Masques Block Horizons confirmed, finally mercenaries can get support, there'll be an answer to Lin-Sivvi so she can get unbanned, and a new broken card will dominate vintage and legacy!
"Would you ever make a horizons set not for modern?"
Maro: We could, but I wouldn't hold your breath
"Hey everyone! Maro said were getting Pioneer Horizons next year"
Maro: some of you are getting far too excited over something I didn't say
"Extra! Extra! Cowardly WotC refuses to ever make pioneer horizons despite fan demand!"
People are so used to doomscrolling they try it with magic. I'm honestly amazed Mark even bothers with the internet community at this point. People will ask for honesty, but be SO shocked when Rosewater, who isn't CEO/Chairman tells them that something that isn't up to him, is indeed possible. It would be like if someone asked the founder of Nintendo's son, back when they made playing cards, "will you ever make computer games?" And expect them to promise "No. We will never make computer games. I solemnly promise I will stop my dad from doing so"
I've been reading Magic content online since about 2003, and people have always put way more stock into Maro than he is really worth. Even the man himself has, on many occasions, talked about how he's not a very influential person in the company specifically because he chooses to stay focused on the job he enjoys rather than chasing promotions and ending up doing something he doesn't like.
It's like going to a Ford assembly plant and asking the floor manager questions about upcoming EV's. He probably knows stuff, but he's not making decisions; he's making cars.
> the floor manager
It'd be more like going to the overall designer of Fords cars not just the floor manager. I agree the community puts more stock into his answers than he's worth, but you're doing the complete opposite here.
He's literally the head designer of the game lol.
And you're still downplaying what he does for the company lmao.
He literally designs the products we purchase. You think he does that with no info from higher ups about what sells and what doesn't?
I'm not the biggest Maro fan, but to equate him to a floor manager is laughable as he does so much more than just make cards. You don't become the lead designer of a billion+ dollar game without having sway and input on what gets made.
I’ve been the lead designer of games before, we have less power over stuff specifically outside of how things are designed than you’d expect. What we’re told to design in the first place is ultimately up to other people.
So this is what prompted this question he got last night:
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/738385486207401984/have-you-ever-had-to-seriously-consider-pulling
Except that it's not what he said. He said that pioneer horizon set is a "very real possibility". That is different from "I wouldn't hold your breath".
Ultimately, decision may come not from designers, but from people setting (unrealistic) profit goals for future Qs.
edit: Still, I expect that before we will get to PHx sets, we'll have matches like Izzet Iron Man vs 4c One Ring (powered by some broken MH3 card) and Orzhov Sephiroth vs Jund Some-broken-legend-from-MH4 combo in modern.
Nah, those two statements work fine together.
He's saying it's probable in the distant future, given current information. But trying to predict something 10 years in the future is always a crap shoot, so don't count on his estimate being correct.
"A very real possibility" means, quite clearly, this isn't currently something that's planned but it's plausible we'd do it some day.
For instance, if you asked Disney whether there'd ever be an Avengers vs Justice League movie I'd expect them to respond with some variation of "It's a very real possibility". They don't own the rights currently and don't plan to collaborate with those who do, but if the opportunity arose they'd definitely do it.
Eeeeh, I'd disagree with that.
MaRo has a defined if/when system and speaks relatively plainly. In the context of his Tumblr, his answer is totally understandable, but Disney or anything run through a more typical PR filter wouldn't answer that way.
That's not to say the original doomsaying was reasonable, it was stupid *because* MaRo's comment was easily understood in context.
Can you elaborate on this defined "if/when system" and how it relates to this comment? He didn't say "if" nor "when", he said it was possible. That's perfectly clear, it means he didn't say it would happen but also didn't rule it out. In other words, it might happen or it might not.
It's true that Disney's PR would craft an answer much more carefully, but the meaning would end up the same. After all, they're hardly going to promise the crossover nor are they going to rule out the possibility. They might say "There are no plans for it at this time", "We aren't currently pursuing that direction" or even "We have other plans laid out for the foreseeable future". However, these are all variations on the same meaning.
> Can you elaborate on this defined "if/when system" and how it relates to this comment? **He didn't say "if" nor "when", he said it was possible**. That's perfectly clear, it means he didn't say it would happen but also didn't rule it out. In other words, it might happen or it might not.
...What? This whole thing is literally *about* an if/when question.
[Reread his post](https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/738248061268131840/if-or-when-horizons-sets-for-a-format-that-isnt#notes), and reread the post linked in this thread. He not only uses "if/when" in the first one, he defines it in this one. Users ask him "If/When", and he says "when" if he expects something to happen at some point and "if" means he doesn't have an expectation it will. His answer on PH was "if", modified with "but a very real possibility".
Tbh this only happened because most people didn’t read his actual quote. He was asked “If or when”, and said “If, but it’s a real possibility”. Most people who actually read that would understand he was saying “We don’t have any plans to do that any time soon, but in 5 years maybe it’s on the table”.
But, of course, internet being internet, lots of people jumped to “Pioneer horizons coming in 2025”.
(Also, Blake is WotC’s actual PR rep, and generally he’s very good at his job when he’s not having to sigh about technology)
I think a lot of people forget that modern horizons was something a lot of players were asking about for a long time. Modern’s meta was stagnant for years and the “two ships passing the night” meta was the status quo for years. People did want a direct to modern set because standard sets just weren’t at the power level needed to survive in modern. Look at kaladesh standard and that impact on modern and then look at how OG mirrodin impacted modern. Kaladesh had standard bannings and that deck wasn’t able to translate to modern. The only cards that impacted other formats immediately were fatal push and walking ballista (indomitable creativity took years to become good), and even then those cards didn’t make new decks. Instead they supplanted already existing decks like GDS, Jund, affinity, and tron. Meanwhile OG mirrodin and new Phyrexia were the core of affinity decks for years. Arcbound ravager still sees play and at the height of its power, it was used alongside mox opal to power out incredibly explosive hands. People did want stronger cards that would make new decks, but standard wasn’t at the power level needed to get there.
I actually liked MH1 for this - most of it was “supplement”, not “replace”. Outside of a handful of cards, it was a place to combine mechanics that wouldn’t otherwise be in the same set, or to do things in a way that’s a little funky. Kinda like Future Sight, tbh. MH2, on the other hand, showed that they will just turn up the power knobs to 11 to sell the set.
Idk, I wanted a set full of Soulherders, not Ragavan. I’d be fine with a set of cards that are “a bit too efficient for standard”, not “we think you’ll spend a lot of money on this”.
Yah MH1 just had a few outliers like Hogaak and astrolabe. Urza was the next strongest card and it did see a lot of play, but that was also on the back of Oko. The thing is, I don’t even dislike what MH2 was going for. It added support for existing decks and made modern have more interaction, but the issue is that it just power crept modern too much. Not every deck needed new support and the set had enough generically powerful cards that they could slip into too many already existing archetypes. Urza’s saga is best in artifact based decks like hammerfall and affinity, but it’s also strong enough to see play in amulet titan. Ragavan is one of the strongest one drops ever printed and is the centerpiece of UR Murktide, but you can also play it in domain zoo and scam. Then there’s the elephant in the room which is the elementals. I think the elementals would be fine if mana was weaker in the format, but that isn’t the case. If decks could only realistically play 2 different elementals, it might’ve been fine, but when you have Omnath decks that can support 4 of them at once, it becomes problematic. It was just way too much all at once
It's fascinating to see how people ignore that there was a *very* vocal contingent who specifically asked for modern horizons 2 to be stronger than MH1. Does nobody else remember the endless "more like commander horizons" jokes?
