more than a PS4.
All these people, hurdur, those were my favorite sets and now Maro is calling them shit.
Maro isn't calling those sets shit, he just admits that they made mistakes.
>>47178424
The problem with the Starter/Core/Expert model is that NOBODY BOUGHT STARTER AND CORE.
Everyone was starting with the Expert sets REGARDLESS because those were the Cool Ones, and people who've been in the game for a while don't buy the Core sets because it's mostly reprints designed for beginners. Even after putting in a bunch of new cards starting with m10, the core sets sold like crap.
Remember, when they announced the new rotation method, EVERYONE REJOICED, and one of the big reasons why was no more core sets (the fact that the annoying shit from the oldest block - like, say, siege rhino - leaves a little bit faster was also thought a Good Thing at the time)
>>47179824
Odyssey-Onslaught, you could compete with almost all commons/uncommons be it with Madness, Elf tribal or UB Control.
Mirrodin-Kamigawa. You only needed one rare, shame that rare was Arcbound Ravager.
RTR-Theros, if you bought the RTR creatures early all you needed for mono-black devotion was commons and Thoughtseize.
>>47179835
Their sales went down Q2, further down Q3 and Q4 1015 and haven't stabilized back to Q4 2014 levels.
The bubble is popping, the fairweathers are leaving, new people aren't coming. They better have some oldfag-pleasing sets for early next year (wouldn't be surprised is Return to Return to Ravnica is true at this point), or they're fucked.
Not to mention all the bad blood and negative publicity they're getting for their horrid PR and their cutting off events and formats that people like.
They're acting like the fucking FIFA but pay worse than Burger King so of course their shitty corrupt mismanagement isn't being swept under the rug and a lot of the people who used to champion the competitive side of Magic are now making bucks in actual esports or motherfucking Hearthstone and urgin competitive MtG players to do the same.
>>47176393
To play dredge you just need to leave him on /pol/ for an hour
>>47178769
I know the reason why, magus of the wheel isnt based on jaces archivist. its based on an incomplete cycle and its counterpart is magus of the jar, its just the retards at wizards printed an upgraded version of magus of the jar years before they shit that abomination.
>>47167508
>words words words words
>strokes his own dick on "wow I'm such a good designer it's okay if I make a few mistakes!"
>completely misses the point on why people hated BFZ
People didn't hate BFZ because of fucking lore reasons you idiot. They hated it because
>Anus mana was a crap idea
>Re-used earlier mechanics but without any interesting twists or cards that utilized it (to compare, Khans reused a few mechanics but it all felt very well done with the wedges)
>Devoid was dumb and very rarely actually changed the way you played, it was just some keyword to inadverently get extra benefit
>Same thing with ingest except ingest was obnoxious to play against. Getting mana screwed and they mill your plains? Sucks more than just losing without seeing it at all. >These new mechanics will never actually be featured again (and thankfully so), meaning the set is isolated and will be forgotten about, except for...
>Knowingly undercosting colorless creatures to the point where modern was nearly killed and other formats are still hurting due to Eldrazi
>Chase rares and chase mythics
>Massive imbalance for limited
But no, none of those even get brought up. In fact, Maro doesn't even admit he made a mistake in the set aside from pushing blame onto the consumers, saying "well I guess I shouldn't have expected you all to be anything BUT little kids hahaha woops well fuck you anyways". And if we DO want to delve into the lore, there's the terrible use of the Bradywalkers being the central plot to every plane now. It appeals to cowadoody kids and people who unironically like what Hollywood churns out every month, but it's just fanfiction.net wank material.
Every fucking time he says something I want to punch him in the face harder.
>>47180340
Injest was supposed to be a big deal but it ended up being a weak ass bonus that took strength from unique areas the cards could go. Salvage drone is an awesome card with injest and the upcomming madness block it ensured it would appear useful into the future. It fucking blows because you cant pump an injest creature and make it mill harder and devoid doesnt affect anything about the creature. The whole reattempt at eldrazi was a huge waste and annihilator honestly seems like it would have been better.
