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Jan 29, 2010 -- 5:24AM, blau79 wrote:

I have my thoughts on the subject, and they mimic the thoughts in this article.  Every deck is multicolored so strategy is disappearing since everyone is being routed into the same decks.  The other concern would be the presense of massivly expensive Mythic Rares (baneslayer, planeswalkers) and preview cards that make it look like it's not going to get any better.

Here are the major reasons players don't jump immediately into tournaments, and/or don't stay there long:

• The vast majority of players just don't care
  Sure, the great unwashed masses may participate in an informal local "tourney" from time to time, but the idea of driving a couple of hours (or more) to play Magic in a room full of sweaty guys is not a high priority, or players find it just plain distasteful to drive all that way just to get pummeled repeatedly by pretty much the same deck.
• Everyone just plays the same thing
  I can't just cobble together some goofy themedeck and expect to do any good.  Hell, I can't even refine that themedeck into the best it can be, because its best just isn't good enough if I happened to have picked the "wrong" theme.  When the best cards are much better than the next-best cards, it makes the best decks much better than the next-best decks, and magnitudes better than the average "themed" deck.  May as well scrap my current investment and assemble that deck everyone else is playing - it seems to win a bit.
• It's too damned expensive
  When my "pet deck" is just not good enough to keep me from driving two hours just to go 0-2 (drop), I'm going to have to build a better deck.  When I find out that better deck is going to cost me $200 for just my lands, and another $80 for a playset of a critical rare and another $200 for a playset of a critical Mythic rare, I'm probably better off just buying a Xbox and several videogames.  It'll probably last longer.
• Cards Expire
  After spending several hundred dollars for my deck, It turns out those cards are only good for a year or two before they are forcibly retired, or the next set spawns a brand new deck that stomps all over that old one everyone used to play.  Now I have to go spend several hundred dollars again, and pray I can carry-over at least half of my previous investment.
  Sure, I could give Extended, Legacy, or Vintage a try, but chances are very good those cards I spent all that money on for a few mere months of tournaments are dead-on-arrival in any of those formats.

Jan 29, 2010 -- 5:24AM, blau79 wrote:

And that, is why 93% of the poll respondents don't participate in GPs.

First, I want to thank Tom for the explanation including historical context for the man-lands.  When I first saw these I wasn't too thrilled TBQH.  I can see how these will really help out late-game.  I have a concern that because they're rare they are going to end up at $20 which would not be fun but it is what it is.

That 93% of players in this unscientific poll is shocking to me.  I would have thought that number would be higher.  I guess it is a possible indicator that casual bigger than I thought.  I typically don't have to worry about power creep or the metagame.  We just play with what few cards we have available.

Also based on the types of articles you see on this site you'd think that 90% of the people play tournaments.  It would be nice to see more casual-focused articles here.  Maybe talk up Planechase a bit more.  When I manage to play with people who have the planar decks it's a blast.  Since it's release I haven't heard a peep about it from this site.

Keep the tourney coverage to the various fan sites.  It seems that there is way more of that type of talk going on around the internet and at no cost to WotC.

Jan 29, 2010 -- 9:37AM, quitequieter wrote:

isn't that what a set called "worldwake" should feel like, though? honestly in a set that's supposedly about lands coming to life, how can there even BE "too many" lands beating the crap out of you? i wish they had done some more common and uncommon man lands and balanced them so it wasn't a power issue. is it really that difficult to do that? how hard would it be to have a common and uncommon cycle of man lands with weak enough power/costs for it to work out?

I agree*. Fundamentally, I just think Zendikar-Worldwake didn't do as good a job of making "lands matter" as fallingman's set Verdia did nine months earlier. The manlands there were interesting, the mechanics played around lands rather better than Landfall does, and the in-game feeling was very much caring about what lands you and your opponents played, whether you might have a chance to bounce that land of theirs that's cultivated with an irritating spell, can you get this land to have the right basic land type, which of my lands would be best to attach this Fortification to, and so on. It worked far better than Zendikar at making lands matter.

*: There is the rather big proviso that I haven't yet played with Worldwake. It may - possibly - be that the Zendikons, Dread Statuary and Vastwood Animist are enough to make it feel like a proper "when lands attack" set. That's not the feeling I've got so far, but it may be that play convinces me.