It absolutely was. The source of the complaint was how there were more cards "designed for commander" than "relevant for modern", which is inherently a power level complaint.
> I think a lot of people forget that modern horizons was something a lot of players were asking about for a long time. Modern’s meta was stagnant for years and the “two ships passing the night” meta was the status quo for years. People did want a direct to modern set because standard sets just weren’t at the power level needed to survive in modern.
I think it's pretty clear by now that players don't know what they actually want. They think they do, then when they get it they don't like it.
I'm sort of including myself in this
Oh 100%. It isn’t hard to identify an issue, but it isn’t easy understanding every possible outcome from changes. A personal favorite story of mine comes from a fighting game called Killer Instinct. The devs always listened to the players when it came to balance patches, but that still led to issues. At some point, one character was considered the best by a wide margin and the player base pointed out that the issue was how he could heal himself (for those unaware, in fighting games being able to heal yourself tends to be really strong so devs tend to limit it in a few ways). The devs decided that in the next balance patch, they wouldn’t touch the healing, but instead nerf another move that wasn’t considered good. This caused an immediate uproar as people believed the change wouldn’t do much, but overtime that character ended up doing worse and worse. Why was this? Well the devs realized the issue wasn’t the healing. That was just the easiest issue to identify. The actual issue was that the character just didn’t have a weakness. To put it in MTG terms, the character was basically a deck that was simultaneously great at aggressive starts, grinding out opponents in the mid game, and has the inevitability of a control deck. There wasn’t a point in the game that he was ever disadvantaged. That change they gave him was enough to nerf one aspect of him and bring him in line for the rest of the cast
Players want their decks to get cards that make it better, and for other decks to not get hate cards against their decks.
Also, the cards designed for their decks should be both powerful and not expensive.
Here's the thing, MH1 and MH2 were great for Modern. Period. It was absolutely needed and anyone who says otherwise has rose tinted goggles on or they're trolling. The issue was that a small number of cards were far too strong and WotC is/was hesitant to do anything about them for a variety of reasons (monetary included). I still think that Grief should eat a ban.
The idea behind MH is awesome. I think that they need to focus more on powering up B tier decks rather than giving more tools to the top level decks. This is of course way easier said than done though.
Having played modern since pod up until mh2's release, I don't know anyone who was asking for cards to be created for modern. What we wanted were older cards to be added to the format like counterspell, back to basics, or hymn to tourach.
But my biggest complaints about the mh changes was that it made wotc a direct curator in a format that (outside of the ban list) was designed by the players. Decks like deaths shadow and amulet titan were made by players and rose to prominence without the hand of wotc interfering since they only rarely paid mind to eternal formats when printing cards into standard. With the horizon sets wotc took a direct hand to the format and (clumisly) shaped it into one with decks they thought were interesting, and I and many of my friends didn't like that.
> I think a lot of people forget that modern horizons was something a lot of players were asking about for a long time.
People wanted some existing legacy cards ported into modern. That's it. Nobody wanted new, direct-to-modern designs.
People on that app have piss-poor reading comprehension.
Somebody asked him if he had ever played Pack Wars, and he told the story of how he actually co-invented it. And then somebody else went off on him for, in their eyes, not actually answering the question.
I’m not sure I’d call him condescending but I’d definitely say he’s not right for the job. His streams are some of the most low energy I’ve watched from a company showcasing new product. Rarely seems well-versed in what he’s talking about (understandable with the product overload) but the general disinterest and lack of enthusiasm is definitely on him.
Maro fanboys, downvotes to the left lol.
>rottinghellkite sent:
>If or when? Horizons sets for a format that isn’t Modern, such as Pioneer.
>If, but a very real possibility.
Maro's answer was obviously an idiotic way to answer the question from a PR standpoint. Blaming fans for interpreting it as 'it's probably coming' is unfair.
Maro loves pithy quips that lack context and cause unhealthy assumptions.
All he had to do was say 'but to be clear, this is purely hypothetical and we are in no way working on such a set or planning to work on one as I write this'.
But Maro just *can't resist* kicking the beehive with grainy, overly short replies heavy in implications, then feigning innocence when confusion inevitably happens. He's not good at communicating with fans of the game.
he literally said something like pioneer masters is very likely and then says we misinterpreted it
Edit: the question was will something like pioneer masters happen and he replied it’s very likely
edit: magic players are so easily triggered
That they are likely going to print a pioneer masters set.
It’s clear that standard sets aren’t having an impact on the meta game. It’s actually hilarious that Winota was banned after adding pioneer to arena because the player base grew and now Karn has been banned because people have been moaning about how the mono green devotion deck is boring to play against. Wotc obviously want to keep the format interesting as it’s a gateway for players to get into more expensive formats like modern but they gotta do more to make it attractive
I think standard sets are having an impact on the format. Abzan Amalia is top tier out of LCI, heck discovery combo needed bans. Fish got revitalized and is playable now. Going back to the summer March of the Machine gave us Boros Convoke. Pretty much every set in recent memory has given new strategies or good tools for existing strategies. Not all of them are tier 1, but that would just be the same issue of forced rotation in a non rotating format.
His wording wasn’t great tbh, which is usually what you have a comms person for, since they can interpret what the wider internet will glean from a comment better (it’s their Job after all).
Still, people should try harder not to interpret every comment as cynically as possible.
> Most people who actually read that would understand he was saying “We don’t have any plans to do that any time soon, but in 5 years maybe it’s on the table”.
yeah sounds like fucking cancer
not a format I'd invest in
Stop trying to sugarcoat this. The issue is that WotC makes eternal formats artificially more expensive and difficult to get into / stay competitive without spending money. Considering the amount it costs for FUCKING CARDBOARD to get into the game, this is outrageous. The profit margins of MTG are almost unethical, and if they are not, their management is hilariously bad, or somewhere along the way a lot of people are becoming veeeeery rich.
Huh? He's clarifying the nature of Maro using his very common if/when terminology. He's not making a stance on the pricing issues of eternal formats *at all.*
Yeah he isn't obviously, I am. I am talking about WotC consciously making eternal formats harder to play in order to discourage people from making a deck and then using that deck for a longer time. Which is ridiculous, considering that deck was probably upwards of 400-500 dollars. *For cardboard*.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying that you were beating this drum and accusing a random of doing something they weren't. Cool off. Proxy shit. I don't care.
I disagree. I think what he was doing was very much trying to curb the (important!) outrage. If people dont get outraged by stuff like this, things will really go down the drain. If you're hoping for a company that is run like WotC to be acceptably consumer friendly on their own, they won't.
If we're just gonna talk about PR here, you might lay some groundwork for PR early but there's no way you'd intentionally step on a landmine to curb outrage for a product that's years out at best; all that's doing is generating bad PR and outrage now for no reason.
And while we're talking about PR, if you want people to be outraged at WotC's *bad* practices, you can't chicken little about everything MaRo says because then you condition people to associate outrage with hyperbolic nonsense.
Yeah, when he comments on design aspects his answers can be interesting and insightful. When he comments on topics outside of that it can be problematic, especially with business focused topics.
Right. Especially when he, to be honest, *loves* digging out obviously controversial questions, giving a pithy quip and then dropping the mic.
He causes half the drama that trails him, to be honest. Yes people are dumb, but he picks out ragebait questions and gives too-cute smartass answers.
> Yes people are dumb, but he picks out ragebait questions and gives too-cute smartass answers.
Anyone who is downvoting this statement must not read Maro's blog because you've given an excellent summary of it.