>>47177223
Correction: everything after original Ice Age was a mistake.
>>47180340
Stupid question - the Expeditions aren't/weren't standard legal, right? How do/did they work with drafting?
Stupid question, sorry. I know almost next to nothing about the limited formats other than I have zero interest in them.
I ask because it seems like it would be pretty shitty to buy your packs, get ready to play, and someone pulls a $200 card and drops to keep it while you're left with a handful of junk. Or maybe even play with it because it's a legitimately great card and in colors he wants.
>>47180665
Salvage drone is shit though. I wouldn't even pick it up in a draft unless I was going full on ingest "synergy" and even then it's a shit card. A 1/1 that doesn't even DO anything except loot on death is fucking worthless. Sure, you have the potential to get a crazy turn 1 ingest into process shenanigans. Or you can draw it turn six and want to kill yourself. And that's the way most ingest cards worked. You'd pick them if the creatures were well costed. Maybe if you had some good top end like Ruin Processor you'd take a couple. But you'd never try to go hard on ingest synergy unless it just fell into your lap.
Really though, that's the problem with most drafts (at least since KTK). There are always synergies but most of the time they don't matter, or if they do matter it makes things unbalanced. The strongest creatures in BFZ were already U/R/B or colorless. Then you gave them potential devoid synergies, which were super boring, but compare it to green which had effectively nothing for synergy, no good ramp, no good fixing, and not even the strongest creatures P/T wise (which were colorless).On the flip side, Innistrad is really good, except they fucked up with U. It's got no good creatures aside from bomb rares, and the common support is shit, especially with people overvaluing trash like Just The Wind
I agree just bringing back annihilator would have been SOMETHING, since wizards was so committed to "muh eldrazi worldeaters". But even then there were a dozen ideas better than what they came up with in anus mana. Now it's here to stay, it will never be relevant again after Eldritch Moon, and it looks fucking ugly.
>>47180738
It depended on the store I think. My LGS eventually settled on the policy of "if you ripped an expedition, you can just buy the pack for normal price and we'll substitute a new, unopened pack for the draft".
There was no correct way to handle expeditions being opened. Someone got pissed off, it was just finding the fairest and most simple way to handle it each time.
>>47180761
Thanks, knowing even stores were confused makes me feel better.
Expeditions were weird. I suppose I should be glad there's more fetches on the market, but it doesn't really seem like it affected the prices any, does it?
>>47167508
>people are too dumb to play "turning cards sideways the game" right so we are gonna try even harder to make it even more boring and simple in the future
t-thanks Maro
>>47180818
It didn't affect prices at all. People mistakenly think that greater supply will reduce prices, but in practice what it does is also raise demand a significant amount (due to people believing prices will drop, and thus wanting to enter the modern market). See also what happened with Modern Masters 2.
I keep saying it but at this point the only ways to really fix lands are either print mandatory lands at uncommon for a few sets, or print cards that disincentivize greedy manabases (Price of Progress even though it would instantly turn burn into a tier 0 deck). Ghost Quarter is a shit card and it feels bad to give yourself card disadvantage with it. Nothing else is playable in modern as far as LD goes.
>>47180340
>Devoid was dumb and very rarely actually changed the way you played, it was just some keyword to inadverently get extra benefit
This is so bizarre. There were so many devoid cards but so so so so few "devoid matters" cards. I don't know what they were thinking there.
I disagree with your point on ingest though. I thought it was a fine mechanics BUT completely abandoning it in the next set blows my fucking mind. I say this because when you do a draft or a sealed event and you have a few packs of BFZ and you have a few of these weird fucking ingest/ingest matters cards and literally zero support or anything from the next set just makes them worthless unless you somehow got like 6 from one pack. That's just super poor set planning.
>>47180856
>People mistakenly think that greater supply will reduce prices, but in practice what it does is also raise demand a significant amount (due to people believing prices will drop, and thus wanting to enter the modern market
My brain is full of fuck.
So now would be the best time to offload an Expedition?
