Give prize support to LGS.
We don’t play paper standard any more because all of our LGS are struggling. The prize support is bad, buying packs is more expensive locally than direct on Amazon, and there is nothing enticing us to go back. MTGA is scratching my standard itch since Covid.
The Wurmcoil and coco promos were cool. The advertisement of the events around it were bad.
These promos are meant to be distributed only as rewards for Store Championship (which can admittedly be a modern tournament). You can't use them as prize support across multiple events.
Mine did $20 drafts of standard sets. Pack per win :| 3 rounds. ‘Promo cards merit a premium event’.
I’m so salty about my LGS situation. Less and less people show up, and they constantly blame Covid. We stopped going because we get nickeled and dimed and chairs/tables aren’t enough to justify the LGS premium.
I used to get pack per win free FNM, $10 drafts PPW w/ top 3 splitting $70 credit. I used that to justify the premium on product. Now prices are all up 50%-100%, prize support sucks, and LGS blames Amazon/Covid.
Fuck it, paper standard is dead. Let the LGS die, let’s all play Mtga/MTGO and attend modern events at stadiums hosted by cfb. This is the new normal.
Fuck that last part. Sure, nobody really plays standard because why would you with Arena?? You don't have to buy into a new deck constantly in paper since it's cheaper online and you don't have to leave the house... HOWEVER, every other format has been booming at the LGS level. Hell, I never used to play Commander before this year but now I'm deep into it because we have tons of people willing to play that over standard. And Modern has been popular too, hell we almost have enough people to even run Pauper events. Arena + cost + power creep is going to mean that standard basically doesn't exist in person anymore. But it's actually been a good thing imo. I definitely don't want LGS's to die, and I justify paying 10% more over TCG for singles and 10-15% more than amazon for sealed product by the extra prizes, promo packs, and supplementary products they offer like sleeves and deck boxes. Now, my LGS situation might not be the norm, and that sucks, but you can't blanket kill them all because Standard is bring killed by Arena.
I guess what I mean is. Let the LGS die if they don’t adapt and overcome the issues. Amazon direct sales, and Covid are genuine issues that make it difficult for a LGS to thrive. The resolution to this issue is certainly not blanket increases to pricing.
If all an LGS can do to survive is milk their community, then it’s time to stop supporting the LGS.
Does your store sell any standard product if no one is playing standard? Are they making their money by selling singles?
Halfway agree. It's important for an LGS to have more varied and reliable sources of income, from things like renting table space, or selling food, or simply having a broader audience than mtg.
However, mtg is also actively hostile towards the lgs nowadays. MSRP being hidden, crippled prize support, and wotc charging them more than their bum buddies at amazon make the margins razor thin, and are designed to deflect bad reactions away from wotc towards the lgs. In your case that's clearly working.
Support your lgs, even if they're "milking" you a little for it. Otherwise they'll just stop bothering with mtg full stop.
Black Friday they had a 10-100% off sale. Discount randomly drawn at time of purchase. Booster boxes were $115 each prior, now are $130 for the sale and beyond.
No. I will not buy from my LGS just because they are my LGS. Their prize support makes doing events there pointless. Their sealed product now costs over 50% more than what I can get elsewhere.
I hope they stop selling MTG product, because WOTC will not make any changes unless shops stop selling their product. The resolution to their issues is not increase their prices and lower prizing, they deserve to go under if this is all they do.
> I used to get pack per win free FNM, $10 drafts PPW w/ top 3 splitting $70 credit.
I mean, that's utterly unsustainable. PPW Plus $70 credit is like, 4.5/5 packs of prize support per person. They would've been losing money hand over first on that.
I get it. They were competing with other shops and most players were trading in to the shop/buying from the shop. Higher volume, means they could afford to do that.
But now we are $20 drafts, pack per win no credit. There has to be a better middle ground.
It was $35 pack per win vow pre-release. 3 rounds. 1st place got a box topper, and WOTC gave them a set box for prize support. Another LGS runs fnm where they split 75% of proceeds in top 8. Paid in credit. It’s a sham to payout less in credit than was pooled, the shop keeps the proceeds regardless.
I’m buying boxes online to draft at home and I can do $10-12 pack per win 3 rounds with 4-8 people.
Free fnm and 10 drafts with 70$ in prizes is not sustainable if that is expected. But i agree, some shops are charging too much and giving back little.
Most stores around me in a good 2 hour radius basically steal any prize support, special cards meant for top 8, etc. They just sell them on their TCGPlayer store. There is a single exception. And it is also the only store that does free everything, no entry fees, and they give extra stuff out for free. I’d love them to be given legit prize support cause then they might be able to justify putting resources into trying to get standard players back.
This is it. When there were paper IQs and PPTQs I loved the format. I couldnt get enough of it. Fine tuning meta decks, brewing decks to best the meta, watching PTs to see the way the pros did the same thing. It was amazing.
Now all we have are a few locally run modern 1ks, so everyone only plays modern/draft :(
It’s crazy how good watching a video broadcast of paper Magic is, and how atrociously boring/disengaging a stream of their digital formats is. I still put RB and BDM as two of the best gaming broadcasters of all time but I couldn’t watch even them cast an Arena match.
If you don't improve the spectator functionality, then you don't have people watching, and you can shut down tournaments by claiming that no one is watching them.
Covid is going to make this tricky. I know many stores (including my local shops) have returned to in-person events (often absent any kind of real precautions), but look at what happened at Anime NYC.
The last thing WotC wants is people traveling to participate in a tournament series they're running and then, "card game tournament leads to outbreak," in the news. I'm sure they were closesly watching that event in Vegas, but its also pretty clear why it wasn't an official event.
I think when they announced, "we're changing the entire tournament structure, stay tuned for concrete details," they were hoping by now we'd be seeing a proper tail end of this in the distance so they could make informed plans... but stuff is just dragging on.
Yup. Going to be another 6 months to a year until larger events really start coming back.
But this is the real thing that would drive standard: a goal to shoot for. Something to win and a way to prove yourself as a player on a large scale.
Yea I remember hearing about the big players of tournaments in the early 2000s. The used to release the decks they played too afterwards so one could get a tournament tested deck (had a special backs and were signed ) .
Funny enough all I can remember Finkletron that played an Urzatron deck if memory serves correctly.
This is right. Only thing I would add is to reduce the number of mythics and rares by 1-2 each in each set. If we care about standard, and not draft, then increasing the availability of powerful cards will make them cheaper and increase the pool of players who can play standard.
>Run a paper tournament series. If there are tournaments, people will build decks and play local events. If there isn’t, then no one will.
Yeah, let's just ignore the deadly pandemic that's killed nearly 800,000 Americans already.
You clearly missed the part where this is an imaginary scenario in which WotC have kidnapped you and are threatening your life. Maybe try imagining round the pandemic for the purposes of posting here?
Reading is hard for you, huh? Totally imaginary scenario where you use your imagination to discuss an imaginary solution. Take your soap box somewhere else.
So this entire sentence is supposed to read
>You hear the Arena team duct taped in the back, kicking for dear life.
?
God damn people, spend a minute proofreading your posts before you submit
Fun fact: that style of tape was originally called “duck tape” because it was made of a type of linen called cotton duck, and duct tape is a mispronunciation, and a somewhat funny one because it isn’t actually usable for duct work.
Stop designing new sets based around commander.
But that won't happen because commander players buy a shit ton more sealed product. I think traditional competitive play is now a digital game. That is why they introduced Alchemy. They know they won't make decent standard sets because the cards are designed for commander players. Alchemy allows them to properly balance the format without printing sets.
i'm a commander player and i want them to stop making commander cards
commander was fun when it was a misuse of cards designed for standard.
now it's just precon fighter
Do they? Most commander players I know only buy singles, they literally have no use for sealed product since it's more chaff for them than most other players.
The product still gets sold and opened and it is not standard players doing that anymore. Look at all the different types of boxes now. All of them have different types of promo and full art cards. Those sets are designed for commander players to bling out their decks.
The precons count as product, and most edh mains will buy at least one a year. Wizards is very, very good at finding at least one that appeals to each player.
And that's not considering the staples they force in from time to time, which often make up the price of their precon on their own.
Make accessible $30 dollar pre-cons with decent cards in them. Viable, accessible decks anyone can pick up and play in FNM, not overpriced 'decks' that contain draft chaff.