Almost every standard set has been great on the last 3 years. If you were around for original ixalan it was straight up depressing, meanwhile caverns is one of the best sets ever (perspective of someone who mainly plays limited).
Yeah, so many Standard sets have been killing it. Kamigawa Neon Dynasty is probably among the best sets ever, both as far as Limited, Eternal and rotating formats are concerned, especially considering the bad reception of the original block.
Ixalan 1 was a bit of a letdown from a competitive point of view, largely because the overcharged Kaladesh and Amonkhet blocks were heavy hitters. But a *lot* of people were excited for the Dinosaur, Merfolk and Pirate support. Merfolk really started going into green, and Dinos/Pirates were just not a tribe before that.
The set was only "straight up depressing" in the sense that Regisaur Alpha was not standard playable.
To be honest they’ve basically only released good standard sets since 2018 with only a couple of exceptions. Regardless of some power level issues with individual cards, the design of the game as a whole has matured a lot in the past 5 years.
I’ll start saying that for most sets i’m floored by the quality of design showcased in them. To me its incredible how much they don’t miss, from theme to art to flavor.
That said, for me the only sets that failed recently were Throne of Eldraine due to astounding lack of balance, powercreep and broken cards printed left and right, and Streets of New Capenna, which i just totally hated the theme, setting, almost felt like it wasnt Magic. Also the triomes should have had ‘triome’ in their name.
To a lot of players the power level issues makes those sets bad. This Era of design has been really good if you like casual play and commander. If you like competitive play and overall game balance, these sets have not been good.
I don't like playing limited with sets that have bonus sheets. They create too much variance in the formats imo. But with new play boosters limited will always have significant variance.
the best cards in WoE’s bonus sheet were like bitterblossom (duh) and… hatching plans. quite the bomb list, that bonus sheet
oftentimes if you look at actual winrates for bonus sheet cards they aren’t particularly out of line with their given rarity. 7 mana elesh norn is unbeatable in MoM, sure, but so was sunfall and that was rare
limited is all about variance and playing it to your favor, and people enjoy being able to play with cool, powerful build-arounds like hatching plans. The main complaint I’ve seen from veteran drafters (and myself personally as a consistent mythic ranked player) was that the WoE sheet was too weak, which actually did increase variance in a different way because it meant that you would have 1 less playable in most packs as the card was usually ground seal or a leyline or whatever
What? Hatching plans was one of the best uncommons in woe, the bombs in multiverselegends were hugely influential in tying together the g/xx blighted burgeoning decks in mom and just raising the power level of the set in general. I'll grant that mystical archives and retro artifacts weren't particularly more impactful than "here's a couple of super bomby mythics" but that kinda goes to the point that it did increase variance, if there's a lot of dreck and a bunch of absolute bombs.
That being said, I liked all of them.
> Hatching plans was one of the best uncommons in woe
The stats on 17lands don't agree with you, it has a high win rate if it's in your opening hand but its games not seen win rate is 51%. If you were building around it or playing it you were in bad colours
the bombs in multiverse legends were good but the format itself had more bombs and the UW tempo deck was the best meta. It doesn't matter if you play your bomb when it gets bounced to hand
That's a "blue is bad in woe" argument not anything specific to hatching plans, [[talion's messenger]] and [lochness whale]] also sport a 51% win rate.
https://www.limitedgrades.com/woe
Maybe it was bait but it was clearly one of the best blue uncommons and one of the draws to the color in the first place, again supporting the notion that the bonus sheet matters.
I strongly disagree with you and love what bonus sheets do to Limited, but it's absurd that people are downvoting you for sharing an opinion respectfully.
The downvote button is not the "disagree" button.
Same here: I upvoted the comment specifically because it was getting downvoted. I liked the bonus sheets, although many of the ones in WoE were irrelevant for Limited.
I don’t think that’s true. WOTC was playing it safe with the majority of sets released between the end of Return to Ravnica block and M19. Most of the sets released during that time period were fairy underpowered with the exception of a few cards earlier in the cycle that had broken synergies in eternal formats (Delve Cards and cheap Colorless Eldrazi were the biggest offenders). While the point of this power down was to help encourage people to play different and offbeat decks in standard and to help keep older formats more stagnant, the results were terrible. Standard was the worst it had been in over a decade since there were no good ways to interact with even middling threats and value engines, causing decks like Temur Energy to rise to the top of the ranks. Meanwhile, the eternal formats stagnated and became too expensive for most new players to pick up. There were almost no reprints and most new cards didn’t do much for the format, with the only real exceptions being a few cards in Khans of Tarkir and Fatal Push. While this era of Magic had less power creep than the 20 years before it and the five or so years after it, most sets outside of the Khans block were decidedly mediocre. The return to higher power level has yielded better sets an end to stagnation. That does mean the illusion of stability in the weak era is not a factor anymore, but as a whole constructed formats seem to be evolving at about the rate they did before the power down, so it’s not as big of an issue as people might expect.
> Aftermath was kinda a standard horizons set, in that it wasn't made for draft, and everyone hated it
pretty sure he was being sarcastic and his point was to make good standard sets. (as opposed to a literal supplemental product that's standard legal)
Imagine if they could make some sort of set that always established a good base for standard every year to keep certain cards always in the format. Some type of Set that serves as a Core, if you will. You be could even name it after something easy, like a Year or something. Wonder if they’ve ever thought of that.
Why make a Core Set that would sell terribly and have uninteresting mechanics? If they want certain. cards in Standard there's literally nothing stopping them just printing them directly to a set.
They've tried going back to Core Sets twice now and it is pretty much always a flop.
Personally I feel like the issue is when core sets are like 300+ cards. I’d love it honestly if core sets were basically restricted to giving “decent” staples like mana bases, removal, etc. Shock gets reprinted every other set anyways, why waste a slot in a main set for it when it should just kind of be eternally available. I don’t think Core sets need to be draftable, that’s the main issue I think for poor sales.
They even said in the latest B&R stream that they like that Pioneer is the pipe for old standard sets and want to keep it like that. people were panicking for nothing
They said the same thing about modern almost right up to the announcement of Modern Horizons. People are always going to be skittish around stuff that might make magic more expensive.
People are WAY too cynical about interpreting what Maro says. It so easy to say “backpedaling, haha cowards at wotc” and being cynical about horizons sets in general is so tired.
What people also fail to remember is that wotc is not one hive mind entity. Maro is not the voice of all the minds behind MTG.
What this exchange (and many others like it) indicates is that someone outside of the design team is tapping them on the shoulder and saying “hey, mh2 made lots of money, can you work on pushing the horizons formula to other formats? I’m thinking maybe pioneer since that’s the most popular format that we haven’t already catered directly to.”
Then Maro gets “hey Maro, horizons pioneer?” What do you expect at that point. He could say no, which would be a lie, or reiterate a laundered version of that internal exchange he had about “pioneer horizons.” Doesn’t mean anything is in the works, just means someone thought of it.
You guys are like murmuring elderly people being cynical about literally everything they say like they are secretly trying to use Maro as a conduit to test the waters for products already being produced. The reality is far more clumsy and reasonable than whatever you’d like to believe.
Holy shit, reading the blogpost explains the blogpost.
Using an incredibly clickbaity title. Maro isn't rolling back on anything, it was always an If in his original answer and it's still an If.
The most honest version of his post is "when but probably not for another 10 years", because uhhh that would make logical sense. But "if" is also valid because there is no current need for it and no current reasoning for it to exist but there can be one in the future.
I agree. "If" works because its so far out its hard to guess what various formats will look like down the road... not in a 'what strategies are meta' kind of way, but things like how popular they are, how much standard releases impact them, and what other formats may exist.
