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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 2:30PM
#31
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Date Joined:
Oct 12, 2010
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I want to add, on the length of the format, there's a rule in politics and marketing: Nohamotyo, or, No One Has A Memory Over Two Years Old. Then they started removing complexity in Lorwyn, so common and uncommon options started dwindling, and then NWO order set in (in addition to smaller set sizes), greatly limiting the number of options available to deck-builders.
Eh? I thought Lorwyn was one of the reasons they started removing complexity because it was so complex itself?
Lorwyn caused them to remove synergistic complexity (or on-board complexity as they call it), to start toning down the number of cards with activated abilities that mess with combat math. But they were already taking complexity away on a card-by-card basis by Lorwyn (thanks to Time Spiral block).
So, starting in Lorwyn they began toning down complexity of the cards, and then post-Lorwyn they started toning down complexities of card interactions.
Time Spiral is basically the reason we don't have so much complexity in new blocks. From RAV-TSP to TSP-LRW-SHM, Standard was almost like playing Legacy in terms of complexity. (So many keywords.) Even veterans might have difficulty with all the keywords in Future Sight, and the weirdness of Shadowmoor. (Looking at you,  .) Time Spiral also broke a rule; Serrated Arrows  , Giant Oyster  and Unstable Mutation  (and to the last one, why are you not in Scars of Mirrodin?) all used -1/-1 counters in a block that otherwise used +1/+1 countersw.
Clever deduction Watson! Maybe you can explain why Supergirl is trying to kill me.
----
Autocard is your friend.
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] = Lightning Bolt 
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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 2:37PM
#32
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And Standard is by far not the most popular format. People only play Standard to play in tournaments, and the go-to tournament that you can play each week is Friday Night Magic. FNM plays three formats: Sealed, Draft, and Standard. If you don't want to drop $15+ a week for a tournament, your only option is Standard. It's competitively robust and more dynamic than many of the older formats, but those things aren't the same as being the most fun.
FNM events can be run in the Standard, Sealed Deck, Booster Draft, Block Constructed, Extended, or Two-Headed Giant (Standard or Sealed) formats. It is up to each individual tournament organiser which formats they want to run.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 5:14PM
#33
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And lest we forget, Ravnica's main issue came from the Dredge mechanic, which made the Golgari Grave-Troll/Stinkweed Imp very powerful.
If we want to talk about a card from Time Spiral block that warped a format, that's easy. It's Tarmogoyf 
I wasn't playing at that time, but I'm pretty sure neither of those were very powerful in standard.
Tarmogoyf was usually just a Kird Ape or a slightly better Watchwolf.
And dredge was pretty terrible.
I agree with the comment about complexity in lower rarities, and I think Avacyn was a step in the right direction, with lots of commons and uncommons with many uses. Restoration Angel and the blink mechanic in particular seem to promote having a variety of options and creatures. Which leads to more diverse gameplay and decks.
Or maybe it's just the splashability..
I think that if there were more dual lands in the enemy colors right now, that would create a lot more viable archetypes.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 5:04AM
#34
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2006
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Hamazing is correct, in both posts. Tarmogoyf was instantly great in Extended and beyond (and on the topic of "only so many cards can be good" it pretty much supplanted Quirion Dryad). But in Standard it was playable but not great. Ravnica - Time Spiral was also a time when the R&D goal was "no tier 1, lots of tier 2" cards. It's a difficult design goal but a worthy one for creating an environment. However, marketing would certainly prefer a few high-profile things they can advertise.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 5:27AM
#35
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Ravnica - Time Spiral was also a time when the R&D goal was "no tier 1, lots of tier 2" cards. It's a difficult design goal but a worthy one for creating an environment. However, marketing would certainly prefer a few high-profile things they can advertise.
I doubt that. While it's true that chase mythics can drive pack sales, this has nothing to do with marketing. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad  can be marketed as much as you want, it's the power level that ultimately settles its success, at least for this target audience.
What marketing wants are splashy things for the casual masses. Innistrad's horror themes, vampires, werewolves, the titans, planeswalkers, etc.
My point being that I think it is possible to have a "tier 2" metagame while still keeping marketing happy with things that are high-profile in flavor/splashyness rather than tournament results.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 6:08AM
#36
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On Pros and Cons of Standard...
I realise he has to be the mouthpiece for Wizards, but under the section "Deductions" aka, downside, there is no mention of the cost of standard. Each year Wizards bring out, say, a new set of duals that immediately requires a competitive player to have to shell out for playsets. That's before you get to the mythic bombs which are pretty much an entry level requirement of every meta since M10.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the concept of standard is healthy for the game, and financially healthy for the producers of the game in a way that ensures that the game has a future. You can be balanced about it and note the positive that even if you have a "power nine" type card then eventually it will fall out of standard, but not mentioning the cost issue at all seems to me to be a rather gaping omission in a treatise on the subject.
From my own perspective, I love getting a regular refresh, and I often build standard-legal decks for the heck of it, but I don't dabble in any standard tournaments any more simply because optimizing a deck for a tournament invariably means getting 4 of a card whose price is unacceptably high to compete in an environment where rogue decks will almost always get beaten by meta-tested netdecks. That just isn't a fun return on the investment.