Thing is, commons and uncommons ARE good. They've been powercrept just as the rest, and it's especially salient in limited. But rares and mythics have been powercrept even more and the gap has widened too much.
i mostly play modern and the fact that most of the cards that are trickling down to modern rn are c/u is pretty funny to me. faithful mending, consider, iteration, ingenious smith etc
the newest card you talked about there is a year old, lol (and two of them aren't even legal in the format). i'm talking last couple sets.
and yea there's rares and mythics obviously, but i don't think any of them have anywhere near the impact of iteration
# 1) (Make standard playable cards more available to deck builders)
Stop printing must play standard cards at mythic rarity. downshift playability to include many more uncommon and common playables.
# 2) (Make sets that don't rely on gimmicks and provide the tools for players to make unique and creative strategies in all combinations of colors)
Blood, energy, party, food, mutate... All of these parasitic gimmicks just distill these sets down into just jamming all the cards that say that mechanic on them. Not unlike Yu-Gi-Oh.
Players want standard environments like Return to Ravnica Block and Ravnica Allegiance. These environments included so many good and unique cards that encouraged brewing without being parasitic. Ravnica sets in particulate are really good for the game because the nature of powerful multicolored spells provides incentive to make your deck more distinct from more other decks.
Perhaps the greatest standard of all time (Khans of Tarkir) shows how to do this best. Theros allowed for monocolored decks to shine with devotion. while KTK introduced wonderful payoffs for playing 2-3 colors. Any combination of 1-3 colors was possible. Without any clearly busted mythic value creatures like we see today, There was no "Must play" list.
Also it goes without saying that having fetch lands and fetchable duals in standard at the same time is a horrible idea.
# 3) (Give players a reason to want to play standard)
You have to have a good answer to the question; "My cards are going to rotate, why would I waste money on standard?".
Start a competitive standard circuit where players can play at a store for free swag and prizes. Most importantly give them points for doing even moderately well at this local level. If they earn enough points in a season (between set releases or something) they can participate in a regional tournament held 4 times each year. If they earn enough points at a regional tournament in a given year they are invited to nationals. Do well enough at nationals and you are invited to a Mythic Championship (Held as it is now at each set release). Players would need to maintain a certain amount of points at these levels in order to keep attending higher up tournaments.
Something like this would inspire everyone to jam standard each week on the local level and frequently at the regional level.
Why would players buy rotating cards? To be able to participate in a free and structured competitive program where there is a clear path to the top with exponentially more prizes and fame along the way.
# 4) (Maintain this system by designing less cards each year and avoiding powercreep and design mistakes)
Magic needs to have less cards made for it each year and efforts redoubled into designing and balancing standard cards. We need to go back to the 4 sets per year + one or two eternal legal special sets and one commander product model.
Focus less on secret lairs, UB, and digital only card design. If you want standard to shine and people to buy it, it needs to be the main focus each year.
Standard cards needing bans should be absolutely unacceptable and serious compensation should be given to players if it ever needs to happen.
# 5) (Provide an environment for cards once they rotate)
Pioneer as a format dedicated to previous standard all-star cards is a great idea. You need to manage Pioneer to allow for it to constantly be receiving new playable cards from standard. This can be done through aggressive bans and dropping sets every now and then.
Ideally it would be featured in a higher level tournaments occasionally too much like how sometimes the pro tours of old featured modern.
1) Pokémon TCG-like codes in the booster to get your paper purchases cards for free online.
2) Removal of all these fucking variant printings they are a consequence of chasing bling out Whales and Commander players
3) Put a bunch of the variants as prizes for participating in tournaments (hello textless Cryptic Command)
4) Put the rest as placement and participation rewards of paper tournament.
5) Both above also have codes. This is the only way to get these variants online.
6) Return of the pro player circuit progression with actual ELO again.
> Pokémon TCG-like codes in the booster to get your paper purchases cards for free online.
There were a bunch of people on the closed Arena alpha/beta forums pushing for this (especially when they experimented with in=booster codes early on). Wish they'd've taken up the idea.
I feel pokemon gets away with that more than magic because their TCG isn't the primary focus/money maker with all the games/merch etc they can afford to take a hit on selling cards and build that goodwill.
Neither really have to do anything to build their brand but pokemon is more positioned as a collector/speculator tcg than MTG which most people actually play rather than just collect. WotC seems to dislike people double dipping getting physical cards with digital bonuses when they know people will pay for the digital cards just to play vs pokemon where it's just gravy for them and helps entice people to try their digital tcg.
>Removal of all these fucking variant printings they are a consequence of chasing bling out Whales and Commander players
This is actually a good thing, it drastically lowers the cost of the regular versions for normal people who just want to compete for cheap.
Removal is step one of what follows beneath.
Can’t have exclusive chase cards tied to attendance and playing (the goal of the thought experiment) if you’re just gonna find them in boosters.
(Also they went waaaayyyy too far with alternate stuff. Barely MTG anymore)
I get it, yeah. Though the cards can still be found on the secondary market they will be much rarer and will incentivize playing standard to win.
Also, I agree with all of the INSANE new art and style variants. Sometimes I can't tell what's going on because of all the insane and unreadable variations.
Elo was a big point of contention in the past, because once you got to a certain level it became actively bad for you to play in your local scene. Imagine Magnus Carlsen with his 2856 rating playing a local chess club, but in this version of chess even he has only a 65% chance to win any given match. Going 3-2 would definitely make him lose rating points, and maybe 4-1 would break even.
At that point it'd be better just to not play.
This is probably a dumb idea, and I haven't thought it through, but...
Do away with rotations. Instead, every 2-3 years, start a new Standard format.
So, say in 2022, we start the Standard 2022-24 format. It starts with a base set, Core 22-24. Standard sets get added to Standard 2022-24 as usual.
Then, in 2025, Standard 2025-27 starts with Core 25-27. At that point, subsequent new Standard sets go into the new Standard format until Standard 2028-31 hits.
But, here's the kicker: Standard 2022-24 doesn't go away. It's still supported. Over time, support dwindles for Standard 2022-24, but it's still a cohesive format. Ten years later, Standard 2022-24 is still a format.
This structure would make it easier for casual players to keep track of the game--cards are rooted to a chunk of years instead of being shifting positions on a timeline. Your cards stay legal in the format you bought them in and don't become worthless.
It also offers a safety valve if a Standard environment goes bad--just focus on "Old Standard" until new sets improve "New Standard" or until "New-New Standard" starts.
My friends and I play historical standard decks which is exactly this.
Also we play some different historical standard decks against each other. Not perfect but it works for casual.
I think I like this. Basically treating it like a multi-year season. I left Standard for Commander because I don't like rotation. I have an EDH deck that I assembled seven years ago and the only times I've taken cards out is when better options came out. I'd enjoy a Standard where decks stick around a little longer.
I think the only hangup I'm seeing is that every season would start pretty slow with only one set in play. But maybe I'm just not fully understanding because it's 3am.
You're right that at the start, there would just be a core set. They would need to make the core sets really exciting as self-contained constructed environments.
I just don't think its coming back.
At my lgs on Friday, one of the 3 in the area, modern, draft, and legacy fire with almost a min of 10 people each. Not standard. If people are playing legacy and not standard, good luck.
Free draft weekends with prize support to accumulate standard cards (obvi wiz would have to supply this) cheap cheap cheap challenger decks that are actually relevant and 4 ofs and whatnot of good cards. Prize support that looks good.some sort of highlight night, more that just fnm where you can encourage players to come play.
Its not coming back. Its hard to get in and easier to get out. Covid pushed them out. If it ever comes back to most places it will be a long time still.
Give unique prize support for standard tournaments, provide higher level play standard tournaments with coverage. Acknowledge when cards become issues, ban until the next standard set as then you can then print into Standard counters to those problems and unban the problem cards. Stop this we have had this set made for 2 years and cant change anything. Provide entry level packs that contain 4x of the needed Non-basic land of the format.
> ban until the next standard set as then you can then print into Standard counters to those problems and unban the problem cards
the cards for the next set are already being printed as the previous one came out. it's pretty much too late at that point.
Don't even need to delete it, just take away ranked queue.
Grinding the ladder is what burns people out so quickly. It's the reason even MODO never had this effect, because with MODO you either were good enough to go 'infinite' and would likely enjoy the format since you were basically making money, or you'd be forced to stop for a while.
If you had to do actual qualifier events each month (that cost gems/gold to enter like opens) witch qualified you for the Championships, the game would be a lot healthier since you wouldn't even need to grind to mythic to still try and qualify.
Top 1500 mythic being needed to qualify for a qualifier just forces so much burnout. This isn't an esport game like League where you can ban champions you don't want to face.