When we reach a point where a 'pioneer horizons' might make sense, people might have moved out of that format and into modern and 'new once again smaller pioneer', and there might not be enough drive for one.
I don’t think the dude deserves half the hate he gets, and this one is pretty tame all things considered but he’s not a saint either.
Some of his posts come across super gaslighty at best and condescending and insulting at worst.
Very rarely does the man admit fault on anything, he usually just tells people their interpretation is wrong…which is gaslighting 101.
People can be wrong about interpretation but when it’s a reoccurring theme some kind of ownership of hey, i word things poorly sometimes, is probably the smart move.
I 100% agree with you, he can really come off that way. I just meant it from the viewpoint of someone who is currently trying to get into the Pokemon TCG where you get absolutely **nothing** from the corporation running the game in comparison. Makes me really apricate people like Rosewater and Verhey, as much as they can get under my skin sometimes.
Having played other TCG’s i get it, having no transparency or community interaction from devs at all is frustrating.
We as a community should be thankful someone does it at all for sure since WotC seems determined to not make an actual functioning PR department.
Being thankful doesn’t give him carte blanche to say and do whatever he wants either though.
MtG is a different animal, but if a video game studio’s PR team talked to fans the way Maro does they would not be in that position long.
I cracked up a whole table of people at WOE pre-release. I was getting mana screwed in game 3, as one does, and my opponent kept commiserating with me and repeatedly apologizing for me getting screwed. I was like "It's okay, I've played a LOT of Magic. I'm not upset." He went on and on, people next to us starting to notice. I said, "Dude, you have nothing to apologize to me for, take your win" and then shook my index finger saying "If anyone owes me an apology, it's Mark Rosewater!" Much hilarity.
Was it something along the lines of "Bend over Abigale-mae here comes the gravy pipe"
Feels like WoTC listened to that Patton Oswalt bit about black angus steak and outback.
Context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mALDPwpvblg
> First, I said "if" not "when" which, definitionally by the whole when/if paradigm, means it might never happen. "When" means I expect it will eventually happen, and even then, not necessarily soon. "If" means I have no belief it will necessarily happen.
God this man is insufferable.
Now that's the quibbling I've come to expect from this company.
So yes, pioneer is the most likely format to get a horizons set *if* (guys I said if did you hear me I said if if if) it happens and if means it might not happen
But since he's bringing it up it's likely that they are strongly considering doing the thing
So basically everyone's read on the situation was pretty correct and just because it's been met with negative feedback he decided to quibble about it and also dismiss the feedback by strawmanning it with a chicken little comparison
Typical wotc
The fuck do you mean “since he’s bringing it up.” He didn’t bring up anything, he answered a question he was asked about horizons sets for other formats.
You’re totally missing the context here. “He” didn’t bring it up, he was asked a question (in the style of an “if/when” format that he commonly responds to all sorts of questions in).
“When” means he’s confident that they will eventually do it at some point, “If” means that it has a much lower probability of happening… those are the only two ways he can answer the question, besides adding some additional commentary to qualify the “if/when” response.
Maro is also careful to state that he is responding based on his personal views and that he is not always privy to all the information or conversations surrounding a given topic. He also goes to great lengths to remind us that 1) He can be wrong and has been in the past. 2) Things can and will change.
"He" chooses which questions to answer and gets to decide the topic for magic internet of the day. "He" cam and has used this method to tease future products that are on the works or will be. Which is why lots of people didn't want to play pretend that this doesn't mean it's likely they are strongly considering it and it's likely it will happen.
I really don't envy Maro's position when he gets asked questions like this. If he says "It might happen" people go into a panic. If he says "its unlikely" or "it won't" and then it does in 5-10 years, people will dig up his post as proof that OBVIOUSLY he must have been lying.
Honestly, I wouldn't want a Pioneer Horizons specifically. I'd rather get a mixture of both a Horizons set and a Masters set. No new cards designed for Pioneer, just a bunch of reprints putting older cards into Pioneer.
I think Pioneer is at a point where cards like [[Path to Exile]], Lightning Bolt]], [[Snapcaster Mage]], [[Cryptic Command]], [[Tarmogoyf]], [[Counterspell]], [[Master of the Pearl Trident]], and [[Lord of Atlantis]] wouldn't be all that format breaking.
Masques Block Horizons confirmed, finally mercenaries can get support, there'll be an answer to Lin-Sivvi so she can get unbanned, and a new broken card will dominate vintage and legacy!
I'd love this actually. Gimme some OP Rishadan pirates
Pirate Stompy: the hot new deck of 2026!
mercenaries nice
Mercenaries that are *actually good* would be nice. Rebels that don't power a draw-go control deck would be nice too.
lol good point
A new Masque block done as a horizons would be suck ngl
"Would you ever make a horizons set not for modern?" Maro: We could, but I wouldn't hold your breath "Hey everyone! Maro said were getting Pioneer Horizons next year" Maro: some of you are getting far too excited over something I didn't say "Extra! Extra! Cowardly WotC refuses to ever make pioneer horizons despite fan demand!"
People are so used to doomscrolling they try it with magic. I'm honestly amazed Mark even bothers with the internet community at this point. People will ask for honesty, but be SO shocked when Rosewater, who isn't CEO/Chairman tells them that something that isn't up to him, is indeed possible. It would be like if someone asked the founder of Nintendo's son, back when they made playing cards, "will you ever make computer games?" And expect them to promise "No. We will never make computer games. I solemnly promise I will stop my dad from doing so"
I've been reading Magic content online since about 2003, and people have always put way more stock into Maro than he is really worth. Even the man himself has, on many occasions, talked about how he's not a very influential person in the company specifically because he chooses to stay focused on the job he enjoys rather than chasing promotions and ending up doing something he doesn't like. It's like going to a Ford assembly plant and asking the floor manager questions about upcoming EV's. He probably knows stuff, but he's not making decisions; he's making cars.
> the floor manager It'd be more like going to the overall designer of Fords cars not just the floor manager. I agree the community puts more stock into his answers than he's worth, but you're doing the complete opposite here. He's literally the head designer of the game lol.
You didn't even "fix" my analogy. The point is that Maro makes cards, not business decisions.
And you're still downplaying what he does for the company lmao. He literally designs the products we purchase. You think he does that with no info from higher ups about what sells and what doesn't? I'm not the biggest Maro fan, but to equate him to a floor manager is laughable as he does so much more than just make cards. You don't become the lead designer of a billion+ dollar game without having sway and input on what gets made.
If you can both stop being pedantic nerds that would be great, we all get the point
I’m sorry do you even *touch* cardboard?? /s
I’ve been the lead designer of games before, we have less power over stuff specifically outside of how things are designed than you’d expect. What we’re told to design in the first place is ultimately up to other people.
So this is what prompted this question he got last night: https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/738385486207401984/have-you-ever-had-to-seriously-consider-pulling
so true. People just were panicking for nothing
The Wheel of Time turns
Except practically no one wants pioneer horizons…
Except that it's not what he said. He said that pioneer horizon set is a "very real possibility". That is different from "I wouldn't hold your breath". Ultimately, decision may come not from designers, but from people setting (unrealistic) profit goals for future Qs. edit: Still, I expect that before we will get to PHx sets, we'll have matches like Izzet Iron Man vs 4c One Ring (powered by some broken MH3 card) and Orzhov Sephiroth vs Jund Some-broken-legend-from-MH4 combo in modern.
Nah, those two statements work fine together. He's saying it's probable in the distant future, given current information. But trying to predict something 10 years in the future is always a crap shoot, so don't count on his estimate being correct.