"Standard is by far the most popular format"
Really? I just played a day of magic with some buddies of mine I meet up with from time to time. I'd love to know how our casual kitchen table tournament featured in whatever statistical analysis MaRo was referring to. When I go drafting, you know what games are being played in the room before the draft starts? EDH. And many of the people I draft with like to draft all of the time (including online) but never play standard.
I'm sure MaRo was looking at some numbers when he made the pronouncement that of the formats that wizards supports, the one that gets the most amount of support and coverage is strangely the most attended, but that's not the same thing as most popular. Or to put it another way, if we were all givem a choice between being kicked in the head repeatedly or watching paint dry, I'm sure that watching paint dry would be "overwhelmingly popular".
I think that standard is probably the most accessible format to new players, and a firm favourite with pros, the two demongraphics that seem to get the most attention. As to the other conclusions, I think I'd have to say they were a direct consequence of the way things are currently organised more than any objective measure of popularity.
Me? I like me some new cards. I like building standard decks but there aren't too many outlets for doing so casually or inexpensively and I can't be doing with all that meta-analysis. I also like drafting and kitchen table magic, moreso than standard.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 3:02PM
#37
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Date Joined:
Oct 15, 2009
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Really? I just played a day of magic with some buddies of mine I meet up with from time to time. I'd love to know how our casual kitchen table tournament featured in whatever statistical analysis MaRo was referring to. When I go drafting, you know what games are being played in the room before the draft starts? EDH. And many of the people I draft with like to draft all of the time (including online) but never play standard.
Neither Casual nor EDH (Commander) are formats: they're Casual Variants. Neither is Limited: it's a style of play. Formats only exist for Constructed and the only formats are Block, Standard, Extended, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. Of those, Standard is the run-away favorite. His statement was perfectly correct. Whether that's because it's the best supported or best liked is debateable; but it's also a chicken-and-egg dilemma--if lots of people play it, Wizards supports it more; as Wizards supports it more, more people gravitate to playing it.
Rules Advisor as of 03/01/2013 Zammm = Batman "Ability words are flavor text for Melvins." -- Fallingman
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 5:56PM
#38
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On Pros and Cons of Standard...
I realise he has to be the mouthpiece for Wizards, but under the section "Deductions" aka, downside, there is no mention of the cost of standard. Each year Wizards bring out, say, a new set of duals that immediately requires a competitive player to have to shell out for playsets. That's before you get to the mythic bombs which are pretty much an entry level requirement of every meta since M10.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the concept of standard is healthy for the game, and financially healthy for the producers of the game in a way that ensures that the game has a future. You can be balanced about it and note the positive that even if you have a "power nine" type card then eventually it will fall out of standard, but not mentioning the cost issue at all seems to me to be a rather gaping omission in a treatise on the subject.
From my own perspective, I love getting a regular refresh, and I often build standard-legal decks for the heck of it, but I don't dabble in any standard tournaments any more simply because optimizing a deck for a tournament invariably means getting 4 of a card whose price is unacceptably high to compete in an environment where rogue decks will almost always get beaten by meta-tested netdecks. That just isn't a fun return on the investment.
He doesn't mention it because it's not a design problem with standard, so not something within his area.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 09, 2012 - 3:12AM
#39
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On Pros and Cons of Standard...
I realise he has to be the mouthpiece for Wizards, but under the section "Deductions" aka, downside, there is no mention of the cost of standard. Each year Wizards bring out, say, a new set of duals that immediately requires a competitive player to have to shell out for playsets. That's before you get to the mythic bombs which are pretty much an entry level requirement of every meta since M10.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the concept of standard is healthy for the game, and financially healthy for the producers of the game in a way that ensures that the game has a future. You can be balanced about it and note the positive that even if you have a "power nine" type card then eventually it will fall out of standard, but not mentioning the cost issue at all seems to me to be a rather gaping omission in a treatise on the subject.
From my own perspective, I love getting a regular refresh, and I often build standard-legal decks for the heck of it, but I don't dabble in any standard tournaments any more simply because optimizing a deck for a tournament invariably means getting 4 of a card whose price is unacceptably high to compete in an environment where rogue decks will almost always get beaten by meta-tested netdecks. That just isn't a fun return on the investment.
He doesn't mention it because it's not a design problem with standard, so not something within his area.
True, but he does mention the commercial importance on being able to focus on new product. I'd say he opened the door on the importance of economic stability as well as design stability with that one.
Plus, he's a certifiable silver-tongued devil. As Astareal pointed out to me, Casual and EDH aren't formats. So when Mark says standard is the most popular format he is saying something that rhymes with "more people play standard than anything else" but in fact its just a glossy half-truth. Equally when he states that X is important, I would like him to acknowledge that Y is important too.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 09, 2012 - 3:36AM
#40
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True, but he does mention the commercial importance on being able to focus on new product. I'd say he opened the door on the importance of economic stability as well as design stability with that one.
Oh yeah he does. Then you're right =)
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