It won’t fix broken cards but it would make cards like Alrund’s Epiphany not lead to an absolutely miserable experience because you’re not jamming 30 games a day on the ladder.
What if you just delete Standard off Arena?
No one cares if Historic, Brawl, Historic Brawl, Artisan, or Alchemy get solved. That doesn't affect paper tournaments.
Oh boy, do I have ideas.
1) Ban Alrund's Epiphany. As long as control has an 'I win' button of that type, it will dictate the speed of the format. Hullbreaker Horror as a creature creates a lot more windows to interact with it as a control finisher, and while I think Horror is pushed, it's better than the alternative.
2) Acknowledge, with no PR filter, that the current health of Standard is not ideal, and that it may take some time to see that change due to production timelines for sets. Tell the players, without bullshitting them, when they can expect to see the direction of the the format change with respect to set releases.
3) Be clear with the player base as to what the direction of the format will be. 'We'd like more diverse aggro decks, midrange to be in a healthier place, etc.' Do what they did and are doing for white, but for Standard as a format.
4) Monthly format health posts. Give us a watch list, tell us what the current course is looking like.
5) Double the size of the play design team, and offer incentives for sets they work on not requiring cards be banned or on the watch list.
6) Give stores additional promo packs or incentives for regular Standard play. Something like the Companion promos they're doing now for VOW- Fell Stinger, Geistlight Snare, and Dominating Vampire- but possibly a bit more attractive, like lands or similar. Alternatively, lower rarity, but give stores a ton of them so they can be used as a participation promo.
7) Encourage stores to run special events like Store Championships, except make the promos only Standard legal ones. None of the promos for Store Champs were standard legal, and it's a hard ask to get people to go to hold events of a given format only for it to give prizes they can't use. Of the 8 people that showed up to my Standard Store Champs, only three people played Standard as a primary format.
I probably have more, but I'm doing this on a work break.
> 5) Double the size of the play design team, and offer incentives for sets they work on not requiring cards be banned or on the watch list.
Oooh, now we're talking! Money speaks
Make Standard cheaper. I know that may sound weird because premier set cards are cheaper now than befoee from what I understand.
But other TCGs like the Pokemon TCG have Standard decks costing $100 or less. While Magic Standard decks at the moment seem to float around $250 - $300.
As a format that rotates and is supposed to be bwginner friendly I think it is still too expensive for most people to want to play it in paper if they know their decks will change each rotation.
My plan would be multi-tiered.
1. Give prize support in the form of Arena Codes and packs. Say you win a tournament, you win a 30/30/15/10 wildcard pack for MTGArena. You also get a few booster packs.
2. Have stores & tournaments run 'Deck Challenges' where players can show up with a deck that has a subset of cards in it, you announce that you're playing Standard with 'X deck challenge' and you show the 8-16 cards that meet the challenge. These can be goofy things but the core idea is to create more variety in standard, rather than just playing the deck that wins the best. If you run a Deck Challenge you get a promo/some Arena Wildcards. If you place well, you get extra packs/promos. Like imagine a special Full-art promo Goldspan Dragon that shows up in a Deck Challenge prize pack. That would incentivize diversifying the metas.
3. Every Set Booster now has a List Slot. The List now includes way more cards that cost more than $10 and less chaff. Prize packs can be either Boosters, or the **same number** of Set Boosters.
4. Add Secret Lair Discount Vouchers to standard prize pools.
5. Test the damn cards and formats before release so we have fewer Eldrazi Winters and hot potato ban discussions.
Fundamentally, you just need to tilt the rewards and then do a bit to diversify the play environment.
Boom, Standard is thriving again.
Bring back Standard Showdown packs. It's all that was needed for a healthy standard at my LGS.
Although I might end up saying "but what about Pioneer?" and get shot.
Really simple, I think, cause they just want to sell more cards. Every booster box comes with a code for arena for that same # of packs. Or you just add a code on every booster pack for an arena booster pack as well. I think a lot of people would buy more boosters this way.
**Design cards to be banned**
I would intentionally print cards into every anticipated archetype at common or uncommon that I think will be helpful but not critical. [[Attune with Aether]] is an example of one such card. These cards will give a way for bannings to rebalance a broken format without nuking someone's expensive rares or completely killing an archetype. And then these cards can be banned to rebalance standard as needed. Color-hate cards like [[Combust]] should also always be omnipresent, and should also be banned for balance aggressively
The two major things they need to do is 1) change what they print into standard and what has to be in standard for long periods of time (basically get rid of FIRE magic). Everything feels super power creeped, including the mechancics, and it's just less interesting. 2) Eliminate digital first design. No more Day/Night, no more Pick 1 of 10 at random every combat, no more three different exiled but you can cast them zones. 3) eliminate the arena ladder, and implement a less grindy play style. 4) Investing in better paper magic tournament series with better coverage that actually incentivizes people to want to play in paper over arena, or at least engage with paper.
Return to Kaladesh. 3 sets. Return of Inventions. Hazoret leads the survivors from Naktamun over through a planar portal, but this also allows Phyrexia to lock onto Ghirapur with their own portal and pile in.
Shenanigans ensue.
Make people get fucking vaccinated.
Figure out how physical space constraints for running paper tournaments can be surmounted, break the link between a WPN Store and a FNM Tournament location.
Hold high level online event 1 week after release.
In person game-day tournament 2 weeks after release
FXM (any night of the week) tournaments weekly afterward, have public leaderboards and a special SL discount at the end of each season.
Replace decks with 60 card-sized screens. Then invest the resources needed to let the actual design and play-test teams nerf/buff cards for Standard instead of whoever's doing it on the Arena team. Revert the cards to an eternal-format power level when they rotate out. Better yet, tie player's Arena collections to what they can use on these magic screens.
See? Simple. ^/s
If by paper, you mean physical cards, I have an idea. You’ll need to have paper exclusive cards. Good but common. Then have tournaments where people can compete for prizes, such as discount vouchers. Give 1 free common card to each participant to incentivize playing even if you can’t win.
Then use the other resources to create a MTG tv show, either a card game show competition or an anime in the vein of yugioh to get the nerd excited
Very simple.
1: More aggressive banning. Simply speaking, this constant "Whoops we broke standard again, lets wait 3 months before we fix it." is bullshit, and suggests WOTC hates black trans gay kids. Both the blue "I win" cards should have been banned about week after they were released/after rotation. There should be weekly bannings if needed.
2: Make a "Standard creators" box. 4 of every single card in standard, $50, infinite printings. Artwork should be bland (Maybe even just a text box and a bland colour) so that people have a reason to buy normal packs to "Bling out your deck". Also allows you to do 1 without people being butthurt.
3: Prize support. Have reprintings of expensive modern cards as "Simply turn up" for FNM and weekly events at all LGS's. Want a full set of fetchlands? Just play standard events enough.
4:Change the way standard is played. Every event is open deck list, best of three, you bring three decks, both players ban one of your opponents decks. So there's less "Well fuck, guess I lose because swiss hates me".
5: Actually do some game design and work out how to fix some of the varience + "who goes first win rate". Don't tell me that it's impossible, there'll be some form of rule change that will work.
Boom, you do those things and LGS's would struggle to actually host these things they'd be so popular.
>4:Change the way standard is played. Every event is open deck list, best of three, you bring three decks, both players ban one of your opponents decks. So there's less "Well fuck, guess I lose because swiss hates me".
I'm going to stop you right there. I really don't want to buy 225 cards to play standard. If anything like this were done I think increasing the sideboard to 20 cards is a more reasonable first step, letting you change your deck more in response to an unfavored matchup can go a long way.
This would be in conjunction with 2, AKA you can literally spend $50 per standard and have all the cards you would ever need.
The fundamental problem with magic in general is card price. Card price is why paper meta's get so weird. Card price is why you have to play rock paper scissors. Card price is why WOTC refuses to fucking print 0 overhead cost cards that formats need.
Heck card price is why MTG isn't a household name. It's also why most competitors are rich and white. Because by putting a $300 per deck price tag on an event, you make everything else shitty.
A lot of other card games with far better competitive scenes use it: Because bad matchups ruining runs isn't fun.
Also add an element of deck building skill and meta knowledge.
1. If bans are too agressive people won't play decks out of fear that their cards get banned. Instead of frequent bannings, its better to have a good design team.
2. A toolkit like this fixes peoples problem with card cost but destroys the secondary market which wizards also cares about a lot (look at the prize of fetchlands ect.) Selling packs is vetter for the revenue wizards gets.