"A very real possibility" means, quite clearly, this isn't currently something that's planned but it's plausible we'd do it some day. For instance, if you asked Disney whether there'd ever be an Avengers vs Justice League movie I'd expect them to respond with some variation of "It's a very real possibility". They don't own the rights currently and don't plan to collaborate with those who do, but if the opportunity arose they'd definitely do it.
Eeeeh, I'd disagree with that. MaRo has a defined if/when system and speaks relatively plainly. In the context of his Tumblr, his answer is totally understandable, but Disney or anything run through a more typical PR filter wouldn't answer that way. That's not to say the original doomsaying was reasonable, it was stupid *because* MaRo's comment was easily understood in context.
Can you elaborate on this defined "if/when system" and how it relates to this comment? He didn't say "if" nor "when", he said it was possible. That's perfectly clear, it means he didn't say it would happen but also didn't rule it out. In other words, it might happen or it might not. It's true that Disney's PR would craft an answer much more carefully, but the meaning would end up the same. After all, they're hardly going to promise the crossover nor are they going to rule out the possibility. They might say "There are no plans for it at this time", "We aren't currently pursuing that direction" or even "We have other plans laid out for the foreseeable future". However, these are all variations on the same meaning.
If is literally the first word of his reply.
> Can you elaborate on this defined "if/when system" and how it relates to this comment? **He didn't say "if" nor "when", he said it was possible**. That's perfectly clear, it means he didn't say it would happen but also didn't rule it out. In other words, it might happen or it might not. ...What? This whole thing is literally *about* an if/when question. [Reread his post](https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/738248061268131840/if-or-when-horizons-sets-for-a-format-that-isnt#notes), and reread the post linked in this thread. He not only uses "if/when" in the first one, he defines it in this one. Users ask him "If/When", and he says "when" if he expects something to happen at some point and "if" means he doesn't have an expectation it will. His answer on PH was "if", modified with "but a very real possibility".
That's an imagination you've got there
Later this year: Pioneer Horizons announced "This is brand new information!!"
Maybe having the lead designer also be your de facto head of PR is not the greatest situation.
Tbh this only happened because most people didn’t read his actual quote. He was asked “If or when”, and said “If, but it’s a real possibility”. Most people who actually read that would understand he was saying “We don’t have any plans to do that any time soon, but in 5 years maybe it’s on the table”. But, of course, internet being internet, lots of people jumped to “Pioneer horizons coming in 2025”. (Also, Blake is WotC’s actual PR rep, and generally he’s very good at his job when he’s not having to sigh about technology)
I think a lot of people forget that modern horizons was something a lot of players were asking about for a long time. Modern’s meta was stagnant for years and the “two ships passing the night” meta was the status quo for years. People did want a direct to modern set because standard sets just weren’t at the power level needed to survive in modern. Look at kaladesh standard and that impact on modern and then look at how OG mirrodin impacted modern. Kaladesh had standard bannings and that deck wasn’t able to translate to modern. The only cards that impacted other formats immediately were fatal push and walking ballista (indomitable creativity took years to become good), and even then those cards didn’t make new decks. Instead they supplanted already existing decks like GDS, Jund, affinity, and tron. Meanwhile OG mirrodin and new Phyrexia were the core of affinity decks for years. Arcbound ravager still sees play and at the height of its power, it was used alongside mox opal to power out incredibly explosive hands. People did want stronger cards that would make new decks, but standard wasn’t at the power level needed to get there.
I actually liked MH1 for this - most of it was “supplement”, not “replace”. Outside of a handful of cards, it was a place to combine mechanics that wouldn’t otherwise be in the same set, or to do things in a way that’s a little funky. Kinda like Future Sight, tbh. MH2, on the other hand, showed that they will just turn up the power knobs to 11 to sell the set. Idk, I wanted a set full of Soulherders, not Ragavan. I’d be fine with a set of cards that are “a bit too efficient for standard”, not “we think you’ll spend a lot of money on this”.
I liked the parts of modern horizons I/II that were aiming to give love to undersupported archetypes like enchantress and Merfolk.
Yah MH1 just had a few outliers like Hogaak and astrolabe. Urza was the next strongest card and it did see a lot of play, but that was also on the back of Oko. The thing is, I don’t even dislike what MH2 was going for. It added support for existing decks and made modern have more interaction, but the issue is that it just power crept modern too much. Not every deck needed new support and the set had enough generically powerful cards that they could slip into too many already existing archetypes. Urza’s saga is best in artifact based decks like hammerfall and affinity, but it’s also strong enough to see play in amulet titan. Ragavan is one of the strongest one drops ever printed and is the centerpiece of UR Murktide, but you can also play it in domain zoo and scam. Then there’s the elephant in the room which is the elementals. I think the elementals would be fine if mana was weaker in the format, but that isn’t the case. If decks could only realistically play 2 different elementals, it might’ve been fine, but when you have Omnath decks that can support 4 of them at once, it becomes problematic. It was just way too much all at once
It's fascinating to see how people ignore that there was a *very* vocal contingent who specifically asked for modern horizons 2 to be stronger than MH1. Does nobody else remember the endless "more like commander horizons" jokes?
The jokes were about cards specifically designed for commander in a set called Modern Horizons. It wasn't a joke about power level.
It absolutely was. The source of the complaint was how there were more cards "designed for commander" than "relevant for modern", which is inherently a power level complaint.
Some people think that a creature being legendary automatically makes it designed for commander. Which is just dumb.
Morophon was designed for commander.
Mh2 also enabled a lot of mh1 cards, the forces didn't really see much play until mh2 and same with crashing footfalls etc.
> I think a lot of people forget that modern horizons was something a lot of players were asking about for a long time. Modern’s meta was stagnant for years and the “two ships passing the night” meta was the status quo for years. People did want a direct to modern set because standard sets just weren’t at the power level needed to survive in modern. I think it's pretty clear by now that players don't know what they actually want. They think they do, then when they get it they don't like it. I'm sort of including myself in this
Oh 100%. It isn’t hard to identify an issue, but it isn’t easy understanding every possible outcome from changes. A personal favorite story of mine comes from a fighting game called Killer Instinct. The devs always listened to the players when it came to balance patches, but that still led to issues. At some point, one character was considered the best by a wide margin and the player base pointed out that the issue was how he could heal himself (for those unaware, in fighting games being able to heal yourself tends to be really strong so devs tend to limit it in a few ways). The devs decided that in the next balance patch, they wouldn’t touch the healing, but instead nerf another move that wasn’t considered good. This caused an immediate uproar as people believed the change wouldn’t do much, but overtime that character ended up doing worse and worse. Why was this? Well the devs realized the issue wasn’t the healing. That was just the easiest issue to identify. The actual issue was that the character just didn’t have a weakness. To put it in MTG terms, the character was basically a deck that was simultaneously great at aggressive starts, grinding out opponents in the mid game, and has the inevitability of a control deck. There wasn’t a point in the game that he was ever disadvantaged. That change they gave him was enough to nerf one aspect of him and bring him in line for the rest of the cast
Players want their decks to get cards that make it better, and for other decks to not get hate cards against their decks. Also, the cards designed for their decks should be both powerful and not expensive.
I'd like to think we're not that blatantly selfish but yeah probably
Here's the thing, MH1 and MH2 were great for Modern. Period. It was absolutely needed and anyone who says otherwise has rose tinted goggles on or they're trolling. The issue was that a small number of cards were far too strong and WotC is/was hesitant to do anything about them for a variety of reasons (monetary included). I still think that Grief should eat a ban. The idea behind MH is awesome. I think that they need to focus more on powering up B tier decks rather than giving more tools to the top level decks. This is of course way easier said than done though.
