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Aug 19, 2012 -- 11:12PM, crimson_sunrise wrote:

Here's the thing I wonder. If Time Spiral was a failure because a lot of new people "didn't get it," doesn't that also sort of suggest that Return to Ravnica could be a potential tripwire? After all, the set explicitly uses the word Return, which could imply that you're supposed to be excited about said return. Rosewater and other people have also been saying "Get excited because guilds are coming back."

There's a big difference between Time Spiral and RTR. Time Spiral did not merely contain nostalgia - it was based on nostalgia. Some of the cards' only purpose was to make reference to a pre-existing card, and things like simplicity of mechanics were sacrificed for the sake of nostalgia which is a main reason why new players who didn't want to learn 50 mechanics didn't like it. RTR is a block that could stand in its own right. If there was no original Ravnica, it would still be a good block because it would be the original Ravnica. Its theme is the guilds, not nostalgia.

the romanticized view of Ravnica is a dangerous thing to play with, because there's no possible way that Return to Ravnica can ever live up to it.

We won't know that until RTR actually comes out. I like to be a bit optimistic.

Witness the way that we're always being told by various fans that the original Ravnica block was the best competitive Standard environment ever, everything was viable, there were rogue decks and budget decks and on and on and on. Witness the way that omits the fact that a big part of this situation (to the extent it was true, which was a lot less than some would have you believe) was that the netdeck scene was not as developed, that there were no weekly tournaments at Star City to watch online and have their decklists posted within minutes to every forum on the internet, and that Magic players' mentality is simply different now and no longer considers a card like (for example) Watchwolf to be viable in any way, shape, form, or setting. What is actually going to happen when Return to Ravnica hits the streets and the tournaments? I don't know for certain, but I don't find it easy to be optimistic about it.

I do agree that the meta wasn't quite as diverse as we made out at the time, and that our judgments were skewed based on the sorts of decks that people brought to FNM that weren't actually that competitive. But I don't really agree about the causes of diversity or the lack thereof. The Dojo effect (netdecking) has existed since before people talked about Magic on the internet. Thinking about the Standards before Ravnica, the best deck was massively circulated (Affinity, Tooth and Nail, things with Jittes and Melokus etc) and there was no illusion of diversity. Also, it's not the players who have changed nearly as much as R&D that has changed. The smaller set size means less possibilities. And when R&D wants a card played these days they make it really obvious (Geist of Saint Traft) whereas back then they were much subtler and we sometimes missed the cards they thought would be good - most of the best cards were accidents (Tarmogoyf). Plus in terms of budget, it helped that there were no mythics back in Ravnica and that the most expensive cards were the lands, which drove down the price of other rares - budget players don't mind using a slightly worse mana base than the competitive decks, so they are more willing to be experimental, whereas these days they don't feel so happy because they can see that the other person has geist of saint traft and they have wind drake. Another thing I'm not sure if it has affected the diversity of the meta is R&D's increased hatred/caution of combo decks. Of course you don't want to risk another Academy these days with such a big player base it could have worse consequences than the real Academy did. But having no combo decks cuts out an entire archetype and gives people a lot more confidence about what they are going to face.
Players follow the metagame. If people played Watchwolf back in the day it's not because there were more uneducated newbies back then - Magic will always have its share of those people - but because it actually was able to win games in that sort of field. No card exists in a vacuum, just think about how no one is playing Searing Spear / Incinerate at the moment even though it's a fine card. Think about how most players would have ignored Blood Artist until it started placing in tournaments, so if something similar is printed in another metagame we might at first think such a card is good - but then it doesn't place again, and we'll go back to ignoring that sort of effect.

Plants don't move, it's true. Then again, nor do towers. The difference is, towers with guns mounted on them actually do shoot things.

But ever notice in many tower defence games how the enemy never tries to attack the towers? Wouldn't you expect them to get cluey after a while and start bringing in long range artillery? The attackers and defenders in a TD need to match each other.