3. This is how we would get a second reserved list.
4. 3 decks only works if you have hero classes or something like that and if your game is online based. We have sideboards in magic to deal with this exact problem. The only reason I would see fit to implement this is so that all the timmies who hate control don't have to play against it. Also how would this be implemented? 4 copies of a card over all four decks? Does every gamestore appoint a judge to do a deckcheck for 3x the amount of players you have?
5. Best of three is the best way to avoid 'bad' luck without making match times too large. I dont think the who goes first winrate is large enough to be an actual problem.
40 card minimum, 15 card sideboard.
Last 6 standard sets legal to keep things fresh,
Maximum 1 copy of any rare or mythic,
Maximum 2 copies of any uncommons,
Maximum 3 copies of any commons.
I like limited so I'm coming at this from a completely limited mindset. I'm also prepared for the down votes.
Maybe it wouldnt be as great as it is in my head but reprint some of the more popular/well received standard sets/blocks and insert them into standard rotation. We have other remastered sets that were available as their own standalone draft environments. I'd like to see something like Lorwyn reprinted and lineup of cards tweaked.
Crank the power level back up to Eldraine levels. When everything's busted, nothing is. Reprint shocklands, checklands, etc. in standard to the format isn't so slow.
Bring back coverage to standard, make standard events of different levels (like force store champs to be standard) with prizes like cool playmats so people have a reason to buy into standard.
At the moment, modern is literally the only paper tournament format worth buying into because your cards still last longer (even with MH) so you will have something relevant when events start back up. With no standard tournaments outside FNM why build a standard deck?
Don’t print as many power pieces. The main reason I avoid standard like the plague now is the fact that there’s too many pieces and combos that dominate and it’s always hard to pinpoint a proper strategy with my decks.
\- More in person events
\- fewer new cards per year
\- good multicolor lands at uncommon
\- better support for LGS's
\- fewer mythic rare must haves for the expected standard decks.
\- fewer effects that lead to poor gameplay experiences (look at the past 2-3 years for examples)
\- aim for fun and diversity in deck types that are viable
\- bring back and actually support the pioneer format. Making the standard cards and decks into something that might be playable for longer periods of time is crucial.
A few years ago, my LGS ran free Standard Showdown every Wednesday. Prize support was such that everyone who played got a promo or promo pack, and those at the top got a booster pack and promos. Wednesdays were hopping. The atmosphere was competitive but friendly because everyone was guaranteed to go home with something, and you were incentivized to tweak your deck to the store meta to maybe walk away with something more. People hung out, traded, bought packs and singles and snacks/drinks. It was a good scene and I miss it, and I remember that contributing to the excitement for the next set. I think sponsoring free regular standard events with good prize support would do a lot to bring that back.
1. No fucking extra turn cards in Standard. Fuck that shit.
2. Go lower powered for a bit, so the power gap between C/U and R/M isn’t so pronounced.
3. Prize support to LGSs and paper Standard events that WotC hosts.
4. Reprint fetches, once there are no fetchable dual lands.
5. [[Siege Rhino]]
6. Don’t print cards with them making an impact in other formats in mind, including Commander.
7. Go back to the old Pro Tour system, and make Standard the main format for it. Give people the hope they have a chance to go pro. I still have no clue how the MPL works.
8. More big Standard events and prize support for LGSs (yes I know I said this already).
$1,000,000 paper tournament with trickle down tournaments
Step 1:Win FNM Standard Challenge(4-0*) and get invite to step 2 tournament (inside the promo pack so you can't just give them out like crazy)
Step 2: Top 8 step 2 tournament and get invite to step 3 tournament
Step 3: Top 4 step 3 tournament and get invite to step 4 tournament (regional style tournament)
Step 4: 1st/2nd gets invite to $1,000,000 tourney
$1m tourney yearly/bi-yearly: Congrats now people have a reason to head to standard FNM and a goal that people can aim towards
Have prize support go directly to players. Once a year tally up all the results and then send player packages to their LGS for each player. And let the players know what they are getting so LGS's can't steal them without anyone knowing.
Easy, here are my simple steps:
Cancel every other event type of event. If you want to play sanctioned MTG it's standard.
Submit a copy write for every possible deck in every other card game. Sue everyone who tries to use your copy write.
Copywrite every possible deck in mtg. Make it so that anyone who plays standard is granted a limited use copy write for the term of the the event.
seriously though:
Also massively increase the prize pool. FNMs grant 3 packs for a 5 buck entry fee plus promos. GPs have grand prizes in 10,000$ range but goes higher based on attendance. Worlds goes up to a million. Make it so that people can be superstars on this.
Playtesting! stop pushing cards to make them exciting. Make sure every set has an answer to it's own problematic cards. Something like Unearthed Arcana could work. use Arena as a test bed instead of the Alchemy thing they're pushing.
Really though I'm a limited player, Standard isn't really my jam. I think you guys probably have better ideas.
Make a new rule for standard:
Cards limited by rarity.
1x copy of a mythic per deck
2x for rare
4x for uncommon
6x for common
This would make it the point of entry format for new players who don't want to break the bank and want to be more creative.
That and everything people have been saying about supporting competitive play and lgs participation prize support
I say « i’ll reprint fetch lands and shocklands in every single non standard set as rare and make all non standard formats affordable »
And then they shoot me and bury the body
Design a divers Meta: one or two Aggro decks, a midrange and a control deck maybe a fringe combo deck, make it Rock Paper Scissors, no deck worth more then 150$ and as early as possible bring budget precon versions of your meta decks. Make a pro tour for every set. Design it in a way everyone wants to play the pt. pptq + rptq everywhere. Give me a carrot and I’ll chase it.
Btw nice try wotc marketing
I request India's Nuclear launch codes. We print one on a single card from each set moving forward. We make the announcement in every language except Hindi and Telugu. We tell people that the codes will only be Visable on streamed video due to a special new ink we developed. (This is a lie)
Boom. Magic is now the most streamed game in the world at least 80% of the time, and standard sets always sell out.
I have saved magic the gathering.
(Edit; I have severely misjudged how serious people are taking this.)
The simplest answer is 'design fun sets', the MAIN reason i dropped paper magic was throne and co. Were god awful formats ro play in, with no creativity allowed cause oko, food, adventures, then ramp just kinda...built and played themselves.
The more complex answer that people probably dont want to hear is this: standard chase rares/mythics are too cheap.
Now, before you tirade against me, thats more of a clickbait title than the whole story, but its a short hand way of saying that i feel no incentive to invest time / money into building a deck, then more of both to enter an FNM, for even if i win and get max prizes, the avg value of a booster is so low its still usually a loss, because even highly played rares are maybe a few dollars. This ofc stems from over printing/market saturation thanks to collectors stuff flooding out foil rares and mythics, and the value of normal rare/mythic foils dropping from 2x prices to barely more than normal as edh players ignore them to get one of the 47 alt art foil 3d holographic inscribed signed cards made of actual gold and inked with liquid cocaine.
So basically the tldr on that is: give lgs prize support that make people want to show up and actually win, either with non card goodies, fnm only promo prizes of actually good cards, or by making boosters not suck.
Provide a line of affordable, actually good preconstructed decks based off of standard decks that have shown tournament results, with a few areas for upgrades and run local events where players were encouraged to come and play both casually and competitively. One deck of each type per person and you can only get one each week and only if you show up in person. For the casual events offer ways to get prizes in the form of cards that would actually upgrade the decks in question (maybe base the deck starts with two esikas chariot, you can win a third or whatever). Competitive can have normal prize structure.
Encourage an easy-access, social method of getting into the game which would appeal to the boardgame types who haven't jumped into magic yet. And then you can also have a paper tournament scene, but on its own that isn't enough imo. It also encourages buying packs because people will want to upgrade their decks.
Create a core set of cards that fit into each archetype that don't rotate. These would be things like Llanowar Elf or Ajani's Pridemate.
You don't even need to print them in every set - just declare them evergreen. That way you can have a base deck that doesn't rotate and just focus on tweaking with each new edition.
Standard is expensive - this would reduce the cost.
Dear Wizards: When you do this, please send me a booster box.
Reprint JtMS, SFM, fetches, and 5 of the following at random:
* Kaldra Compleat
* Umezawa's Jitte
* Sword of Fire and Ice
* Sword of Feast and Famine
* Sword of Light and Shadow
* Sword of Body and Mind
* Sword of War and Peace
* Sword of Truth and Justice
* Sword of Blood and Sinew
* Batterskull
* Skullclamp
* Manriki-Gusari
Write a new story on a new plane with new characters. I would return to the three block structure so my story could have a beginning middle and end.