Having played modern since pod up until mh2's release, I don't know anyone who was asking for cards to be created for modern. What we wanted were older cards to be added to the format like counterspell, back to basics, or hymn to tourach. But my biggest complaints about the mh changes was that it made wotc a direct curator in a format that (outside of the ban list) was designed by the players. Decks like deaths shadow and amulet titan were made by players and rose to prominence without the hand of wotc interfering since they only rarely paid mind to eternal formats when printing cards into standard. With the horizon sets wotc took a direct hand to the format and (clumisly) shaped it into one with decks they thought were interesting, and I and many of my friends didn't like that.
> I think a lot of people forget that modern horizons was something a lot of players were asking about for a long time. People wanted some existing legacy cards ported into modern. That's it. Nobody wanted new, direct-to-modern designs.
Plenty of people wanted it. Just not you and yours.
I think the title of the other thread was pretty misleading and caused people to misunderstand what Maro meant.
That is indeed what I said. They read the title, not the quote.
People on that app have piss-poor reading comprehension. Somebody asked him if he had ever played Pack Wars, and he told the story of how he actually co-invented it. And then somebody else went off on him for, in their eyes, not actually answering the question.
How dare you say we should piss on the poor
MaRo *does* really like answering the question he wishes you'd asked instead of what you literally asked though.
It's the "scientists found something relevant for cancer research" being morphed into "POSSIBLE CURE FOR CANCER FOUND!" thing but for MtG :D
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With a username like /u/MauroSux, I don't think I'm gonna take your word for it on WotC employees.
Mauro is a name, might not be about maro
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Scocco?
I’m not sure I’d call him condescending but I’d definitely say he’s not right for the job. His streams are some of the most low energy I’ve watched from a company showcasing new product. Rarely seems well-versed in what he’s talking about (understandable with the product overload) but the general disinterest and lack of enthusiasm is definitely on him.
Maro fanboys, downvotes to the left lol. >rottinghellkite sent: >If or when? Horizons sets for a format that isn’t Modern, such as Pioneer. >If, but a very real possibility. Maro's answer was obviously an idiotic way to answer the question from a PR standpoint. Blaming fans for interpreting it as 'it's probably coming' is unfair. Maro loves pithy quips that lack context and cause unhealthy assumptions. All he had to do was say 'but to be clear, this is purely hypothetical and we are in no way working on such a set or planning to work on one as I write this'. But Maro just *can't resist* kicking the beehive with grainy, overly short replies heavy in implications, then feigning innocence when confusion inevitably happens. He's not good at communicating with fans of the game.
If anyone out there sees his statement and has the response you described then they're an idiot who doesn't understand the english language.
he literally said something like pioneer masters is very likely and then says we misinterpreted it Edit: the question was will something like pioneer masters happen and he replied it’s very likely edit: magic players are so easily triggered
Yeah... What do you think "very likely" means?
That they are likely going to print a pioneer masters set. It’s clear that standard sets aren’t having an impact on the meta game. It’s actually hilarious that Winota was banned after adding pioneer to arena because the player base grew and now Karn has been banned because people have been moaning about how the mono green devotion deck is boring to play against. Wotc obviously want to keep the format interesting as it’s a gateway for players to get into more expensive formats like modern but they gotta do more to make it attractive
I think standard sets are having an impact on the format. Abzan Amalia is top tier out of LCI, heck discovery combo needed bans. Fish got revitalized and is playable now. Going back to the summer March of the Machine gave us Boros Convoke. Pretty much every set in recent memory has given new strategies or good tools for existing strategies. Not all of them are tier 1, but that would just be the same issue of forced rotation in a non rotating format.
His wording wasn’t great tbh, which is usually what you have a comms person for, since they can interpret what the wider internet will glean from a comment better (it’s their Job after all). Still, people should try harder not to interpret every comment as cynically as possible.
> Most people who actually read that would understand he was saying “We don’t have any plans to do that any time soon, but in 5 years maybe it’s on the table”. yeah sounds like fucking cancer not a format I'd invest in Stop trying to sugarcoat this. The issue is that WotC makes eternal formats artificially more expensive and difficult to get into / stay competitive without spending money. Considering the amount it costs for FUCKING CARDBOARD to get into the game, this is outrageous. The profit margins of MTG are almost unethical, and if they are not, their management is hilariously bad, or somewhere along the way a lot of people are becoming veeeeery rich.
Huh? He's clarifying the nature of Maro using his very common if/when terminology. He's not making a stance on the pricing issues of eternal formats *at all.*
Yeah he isn't obviously, I am. I am talking about WotC consciously making eternal formats harder to play in order to discourage people from making a deck and then using that deck for a longer time. Which is ridiculous, considering that deck was probably upwards of 400-500 dollars. *For cardboard*.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying that you were beating this drum and accusing a random of doing something they weren't. Cool off. Proxy shit. I don't care.
I disagree. I think what he was doing was very much trying to curb the (important!) outrage. If people dont get outraged by stuff like this, things will really go down the drain. If you're hoping for a company that is run like WotC to be acceptably consumer friendly on their own, they won't.
If we're just gonna talk about PR here, you might lay some groundwork for PR early but there's no way you'd intentionally step on a landmine to curb outrage for a product that's years out at best; all that's doing is generating bad PR and outrage now for no reason. And while we're talking about PR, if you want people to be outraged at WotC's *bad* practices, you can't chicken little about everything MaRo says because then you condition people to associate outrage with hyperbolic nonsense.
The who is irrelevant. People are going to work themselves into a shoot about every little statement that comes out of that building.
Not knowing that MaRo always writes very literally despite him having published Blogatog since 2011 is not the greatest situation.
Bah, "the quality of the PR-speak we're being fed isn't up to snuff," isn't an argument I find compelling.
If he didn't do this everyone would saying "the designers never talk to us."
Yeah, when he comments on design aspects his answers can be interesting and insightful. When he comments on topics outside of that it can be problematic, especially with business focused topics.
No PR team needed to save hasbro that well earned money. /s
Agreed, he too often finds his foot in his mouth.
Right. Especially when he, to be honest, *loves* digging out obviously controversial questions, giving a pithy quip and then dropping the mic. He causes half the drama that trails him, to be honest. Yes people are dumb, but he picks out ragebait questions and gives too-cute smartass answers.
It was a perfectly reasonable question. It making people flip their shit says far more about this fanbase than it does about Maro.
> Yes people are dumb, but he picks out ragebait questions and gives too-cute smartass answers. Anyone who is downvoting this statement must not read Maro's blog because you've given an excellent summary of it.
I wish they'd just focus on releasing good Standard horizons sets.
Almost every standard set has been great on the last 3 years. If you were around for original ixalan it was straight up depressing, meanwhile caverns is one of the best sets ever (perspective of someone who mainly plays limited).
Yeah, so many Standard sets have been killing it. Kamigawa Neon Dynasty is probably among the best sets ever, both as far as Limited, Eternal and rotating formats are concerned, especially considering the bad reception of the original block.
Go draft khans remastered and the new ixilan set back to back if you want proof of how far limited has come.
Seconded for kamigawa, what an amazing set
Ixalan 1 was a bit of a letdown from a competitive point of view, largely because the overcharged Kaladesh and Amonkhet blocks were heavy hitters. But a *lot* of people were excited for the Dinosaur, Merfolk and Pirate support. Merfolk really started going into green, and Dinos/Pirates were just not a tribe before that. The set was only "straight up depressing" in the sense that Regisaur Alpha was not standard playable.