>>47180909
It depends on whether you expect a large scale market crash to happen, or Wizards to finally pack up shop and stop developing the game. If you don't expect either of those things to happen, then expedition prices will continue to rise indefinitely unless they either reprint more (unlikely), or print new, stronger lands (almost impossible). If you plan on playing the game, the best advice I've seen is to hold on to all the lands you need until you get at least one full playset. Alternatively you could trade the expo for a couple normal lands.
>>47169615
Me
Yeah in the 3 set system usually 1 sucked more then the others but 2 it feels hard to get into the set like emotionally and kinda limits your story progression because it cuts off the total length of you little story.
BFZ and Oath were so baffling because it boiled down to:
>BFZ: Oh no there is Eldrazi they are invincible what can we do?
>Oath: Oh nevermind we got em
It feels like this exact thing will happen in Innistrad as well.
>>47180930
>Wizards to finally pack up shop and stop developing the game.
Wouldn't this make all card prices skyrocket though? So either Wizards fixes the game, or I'm rich?
>>47167508
>Time Spiral was a mistake
New magic sets will never be fun again
Why keep chasing the casual buck$ when you fucking admit you have a fairly loyal fanbase that likes what you did?
>>47179844
Was it THAT terrible?
>>47180761
I thought you just played with the expeditions in your pool, so standard and modern kiddies can learn what getting strip mined feels like
>>47180739
I think the point of the new ugly mana symbol is so they can reprint mana crypt without hurting the price on the original
>>47180966
The only reason cards are expensive is they are used in tournaments where people make money.
Other card games have had $50+ cards. Those cards went to negative value as soon as the game went unsupported because something that exists by the dozen millions world-wide isn't collectable.
If Magic dies maybe Alpha Black Lotus will keep a tenth of it's price as an item of historical relevance (the most expensive standard-print card game piece ever), but everything else will lose all value in less than a couple years.
>>47181125
Not how the list or collectionism works
>>47180151
To be fair, magic as an esport is dumb and the whole pro tour should be done away with. I think WotC realizes that pulling the plug midseason is really shitty, but I do hope that they finally rip off that bandaid at the end of this season
>>47180977
It's not even casuals, casuals don't need special pandering, they buy the game because they like it and what they don't like they house rule.
It's standard players that need the game to be as stupid as possible so being "pro" doesn't take much attention or give them too much strees.
>>47179904
Most game shops everywhere I've lived have been doing just fine. When they go under it's usually because they're being run by a game enthusiast rather than a businessman
>>47169146
Have you ever played MTG set Theros?
SOI looks only looks 'good' because it has been printed after Fate Reforged, Dragons, Origins, Battle and Oath.
Compared to all these shitty sets, yes, it looks 'good'.
>>47181142
1: not reserve list
2: if the new version of a card looks really shitty, the old version holds its value better
>>47179824
ALA-ZEN standard had you playing Jund with mostly commons and uncommons. There was the first Mythic deck, but you weren't forced to play it.
KAM-RAV was also pretty cheap.
>>47181211
1. I know, but this is tg
2. Does not matter, old holds value on old mostly. New eternal masters fow is goat.
>>47181410
New FOW is pretty, but the old picture is gritty. It still evokes how the card will always feel to me, which the new art does not
>>47179383
>I don't even understand how corporations like Microsoft are still in business.
Corporate licensing, mainly. Also, Xbox is a pretty good money maker, and they make stupid amount of money from licensed IP. For example, every *Android* phone HTC sells results in more profit for Microsoft than HTC themselves. Microsoft actually makes less money on Windows Phone devices than Android devices because they're still trying desperately to get someone to pay money for one.
>They must just be litigious as shit when anyone makes a better operating system.
Not really. Apple is a niche market and they're okay with that. Ubuntu is the number three OS for end users with a fraction of a percent market share. Microsoft is more than willing to let people pirate their software in an era where everyone else is wrenching arms for lunch money because every pirated copy contributes to the perception that there is no other valid option.