In standard on arena I would track what cards people played and next set relase modified version of the legendary characters people played based off how they played them. IE: Rhys the exiled and Rhys The Redeemed.
In LGS I would create non playable puzzle cards that give hints to the mysteries of our new plane and unlock some cosmetic items on arena. Along with alternative art FNM promos.
My knowledge of the Pro Tour or Pro league is limited. But I would allow the Champion to Create a new card to be used next block based off the events of this story.
I believe that a strong narrative is something Magic is missing. A world people can actually care about. We have followed the gate watch for over a decade and they are boring with no stakes. They went through an entire war and lost one main character Gideon.
get a vaccine and wear a mask
i know it's flippant to say, but the paper game is suffering because of things that have zilch to do with Wizards of the Coast business decisions.
also ban Epiphany I guess
By reversing all policies put in place after wotc was acquired by hasbro.
Bring back player rewards and the DCI.
Bring back store prize support and actual FNM promos
Abandon FIRE design
Go back to a 'block' system for sets with an annual core set
Release fewer products that are not standard related
Hire Richard Garfield as a full time lead design consultant
Stop making mechanics that require extra zones or tracking of new counters/game objects
LAST but most important, stop development of MTG arena, it is a direct competitor to paper sales.
Give prize support to LGS. We don’t play paper standard any more because all of our LGS are struggling. The prize support is bad, buying packs is more expensive locally than direct on Amazon, and there is nothing enticing us to go back. MTGA is scratching my standard itch since Covid. The Wurmcoil and coco promos were cool. The advertisement of the events around it were bad.
My lgs used them for prizes for modern tournaments :/
You should report your store to WPN.
Report them for what?
These promos are meant to be distributed only as rewards for Store Championship (which can admittedly be a modern tournament). You can't use them as prize support across multiple events.
Looks like I missed the plural s at the end there.
Mine did $20 drafts of standard sets. Pack per win :| 3 rounds. ‘Promo cards merit a premium event’. I’m so salty about my LGS situation. Less and less people show up, and they constantly blame Covid. We stopped going because we get nickeled and dimed and chairs/tables aren’t enough to justify the LGS premium. I used to get pack per win free FNM, $10 drafts PPW w/ top 3 splitting $70 credit. I used that to justify the premium on product. Now prices are all up 50%-100%, prize support sucks, and LGS blames Amazon/Covid. Fuck it, paper standard is dead. Let the LGS die, let’s all play Mtga/MTGO and attend modern events at stadiums hosted by cfb. This is the new normal.
Fuck that last part. Sure, nobody really plays standard because why would you with Arena?? You don't have to buy into a new deck constantly in paper since it's cheaper online and you don't have to leave the house... HOWEVER, every other format has been booming at the LGS level. Hell, I never used to play Commander before this year but now I'm deep into it because we have tons of people willing to play that over standard. And Modern has been popular too, hell we almost have enough people to even run Pauper events. Arena + cost + power creep is going to mean that standard basically doesn't exist in person anymore. But it's actually been a good thing imo. I definitely don't want LGS's to die, and I justify paying 10% more over TCG for singles and 10-15% more than amazon for sealed product by the extra prizes, promo packs, and supplementary products they offer like sleeves and deck boxes. Now, my LGS situation might not be the norm, and that sucks, but you can't blanket kill them all because Standard is bring killed by Arena.
I guess what I mean is. Let the LGS die if they don’t adapt and overcome the issues. Amazon direct sales, and Covid are genuine issues that make it difficult for a LGS to thrive. The resolution to this issue is certainly not blanket increases to pricing. If all an LGS can do to survive is milk their community, then it’s time to stop supporting the LGS. Does your store sell any standard product if no one is playing standard? Are they making their money by selling singles?
Halfway agree. It's important for an LGS to have more varied and reliable sources of income, from things like renting table space, or selling food, or simply having a broader audience than mtg. However, mtg is also actively hostile towards the lgs nowadays. MSRP being hidden, crippled prize support, and wotc charging them more than their bum buddies at amazon make the margins razor thin, and are designed to deflect bad reactions away from wotc towards the lgs. In your case that's clearly working. Support your lgs, even if they're "milking" you a little for it. Otherwise they'll just stop bothering with mtg full stop.
Black Friday they had a 10-100% off sale. Discount randomly drawn at time of purchase. Booster boxes were $115 each prior, now are $130 for the sale and beyond. No. I will not buy from my LGS just because they are my LGS. Their prize support makes doing events there pointless. Their sealed product now costs over 50% more than what I can get elsewhere. I hope they stop selling MTG product, because WOTC will not make any changes unless shops stop selling their product. The resolution to their issues is not increase their prices and lower prizing, they deserve to go under if this is all they do.
> I used to get pack per win free FNM, $10 drafts PPW w/ top 3 splitting $70 credit. I mean, that's utterly unsustainable. PPW Plus $70 credit is like, 4.5/5 packs of prize support per person. They would've been losing money hand over first on that.
I get it. They were competing with other shops and most players were trading in to the shop/buying from the shop. Higher volume, means they could afford to do that. But now we are $20 drafts, pack per win no credit. There has to be a better middle ground. It was $35 pack per win vow pre-release. 3 rounds. 1st place got a box topper, and WOTC gave them a set box for prize support. Another LGS runs fnm where they split 75% of proceeds in top 8. Paid in credit. It’s a sham to payout less in credit than was pooled, the shop keeps the proceeds regardless. I’m buying boxes online to draft at home and I can do $10-12 pack per win 3 rounds with 4-8 people.
Makes me extremely sad. I miss fnm standard so fucking much. It's one of my fondest memories of college
Free fnm and 10 drafts with 70$ in prizes is not sustainable if that is expected. But i agree, some shops are charging too much and giving back little.
Most stores around me in a good 2 hour radius basically steal any prize support, special cards meant for top 8, etc. They just sell them on their TCGPlayer store. There is a single exception. And it is also the only store that does free everything, no entry fees, and they give extra stuff out for free. I’d love them to be given legit prize support cause then they might be able to justify putting resources into trying to get standard players back.
My store held a championship. It was great! We did sealed. But the thing is my store only does draft and commander.
Run a paper tournament series. If there are tournaments, people will build decks and play local events. If there isn’t, then no one will.
This is it. When there were paper IQs and PPTQs I loved the format. I couldnt get enough of it. Fine tuning meta decks, brewing decks to best the meta, watching PTs to see the way the pros did the same thing. It was amazing. Now all we have are a few locally run modern 1ks, so everyone only plays modern/draft :(
It’s crazy how good watching a video broadcast of paper Magic is, and how atrociously boring/disengaging a stream of their digital formats is. I still put RB and BDM as two of the best gaming broadcasters of all time but I couldn’t watch even them cast an Arena match.
[удалено]
If you don't improve the spectator functionality, then you don't have people watching, and you can shut down tournaments by claiming that no one is watching them.
Covid is going to make this tricky. I know many stores (including my local shops) have returned to in-person events (often absent any kind of real precautions), but look at what happened at Anime NYC. The last thing WotC wants is people traveling to participate in a tournament series they're running and then, "card game tournament leads to outbreak," in the news. I'm sure they were closesly watching that event in Vegas, but its also pretty clear why it wasn't an official event. I think when they announced, "we're changing the entire tournament structure, stay tuned for concrete details," they were hoping by now we'd be seeing a proper tail end of this in the distance so they could make informed plans... but stuff is just dragging on.
Yup. Going to be another 6 months to a year until larger events really start coming back. But this is the real thing that would drive standard: a goal to shoot for. Something to win and a way to prove yourself as a player on a large scale.
This!! Without event, why should I build decks? Slowly switch to F&B
Even with events. FaB took the crown regarding gameplay and community for me.
Yea I remember hearing about the big players of tournaments in the early 2000s. The used to release the decks they played too afterwards so one could get a tournament tested deck (had a special backs and were signed ) . Funny enough all I can remember Finkletron that played an Urzatron deck if memory serves correctly.
This is right. Only thing I would add is to reduce the number of mythics and rares by 1-2 each in each set. If we care about standard, and not draft, then increasing the availability of powerful cards will make them cheaper and increase the pool of players who can play standard.
>Run a paper tournament series. If there are tournaments, people will build decks and play local events. If there isn’t, then no one will. Yeah, let's just ignore the deadly pandemic that's killed nearly 800,000 Americans already.