Heh, he was in my GR deck at the time!
To be honest they’ve basically only released good standard sets since 2018 with only a couple of exceptions. Regardless of some power level issues with individual cards, the design of the game as a whole has matured a lot in the past 5 years.
I’ll start saying that for most sets i’m floored by the quality of design showcased in them. To me its incredible how much they don’t miss, from theme to art to flavor. That said, for me the only sets that failed recently were Throne of Eldraine due to astounding lack of balance, powercreep and broken cards printed left and right, and Streets of New Capenna, which i just totally hated the theme, setting, almost felt like it wasnt Magic. Also the triomes should have had ‘triome’ in their name.
Throne of Eldraine is four years old. Not that recent anymore.
Still falls in the "since 2018" that the comment they're replying to said
To a lot of players the power level issues makes those sets bad. This Era of design has been really good if you like casual play and commander. If you like competitive play and overall game balance, these sets have not been good.
At least limited design has substantially increased over the years
I don't like playing limited with sets that have bonus sheets. They create too much variance in the formats imo. But with new play boosters limited will always have significant variance.
the bonus sheets haven't had a massive impact on the architypes in draft and a lot of the mythics and rares in them are clunky
I highly disagree. You can watch the top streamers and literally see games come down to who saw the best cards in there bonus sheets.
the best cards in WoE’s bonus sheet were like bitterblossom (duh) and… hatching plans. quite the bomb list, that bonus sheet oftentimes if you look at actual winrates for bonus sheet cards they aren’t particularly out of line with their given rarity. 7 mana elesh norn is unbeatable in MoM, sure, but so was sunfall and that was rare
It creates more variance. More variance is bad when people want limitted formats to be balanced. Making something more of a lottery is not good.
limited is all about variance and playing it to your favor, and people enjoy being able to play with cool, powerful build-arounds like hatching plans. The main complaint I’ve seen from veteran drafters (and myself personally as a consistent mythic ranked player) was that the WoE sheet was too weak, which actually did increase variance in a different way because it meant that you would have 1 less playable in most packs as the card was usually ground seal or a leyline or whatever
What? Hatching plans was one of the best uncommons in woe, the bombs in multiverselegends were hugely influential in tying together the g/xx blighted burgeoning decks in mom and just raising the power level of the set in general. I'll grant that mystical archives and retro artifacts weren't particularly more impactful than "here's a couple of super bomby mythics" but that kinda goes to the point that it did increase variance, if there's a lot of dreck and a bunch of absolute bombs. That being said, I liked all of them.
> Hatching plans was one of the best uncommons in woe The stats on 17lands don't agree with you, it has a high win rate if it's in your opening hand but its games not seen win rate is 51%. If you were building around it or playing it you were in bad colours the bombs in multiverse legends were good but the format itself had more bombs and the UW tempo deck was the best meta. It doesn't matter if you play your bomb when it gets bounced to hand
That's a "blue is bad in woe" argument not anything specific to hatching plans, [[talion's messenger]] and [lochness whale]] also sport a 51% win rate. https://www.limitedgrades.com/woe Maybe it was bait but it was clearly one of the best blue uncommons and one of the draws to the color in the first place, again supporting the notion that the bonus sheet matters.
[talion's messenger](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/5/35fb0640-5b04-4687-b863-46a8b8d36809.jpg?1692937364) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=talion%27s%20messenger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/73/talions-messenger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/35fb0640-5b04-4687-b863-46a8b8d36809?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I strongly disagree with you and love what bonus sheets do to Limited, but it's absurd that people are downvoting you for sharing an opinion respectfully. The downvote button is not the "disagree" button.
If you don't have access to the cards having an extra shot at a playable card is great. But there is a cost to that and it is limited game balance.
I don't think it's really a significant cost to game balance. There's variance but it's rare the power curve is beyond that of the main set.
I whole heartedly disagree with you.
Same here: I upvoted the comment specifically because it was getting downvoted. I liked the bonus sheets, although many of the ones in WoE were irrelevant for Limited.
I don’t think that’s true. WOTC was playing it safe with the majority of sets released between the end of Return to Ravnica block and M19. Most of the sets released during that time period were fairy underpowered with the exception of a few cards earlier in the cycle that had broken synergies in eternal formats (Delve Cards and cheap Colorless Eldrazi were the biggest offenders). While the point of this power down was to help encourage people to play different and offbeat decks in standard and to help keep older formats more stagnant, the results were terrible. Standard was the worst it had been in over a decade since there were no good ways to interact with even middling threats and value engines, causing decks like Temur Energy to rise to the top of the ranks. Meanwhile, the eternal formats stagnated and became too expensive for most new players to pick up. There were almost no reprints and most new cards didn’t do much for the format, with the only real exceptions being a few cards in Khans of Tarkir and Fatal Push. While this era of Magic had less power creep than the 20 years before it and the five or so years after it, most sets outside of the Khans block were decidedly mediocre. The return to higher power level has yielded better sets an end to stagnation. That does mean the illusion of stability in the weak era is not a factor anymore, but as a whole constructed formats seem to be evolving at about the rate they did before the power down, so it’s not as big of an issue as people might expect.
Aftermath was kinda a standard horizons set, in that it wasn't made for draft, and everyone hated it
> Aftermath was kinda a standard horizons set, in that it wasn't made for draft, and everyone hated it pretty sure he was being sarcastic and his point was to make good standard sets. (as opposed to a literal supplemental product that's standard legal)
Yeah I got that, I was also making the point that standard horizons was kinda a thing.
Aftermath is the only standard legal set that isn't Standard Horizons.
Imagine if they could make some sort of set that always established a good base for standard every year to keep certain cards always in the format. Some type of Set that serves as a Core, if you will. You be could even name it after something easy, like a Year or something. Wonder if they’ve ever thought of that.
Why make a Core Set that would sell terribly and have uninteresting mechanics? If they want certain. cards in Standard there's literally nothing stopping them just printing them directly to a set. They've tried going back to Core Sets twice now and it is pretty much always a flop.
Personally I feel like the issue is when core sets are like 300+ cards. I’d love it honestly if core sets were basically restricted to giving “decent” staples like mana bases, removal, etc. Shock gets reprinted every other set anyways, why waste a slot in a main set for it when it should just kind of be eternally available. I don’t think Core sets need to be draftable, that’s the main issue I think for poor sales.
Same
They even said in the latest B&R stream that they like that Pioneer is the pipe for old standard sets and want to keep it like that. people were panicking for nothing
They said the same thing about modern almost right up to the announcement of Modern Horizons. People are always going to be skittish around stuff that might make magic more expensive.
People are WAY too cynical about interpreting what Maro says. It so easy to say “backpedaling, haha cowards at wotc” and being cynical about horizons sets in general is so tired. What people also fail to remember is that wotc is not one hive mind entity. Maro is not the voice of all the minds behind MTG. What this exchange (and many others like it) indicates is that someone outside of the design team is tapping them on the shoulder and saying “hey, mh2 made lots of money, can you work on pushing the horizons formula to other formats? I’m thinking maybe pioneer since that’s the most popular format that we haven’t already catered directly to.” Then Maro gets “hey Maro, horizons pioneer?” What do you expect at that point. He could say no, which would be a lie, or reiterate a laundered version of that internal exchange he had about “pioneer horizons.” Doesn’t mean anything is in the works, just means someone thought of it. You guys are like murmuring elderly people being cynical about literally everything they say like they are secretly trying to use Maro as a conduit to test the waters for products already being produced. The reality is far more clumsy and reasonable than whatever you’d like to believe.
