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Man, I just wanted a single card out of the format!

Zamm while I do plan to adress your full post late, I would like to say that you failed to adress my main point in that there was no real reason to get rid of the extended format instead of just making a new one allowing those who like it now to still play while giving those who wish to manage a smaller card pool this new "super standard"

Most people don't have either the attention or the time to build decks and analyse metagames for too many formats at the same time (heck, that already happens now when different formats get combined in a single tournament like Worlds). Adding 4 block Extended while keeping 7 block Extended at the same time would have resulted in at least one of the formats being utterly unplayed or maybe both. One format had to go the moment they decided the change.

Where's all this talk of Extended being a bad format or not working. Since when is it not working? The format gets decent turn up at events.

Considering the format isn't supported that much, since it's just PTQ's and GP's that feature it as a format for most players, I think it does pretty well. How is just making the pool smaller going to help at all?

The reason Standard works better as a format, is that FNM's and game days are all standard. So the normal events players go to will be standard. Shrinking the card pool doesn't change the fact there are less events....

It's not a matter of sacrificing the minority to appeal to the majority.  It's a matter of taking something that isn't working and trying to turn  it into something that does. Seeing something that they believe needs  improvement and taking the steps necessary to improve it.



Yes,  there are people who loved extended just the way it was--many people.  There were also people who loved banding, people who loved Urza block,  people who loved batches and series, people who loved the pre-8th card  face, people who loved Skullclamp, people who loved affinity, and people  who loved mana burn. Magic has a large enough audience that you can  pretty much guarantee that no matter what changes you make, there will  be a lot of people who will not like it and who will be angry at you.

For  that reason, the fact that making a particular change will make a lot  of people angry is not in itself a sufficient reason to refrain from  making it. A bunch of angry players is not desireable, but it is by far  preferable to certain other problems. For example, a much larger numbers  of disinterested players, and/or a lack of new players joining up. Both  of those problems were something Wizards apparently believed Extended  was suffering.

 For a format that wizards only supported with GP and PT I would say that extended has a fairly large showing and this change really makes no one who currently plays happy except the select few who most likely wouldn't of cared either way. Making changes simply for the sake of getting new customers while a good buisness practice really does not come off as a practice that players like myself who has played nearly a decade enjoy.

If neo-Extended kills off Standard to the point where nobody's playing  it and it makes business sense for Wizards to drop it as a supported  format, sure. If Legacy dies under the weight of the dual lands and  Wizards can come up with a better alternative that will be more popular  with players, sure, why not?

this is perhaps one of the most troubling things I have read for a few reason first you use the term buisness sense and while wizards is a buisness they are also a buisness that relies more on their customers then most when I buy their cards I expect to be able to use them as they have told me I can by playing extended or legacy with them and by simply changing things because they can just does  not sit well it would be like a clothing store telling you after you bought a shirt that instead of being able to wear that shirt every day you can now only wear it monday and tuesday.

At the very least wizards should talk to it's customers before making such radical changes they don't even have to listen so much although we would all enjoy it but simply talking to us and showing that they care about the people who buy their cards now would go a long way and quelling anger and making this decision seem less like an inisde plot against players of now and more like a collective decision of all players.

I disagree. This says absolutely nothing about whether or not Wizards  cares for the 'individual player'. Such a statement is meaningless,  because every group is by necessity a collection of individuals. The  fact that you are an individual and you do not like this change is  countered by the fact that other people are also individuals and do like the change.

While the "individual player" is bad wording on my part what this change shows is that wizards has no relation with their player base beyond charts that show how many are playing Wizards is a company that has a direct relation with it's customer base and making us numbers is slightly distisfying once again if Wizards would of put effort into making it seem like this was a change for the current player base and not for future people who do not play now and their pockets I'm sure me and many other players would be happier

Without new players, Magic dies. Period. There's no way around that  simple fact. Without new players, the player base dwindles until it hits  the point of diminishing returns, and then everything collapses.

It  may not be pretty, but it's true, and the same goes for individual  formats.

It's only recently that wizards has started to make these changes for nearly 17 years they have rarely if ever made changes to attract new players. Legacy is a format that Wizards refuses to touch or even acknowledge half the time and it has more players then extended according to wizards.

Does that mean that players ejoy formats with more sets and the only reason that Standard is the most played format is because it has the most support? Maybe could just mean that legacy has a longer retention period for it's players due to the large amount of different decks it has.  Who knows but what it does show to me is that cuttind down on how large extended is will not change much unless it is given more support like FNM and other events which could of just as easily of been done to old extended.