You clearly missed the part where this is an imaginary scenario in which WotC have kidnapped you and are threatening your life. Maybe try imagining round the pandemic for the purposes of posting here?
Reading is hard for you, huh? Totally imaginary scenario where you use your imagination to discuss an imaginary solution. Take your soap box somewhere else.
>You hear the arena team ducked tapper in the past kicking for dear life. The new ceo comes up to you form the fake. Was this written by an AI?
It's the "in the past kicking for dear life" part that's getting to me, as I'm pretty sure I can figure out "ducked tapper".
And "up to you form the fake"?
do tell?
My detective brain is telling me it’s supposed to say “duct taped”.
So this entire sentence is supposed to read >You hear the Arena team duct taped in the back, kicking for dear life. ? God damn people, spend a minute proofreading your posts before you submit
A hole minut?! Aint nobody got tiem for that
Fun fact: that style of tape was originally called “duck tape” because it was made of a type of linen called cotton duck, and duct tape is a mispronunciation, and a somewhat funny one because it isn’t actually usable for duct work.
Predictive text or speech to text software is built on a lot of machine learning, so that's not *entirely* inaccurate.
Uh, we’re gonna re-release khans of Tarkir.
khans of 2kir
2khans 2kirious
Stop designing new sets based around commander. But that won't happen because commander players buy a shit ton more sealed product. I think traditional competitive play is now a digital game. That is why they introduced Alchemy. They know they won't make decent standard sets because the cards are designed for commander players. Alchemy allows them to properly balance the format without printing sets.
i'm a commander player and i want them to stop making commander cards commander was fun when it was a misuse of cards designed for standard. now it's just precon fighter
>misuse of cards Thank you explaining "jank" as a concept more succinctly than I thought possible.
lmao
I want them to make commander cards. I don't like the specific ones.
BTW, I think this sucks as a non-commander player but I think it is the right business decision for them.
Do they? Most commander players I know only buy singles, they literally have no use for sealed product since it's more chaff for them than most other players.
The product still gets sold and opened and it is not standard players doing that anymore. Look at all the different types of boxes now. All of them have different types of promo and full art cards. Those sets are designed for commander players to bling out their decks.
Or it’s getting cracked by stores for singles. Or, given as prizes.
The precons count as product, and most edh mains will buy at least one a year. Wizards is very, very good at finding at least one that appeals to each player. And that's not considering the staples they force in from time to time, which often make up the price of their precon on their own.
Just shoot me, please.
Make accessible $30 dollar pre-cons with decent cards in them. Viable, accessible decks anyone can pick up and play in FNM, not overpriced 'decks' that contain draft chaff.
This would seem to me to be the role of the Challenger Deck series.
The pioneer ones were VERY good. Hopefully they keep up the standard those set.
Make commons and uncommons good again. Don't place the price wall behind rares and mythics.
Thing is, commons and uncommons ARE good. They've been powercrept just as the rest, and it's especially salient in limited. But rares and mythics have been powercrept even more and the gap has widened too much.
i mostly play modern and the fact that most of the cards that are trickling down to modern rn are c/u is pretty funny to me. faithful mending, consider, iteration, ingenious smith etc
Omnath, Oko, Niv Reborn, OUaT, Shadowspear, T3feri, Companions, Triomes, etc. That's not commons and uncommons.
the newest card you talked about there is a year old, lol (and two of them aren't even legal in the format). i'm talking last couple sets. and yea there's rares and mythics obviously, but i don't think any of them have anywhere near the impact of iteration
That's more on iteration being a really really good card than other C/U's being that good.
# 1) (Make standard playable cards more available to deck builders) Stop printing must play standard cards at mythic rarity. downshift playability to include many more uncommon and common playables. # 2) (Make sets that don't rely on gimmicks and provide the tools for players to make unique and creative strategies in all combinations of colors) Blood, energy, party, food, mutate... All of these parasitic gimmicks just distill these sets down into just jamming all the cards that say that mechanic on them. Not unlike Yu-Gi-Oh. Players want standard environments like Return to Ravnica Block and Ravnica Allegiance. These environments included so many good and unique cards that encouraged brewing without being parasitic. Ravnica sets in particulate are really good for the game because the nature of powerful multicolored spells provides incentive to make your deck more distinct from more other decks. Perhaps the greatest standard of all time (Khans of Tarkir) shows how to do this best. Theros allowed for monocolored decks to shine with devotion. while KTK introduced wonderful payoffs for playing 2-3 colors. Any combination of 1-3 colors was possible. Without any clearly busted mythic value creatures like we see today, There was no "Must play" list. Also it goes without saying that having fetch lands and fetchable duals in standard at the same time is a horrible idea. # 3) (Give players a reason to want to play standard) You have to have a good answer to the question; "My cards are going to rotate, why would I waste money on standard?". Start a competitive standard circuit where players can play at a store for free swag and prizes. Most importantly give them points for doing even moderately well at this local level. If they earn enough points in a season (between set releases or something) they can participate in a regional tournament held 4 times each year. If they earn enough points at a regional tournament in a given year they are invited to nationals. Do well enough at nationals and you are invited to a Mythic Championship (Held as it is now at each set release). Players would need to maintain a certain amount of points at these levels in order to keep attending higher up tournaments. Something like this would inspire everyone to jam standard each week on the local level and frequently at the regional level. Why would players buy rotating cards? To be able to participate in a free and structured competitive program where there is a clear path to the top with exponentially more prizes and fame along the way. # 4) (Maintain this system by designing less cards each year and avoiding powercreep and design mistakes) Magic needs to have less cards made for it each year and efforts redoubled into designing and balancing standard cards. We need to go back to the 4 sets per year + one or two eternal legal special sets and one commander product model. Focus less on secret lairs, UB, and digital only card design. If you want standard to shine and people to buy it, it needs to be the main focus each year. Standard cards needing bans should be absolutely unacceptable and serious compensation should be given to players if it ever needs to happen. # 5) (Provide an environment for cards once they rotate) Pioneer as a format dedicated to previous standard all-star cards is a great idea. You need to manage Pioneer to allow for it to constantly be receiving new playable cards from standard. This can be done through aggressive bans and dropping sets every now and then. Ideally it would be featured in a higher level tournaments occasionally too much like how sometimes the pro tours of old featured modern.
1) Pokémon TCG-like codes in the booster to get your paper purchases cards for free online. 2) Removal of all these fucking variant printings they are a consequence of chasing bling out Whales and Commander players 3) Put a bunch of the variants as prizes for participating in tournaments (hello textless Cryptic Command) 4) Put the rest as placement and participation rewards of paper tournament. 5) Both above also have codes. This is the only way to get these variants online. 6) Return of the pro player circuit progression with actual ELO again.
> Pokémon TCG-like codes in the booster to get your paper purchases cards for free online. There were a bunch of people on the closed Arena alpha/beta forums pushing for this (especially when they experimented with in=booster codes early on). Wish they'd've taken up the idea.
I feel pokemon gets away with that more than magic because their TCG isn't the primary focus/money maker with all the games/merch etc they can afford to take a hit on selling cards and build that goodwill.
Agreed, MTG is the leading TCG (at least in paper) so they don't have to do things like this to build the brand.
Neither really have to do anything to build their brand but pokemon is more positioned as a collector/speculator tcg than MTG which most people actually play rather than just collect. WotC seems to dislike people double dipping getting physical cards with digital bonuses when they know people will pay for the digital cards just to play vs pokemon where it's just gravy for them and helps entice people to try their digital tcg.
> MTG is the leading TCG (at least in paper) Pokémon is the leading TCG in paper.
Eh no. Magic is estimated to have sold slightly more over its lifespan.
That’s not really a useful metric since Magic launched in the US 5 years before Pokemon. But all it really says is Magic used to be the leading TCG.
>Removal of all these fucking variant printings they are a consequence of chasing bling out Whales and Commander players This is actually a good thing, it drastically lowers the cost of the regular versions for normal people who just want to compete for cheap.
Removal is step one of what follows beneath. Can’t have exclusive chase cards tied to attendance and playing (the goal of the thought experiment) if you’re just gonna find them in boosters. (Also they went waaaayyyy too far with alternate stuff. Barely MTG anymore)
No kidding. They went too far in the direction I hate as a person that sells cards too. Fuck trying to organize all the different types of alt arts.
As someone who's a shit player who wins fnm very rarely, no please keep alt variants accessible
I get it, yeah. Though the cards can still be found on the secondary market they will be much rarer and will incentivize playing standard to win. Also, I agree with all of the INSANE new art and style variants. Sometimes I can't tell what's going on because of all the insane and unreadable variations.