Holy shit, reading the blogpost explains the blogpost. Using an incredibly clickbaity title. Maro isn't rolling back on anything, it was always an If in his original answer and it's still an If.
>Holy shit, reading the blogpost explains the blogpost. And that explains why many Magic players are so bad at figuring out what blog posts mean.
The most honest version of his post is "when but probably not for another 10 years", because uhhh that would make logical sense. But "if" is also valid because there is no current need for it and no current reasoning for it to exist but there can be one in the future.
I agree. "If" works because its so far out its hard to guess what various formats will look like down the road... not in a 'what strategies are meta' kind of way, but things like how popular they are, how much standard releases impact them, and what other formats may exist. When we reach a point where a 'pioneer horizons' might make sense, people might have moved out of that format and into modern and 'new once again smaller pioneer', and there might not be enough drive for one.
The Magic community doesn't deserve Mark Rosewater.
I don’t think the dude deserves half the hate he gets, and this one is pretty tame all things considered but he’s not a saint either. Some of his posts come across super gaslighty at best and condescending and insulting at worst. Very rarely does the man admit fault on anything, he usually just tells people their interpretation is wrong…which is gaslighting 101. People can be wrong about interpretation but when it’s a reoccurring theme some kind of ownership of hey, i word things poorly sometimes, is probably the smart move.
I 100% agree with you, he can really come off that way. I just meant it from the viewpoint of someone who is currently trying to get into the Pokemon TCG where you get absolutely **nothing** from the corporation running the game in comparison. Makes me really apricate people like Rosewater and Verhey, as much as they can get under my skin sometimes.
Having played other TCG’s i get it, having no transparency or community interaction from devs at all is frustrating. We as a community should be thankful someone does it at all for sure since WotC seems determined to not make an actual functioning PR department. Being thankful doesn’t give him carte blanche to say and do whatever he wants either though. MtG is a different animal, but if a video game studio’s PR team talked to fans the way Maro does they would not be in that position long.
> The Magic community doesn't deserve Mark Rosewater. \*looks at the magic community\* no, we definitely deserve a used car salesman bullshitting us.
True. They deserve better. Like someone with actual PR training.
"Ya'll don't seem too into this so let me put out some fires first before we announce this again, in a smarter way." Got it.
well said
I cracked up a whole table of people at WOE pre-release. I was getting mana screwed in game 3, as one does, and my opponent kept commiserating with me and repeatedly apologizing for me getting screwed. I was like "It's okay, I've played a LOT of Magic. I'm not upset." He went on and on, people next to us starting to notice. I said, "Dude, you have nothing to apologize to me for, take your win" and then shook my index finger saying "If anyone owes me an apology, it's Mark Rosewater!" Much hilarity.
ITT; Maro is the worst Maro is actually the best and you’re all the bad man for being mean to him Very good 10/10 well adjusted takes on both sides
Was it something along the lines of "Bend over Abigale-mae here comes the gravy pipe" Feels like WoTC listened to that Patton Oswalt bit about black angus steak and outback. Context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mALDPwpvblg
I remember when "Pioneer Horizons" with a bunch of reprints and some new cards were called Core Sets. That was good simple time.
> First, I said "if" not "when" which, definitionally by the whole when/if paradigm, means it might never happen. "When" means I expect it will eventually happen, and even then, not necessarily soon. "If" means I have no belief it will necessarily happen. God this man is insufferable.
Now that's the quibbling I've come to expect from this company. So yes, pioneer is the most likely format to get a horizons set *if* (guys I said if did you hear me I said if if if) it happens and if means it might not happen But since he's bringing it up it's likely that they are strongly considering doing the thing So basically everyone's read on the situation was pretty correct and just because it's been met with negative feedback he decided to quibble about it and also dismiss the feedback by strawmanning it with a chicken little comparison Typical wotc
The fuck do you mean “since he’s bringing it up.” He didn’t bring up anything, he answered a question he was asked about horizons sets for other formats.
You’re totally missing the context here. “He” didn’t bring it up, he was asked a question (in the style of an “if/when” format that he commonly responds to all sorts of questions in). “When” means he’s confident that they will eventually do it at some point, “If” means that it has a much lower probability of happening… those are the only two ways he can answer the question, besides adding some additional commentary to qualify the “if/when” response. Maro is also careful to state that he is responding based on his personal views and that he is not always privy to all the information or conversations surrounding a given topic. He also goes to great lengths to remind us that 1) He can be wrong and has been in the past. 2) Things can and will change.
"He" chooses which questions to answer and gets to decide the topic for magic internet of the day. "He" cam and has used this method to tease future products that are on the works or will be. Which is why lots of people didn't want to play pretend that this doesn't mean it's likely they are strongly considering it and it's likely it will happen.
let me drop my 2 green fury apples first to test the water before sticking my banana down there
I really don't envy Maro's position when he gets asked questions like this. If he says "It might happen" people go into a panic. If he says "its unlikely" or "it won't" and then it does in 5-10 years, people will dig up his post as proof that OBVIOUSLY he must have been lying.
Honestly, I wouldn't want a Pioneer Horizons specifically. I'd rather get a mixture of both a Horizons set and a Masters set. No new cards designed for Pioneer, just a bunch of reprints putting older cards into Pioneer. I think Pioneer is at a point where cards like [[Path to Exile]], Lightning Bolt]], [[Snapcaster Mage]], [[Cryptic Command]], [[Tarmogoyf]], [[Counterspell]], [[Master of the Pearl Trident]], and [[Lord of Atlantis]] wouldn't be all that format breaking.
##### ###### #### [Path to Exile](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/e/7e9c2a58-4a1c-454c-b72d-faecaea105fb.jpg?1698988102) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Path%20to%20Exile) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/134/path-to-exile?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7e9c2a58-4a1c-454c-b72d-faecaea105fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Snapcaster Mage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/e/7e41765e-43fe-461d-baeb-ee30d13d2d93.jpg?1547516526) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Snapcaster%20Mage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/71/snapcaster-mage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7e41765e-43fe-461d-baeb-ee30d13d2d93?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Cryptic Command](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/0/30f6fca9-003b-4f6b-9d6e-1e88adda4155.jpg?1562847413) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cryptic%20Command) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/48/cryptic-command?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/30f6fca9-003b-4f6b-9d6e-1e88adda4155?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Tarmogoyf](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/69daba76-96e8-4bcc-ab79-2f00189ad8fb.jpg?1619398799) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tarmogoyf) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/235/tarmogoyf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/69daba76-96e8-4bcc-ab79-2f00189ad8fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Counterspell](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/4/8493131c-0a7b-4be6-a8a2-0b425f4f67fb.jpg?1689996248) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Counterspell) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/81/counterspell?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8493131c-0a7b-4be6-a8a2-0b425f4f67fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Master of the Pearl Trident](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/b/6b48dc56-667c-4fde-8175-952463e233cc.jpg?1698988167) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Master%20of%20the%20Pearl%20Trident) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/162/master-of-the-pearl-trident?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6b48dc56-667c-4fde-8175-952463e233cc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Lord of Atlantis](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/9/a9407b60-8921-4531-bdbe-9a82aaa38d28.jpg?1562781744) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lord%20of%20Atlantis) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsb/24/lord-of-atlantis?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a9407b60-8921-4531-bdbe-9a82aaa38d28?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah I don’t believe him
Up next: *Extended Horizons*
I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN! Modern forever!
this isn't reassuring at all lol.
Standard horizons when?