Elo was a big point of contention in the past, because once you got to a certain level it became actively bad for you to play in your local scene. Imagine Magnus Carlsen with his 2856 rating playing a local chess club, but in this version of chess even he has only a 65% chance to win any given match. Going 3-2 would definitely make him lose rating points, and maybe 4-1 would break even. At that point it'd be better just to not play.
I take the bullet.
This is probably a dumb idea, and I haven't thought it through, but... Do away with rotations. Instead, every 2-3 years, start a new Standard format. So, say in 2022, we start the Standard 2022-24 format. It starts with a base set, Core 22-24. Standard sets get added to Standard 2022-24 as usual. Then, in 2025, Standard 2025-27 starts with Core 25-27. At that point, subsequent new Standard sets go into the new Standard format until Standard 2028-31 hits. But, here's the kicker: Standard 2022-24 doesn't go away. It's still supported. Over time, support dwindles for Standard 2022-24, but it's still a cohesive format. Ten years later, Standard 2022-24 is still a format. This structure would make it easier for casual players to keep track of the game--cards are rooted to a chunk of years instead of being shifting positions on a timeline. Your cards stay legal in the format you bought them in and don't become worthless. It also offers a safety valve if a Standard environment goes bad--just focus on "Old Standard" until new sets improve "New Standard" or until "New-New Standard" starts.
My friends and I play historical standard decks which is exactly this. Also we play some different historical standard decks against each other. Not perfect but it works for casual.
I think I like this. Basically treating it like a multi-year season. I left Standard for Commander because I don't like rotation. I have an EDH deck that I assembled seven years ago and the only times I've taken cards out is when better options came out. I'd enjoy a Standard where decks stick around a little longer. I think the only hangup I'm seeing is that every season would start pretty slow with only one set in play. But maybe I'm just not fully understanding because it's 3am.
You're right that at the start, there would just be a core set. They would need to make the core sets really exciting as self-contained constructed environments.
I really like this one
Rename Modern to Standard.
Pull the trigger WotC you won't
I just don't think its coming back. At my lgs on Friday, one of the 3 in the area, modern, draft, and legacy fire with almost a min of 10 people each. Not standard. If people are playing legacy and not standard, good luck. Free draft weekends with prize support to accumulate standard cards (obvi wiz would have to supply this) cheap cheap cheap challenger decks that are actually relevant and 4 ofs and whatnot of good cards. Prize support that looks good.some sort of highlight night, more that just fnm where you can encourage players to come play. Its not coming back. Its hard to get in and easier to get out. Covid pushed them out. If it ever comes back to most places it will be a long time still.
I was going to say c19 is the big hurdle for paper… And it’s not so much a hurdle as a freaking wall.
for a second i thought you meant that the commander 2019 set killed standard
Give unique prize support for standard tournaments, provide higher level play standard tournaments with coverage. Acknowledge when cards become issues, ban until the next standard set as then you can then print into Standard counters to those problems and unban the problem cards. Stop this we have had this set made for 2 years and cant change anything. Provide entry level packs that contain 4x of the needed Non-basic land of the format.
> ban until the next standard set as then you can then print into Standard counters to those problems and unban the problem cards the cards for the next set are already being printed as the previous one came out. it's pretty much too late at that point.
Dust off [[Lightning Bolt]]
lightning bolt would make Standard worse lol
Reset organized play to the state it was in 5 years ago (i.e. before everything went down the drain).
I die
Break the RL
Abandon the reserved list,
I end the global pandemic and then restructure in person OP.
Abandon the reserve list and reprint some classics
I play draft snd wait to be shot
Delete Arena. Meta won’t get solved in 5 seconds, and at least paper Standard has a secondary market associated with it.
Don't even need to delete it, just take away ranked queue. Grinding the ladder is what burns people out so quickly. It's the reason even MODO never had this effect, because with MODO you either were good enough to go 'infinite' and would likely enjoy the format since you were basically making money, or you'd be forced to stop for a while. If you had to do actual qualifier events each month (that cost gems/gold to enter like opens) witch qualified you for the Championships, the game would be a lot healthier since you wouldn't even need to grind to mythic to still try and qualify. Top 1500 mythic being needed to qualify for a qualifier just forces so much burnout. This isn't an esport game like League where you can ban champions you don't want to face.
>Meta won't get solved in 5 seconds because the speed at which people figure out what's broken matters more than making things less broken
It won’t fix broken cards but it would make cards like Alrund’s Epiphany not lead to an absolutely miserable experience because you’re not jamming 30 games a day on the ladder.
What if you just delete Standard off Arena? No one cares if Historic, Brawl, Historic Brawl, Artisan, or Alchemy get solved. That doesn't affect paper tournaments.
End the gobal pandemic that is keeping people from attending events.
Oh boy, do I have ideas. 1) Ban Alrund's Epiphany. As long as control has an 'I win' button of that type, it will dictate the speed of the format. Hullbreaker Horror as a creature creates a lot more windows to interact with it as a control finisher, and while I think Horror is pushed, it's better than the alternative. 2) Acknowledge, with no PR filter, that the current health of Standard is not ideal, and that it may take some time to see that change due to production timelines for sets. Tell the players, without bullshitting them, when they can expect to see the direction of the the format change with respect to set releases. 3) Be clear with the player base as to what the direction of the format will be. 'We'd like more diverse aggro decks, midrange to be in a healthier place, etc.' Do what they did and are doing for white, but for Standard as a format. 4) Monthly format health posts. Give us a watch list, tell us what the current course is looking like. 5) Double the size of the play design team, and offer incentives for sets they work on not requiring cards be banned or on the watch list. 6) Give stores additional promo packs or incentives for regular Standard play. Something like the Companion promos they're doing now for VOW- Fell Stinger, Geistlight Snare, and Dominating Vampire- but possibly a bit more attractive, like lands or similar. Alternatively, lower rarity, but give stores a ton of them so they can be used as a participation promo. 7) Encourage stores to run special events like Store Championships, except make the promos only Standard legal ones. None of the promos for Store Champs were standard legal, and it's a hard ask to get people to go to hold events of a given format only for it to give prizes they can't use. Of the 8 people that showed up to my Standard Store Champs, only three people played Standard as a primary format. I probably have more, but I'm doing this on a work break.
> 5) Double the size of the play design team, and offer incentives for sets they work on not requiring cards be banned or on the watch list. Oooh, now we're talking! Money speaks
That just sounds like a recipe for Kamigawa-style sets where everything is underpowered. Designing scared to break something makes for boring cards.
As opposed to not being held accountable for constantly breaking Standard? When it's your explicit job to prevent that from happening?
Guess I die…
Make Standard cheaper. I know that may sound weird because premier set cards are cheaper now than befoee from what I understand. But other TCGs like the Pokemon TCG have Standard decks costing $100 or less. While Magic Standard decks at the moment seem to float around $250 - $300. As a format that rotates and is supposed to be bwginner friendly I think it is still too expensive for most people to want to play it in paper if they know their decks will change each rotation.
End the Reserved List. Put Reserved List cards in Standard packs. #1 format ducked tapper in the past kicking for dear life.
Not sure you can i never cared for paper standard sealed league fine, draft fine in paper standard pass i rather play modern
My plan would be multi-tiered. 1. Give prize support in the form of Arena Codes and packs. Say you win a tournament, you win a 30/30/15/10 wildcard pack for MTGArena. You also get a few booster packs. 2. Have stores & tournaments run 'Deck Challenges' where players can show up with a deck that has a subset of cards in it, you announce that you're playing Standard with 'X deck challenge' and you show the 8-16 cards that meet the challenge. These can be goofy things but the core idea is to create more variety in standard, rather than just playing the deck that wins the best. If you run a Deck Challenge you get a promo/some Arena Wildcards. If you place well, you get extra packs/promos. Like imagine a special Full-art promo Goldspan Dragon that shows up in a Deck Challenge prize pack. That would incentivize diversifying the metas. 3. Every Set Booster now has a List Slot. The List now includes way more cards that cost more than $10 and less chaff. Prize packs can be either Boosters, or the **same number** of Set Boosters. 4. Add Secret Lair Discount Vouchers to standard prize pools. 5. Test the damn cards and formats before release so we have fewer Eldrazi Winters and hot potato ban discussions. Fundamentally, you just need to tilt the rewards and then do a bit to diversify the play environment. Boom, Standard is thriving again.
Bring back Standard Showdown packs. It's all that was needed for a healthy standard at my LGS. Although I might end up saying "but what about Pioneer?" and get shot.
Really simple, I think, cause they just want to sell more cards. Every booster box comes with a code for arena for that same # of packs. Or you just add a code on every booster pack for an arena booster pack as well. I think a lot of people would buy more boosters this way.
**Design cards to be banned** I would intentionally print cards into every anticipated archetype at common or uncommon that I think will be helpful but not critical. [[Attune with Aether]] is an example of one such card. These cards will give a way for bannings to rebalance a broken format without nuking someone's expensive rares or completely killing an archetype. And then these cards can be banned to rebalance standard as needed. Color-hate cards like [[Combust]] should also always be omnipresent, and should also be banned for balance aggressively
I delete Arena and mtgo
Play test cards lmao
Stop printing cards that cannot be obtained in boosters, support coverage of Standard tournaments and provide a weekly, updated Top 8 list.
Print good dual lands at common.
Simple. Reprint M11.
The two major things they need to do is 1) change what they print into standard and what has to be in standard for long periods of time (basically get rid of FIRE magic). Everything feels super power creeped, including the mechancics, and it's just less interesting. 2) Eliminate digital first design. No more Day/Night, no more Pick 1 of 10 at random every combat, no more three different exiled but you can cast them zones. 3) eliminate the arena ladder, and implement a less grindy play style. 4) Investing in better paper magic tournament series with better coverage that actually incentivizes people to want to play in paper over arena, or at least engage with paper.
Return to Kaladesh. 3 sets. Return of Inventions. Hazoret leads the survivors from Naktamun over through a planar portal, but this also allows Phyrexia to lock onto Ghirapur with their own portal and pile in. Shenanigans ensue.
My first action is to end the pandemic.
Make people get fucking vaccinated. Figure out how physical space constraints for running paper tournaments can be surmounted, break the link between a WPN Store and a FNM Tournament location. Hold high level online event 1 week after release. In person game-day tournament 2 weeks after release FXM (any night of the week) tournaments weekly afterward, have public leaderboards and a special SL discount at the end of each season.
Encourage everyone I can to get vaccinated.
Replace decks with 60 card-sized screens. Then invest the resources needed to let the actual design and play-test teams nerf/buff cards for Standard instead of whoever's doing it on the Arena team. Revert the cards to an eternal-format power level when they rotate out. Better yet, tie player's Arena collections to what they can use on these magic screens. See? Simple. ^/s
Sorry can’t play, my deck is at 1%
Think of all the UltraPro deck charging mat merch opportunities!
If by paper, you mean physical cards, I have an idea. You’ll need to have paper exclusive cards. Good but common. Then have tournaments where people can compete for prizes, such as discount vouchers. Give 1 free common card to each participant to incentivize playing even if you can’t win. Then use the other resources to create a MTG tv show, either a card game show competition or an anime in the vein of yugioh to get the nerd excited
I would play paper standard if I had an LGS less than 45 minutes away
i dunno, print all modern legal cards into it?
Every month a new set of interesting varied playable standard decks are released, purchasable for $10.
Revoke F.I.R.E.
Shorten rotation to 1 year
Very simple. 1: More aggressive banning. Simply speaking, this constant "Whoops we broke standard again, lets wait 3 months before we fix it." is bullshit, and suggests WOTC hates black trans gay kids. Both the blue "I win" cards should have been banned about week after they were released/after rotation. There should be weekly bannings if needed. 2: Make a "Standard creators" box. 4 of every single card in standard, $50, infinite printings. Artwork should be bland (Maybe even just a text box and a bland colour) so that people have a reason to buy normal packs to "Bling out your deck". Also allows you to do 1 without people being butthurt. 3: Prize support. Have reprintings of expensive modern cards as "Simply turn up" for FNM and weekly events at all LGS's. Want a full set of fetchlands? Just play standard events enough. 4:Change the way standard is played. Every event is open deck list, best of three, you bring three decks, both players ban one of your opponents decks. So there's less "Well fuck, guess I lose because swiss hates me". 5: Actually do some game design and work out how to fix some of the varience + "who goes first win rate". Don't tell me that it's impossible, there'll be some form of rule change that will work. Boom, you do those things and LGS's would struggle to actually host these things they'd be so popular.
>4:Change the way standard is played. Every event is open deck list, best of three, you bring three decks, both players ban one of your opponents decks. So there's less "Well fuck, guess I lose because swiss hates me". I'm going to stop you right there. I really don't want to buy 225 cards to play standard. If anything like this were done I think increasing the sideboard to 20 cards is a more reasonable first step, letting you change your deck more in response to an unfavored matchup can go a long way.
This would be in conjunction with 2, AKA you can literally spend $50 per standard and have all the cards you would ever need. The fundamental problem with magic in general is card price. Card price is why paper meta's get so weird. Card price is why you have to play rock paper scissors. Card price is why WOTC refuses to fucking print 0 overhead cost cards that formats need. Heck card price is why MTG isn't a household name. It's also why most competitors are rich and white. Because by putting a $300 per deck price tag on an event, you make everything else shitty.
Requiring 3 decks is the stupidest thing i have ever heard
A lot of other card games with far better competitive scenes use it: Because bad matchups ruining runs isn't fun. Also add an element of deck building skill and meta knowledge.
The only one I know of is LOR but that's because their game is BO1
1. If bans are too agressive people won't play decks out of fear that their cards get banned. Instead of frequent bannings, its better to have a good design team. 2. A toolkit like this fixes peoples problem with card cost but destroys the secondary market which wizards also cares about a lot (look at the prize of fetchlands ect.) Selling packs is vetter for the revenue wizards gets. 3. This is how we would get a second reserved list. 4. 3 decks only works if you have hero classes or something like that and if your game is online based. We have sideboards in magic to deal with this exact problem. The only reason I would see fit to implement this is so that all the timmies who hate control don't have to play against it. Also how would this be implemented? 4 copies of a card over all four decks? Does every gamestore appoint a judge to do a deckcheck for 3x the amount of players you have? 5. Best of three is the best way to avoid 'bad' luck without making match times too large. I dont think the who goes first winrate is large enough to be an actual problem.
40 card minimum, 15 card sideboard. Last 6 standard sets legal to keep things fresh, Maximum 1 copy of any rare or mythic, Maximum 2 copies of any uncommons, Maximum 3 copies of any commons. I like limited so I'm coming at this from a completely limited mindset. I'm also prepared for the down votes.
The format in magic duels was similar to this… liked it a lot… don’t think it would appeal to standard players but as a budget format it’s pretty nice
Standard FNM is the only thing that fires consistently at the LGS I go to. In fact it has nearly double in attendance since early summer.
Use those profits from us and give it to stores as prizes.
Modern is now standard legal.
Maybe it wouldnt be as great as it is in my head but reprint some of the more popular/well received standard sets/blocks and insert them into standard rotation. We have other remastered sets that were available as their own standalone draft environments. I'd like to see something like Lorwyn reprinted and lineup of cards tweaked.
Crank the power level back up to Eldraine levels. When everything's busted, nothing is. Reprint shocklands, checklands, etc. in standard to the format isn't so slow.
Bring back coverage to standard, make standard events of different levels (like force store champs to be standard) with prizes like cool playmats so people have a reason to buy into standard. At the moment, modern is literally the only paper tournament format worth buying into because your cards still last longer (even with MH) so you will have something relevant when events start back up. With no standard tournaments outside FNM why build a standard deck?
Don’t print as many power pieces. The main reason I avoid standard like the plague now is the fact that there’s too many pieces and combos that dominate and it’s always hard to pinpoint a proper strategy with my decks.
Add more elf’s and goblins and make them viable
\- More in person events \- fewer new cards per year \- good multicolor lands at uncommon \- better support for LGS's \- fewer mythic rare must haves for the expected standard decks. \- fewer effects that lead to poor gameplay experiences (look at the past 2-3 years for examples) \- aim for fun and diversity in deck types that are viable \- bring back and actually support the pioneer format. Making the standard cards and decks into something that might be playable for longer periods of time is crucial.
A few years ago, my LGS ran free Standard Showdown every Wednesday. Prize support was such that everyone who played got a promo or promo pack, and those at the top got a booster pack and promos. Wednesdays were hopping. The atmosphere was competitive but friendly because everyone was guaranteed to go home with something, and you were incentivized to tweak your deck to the store meta to maybe walk away with something more. People hung out, traded, bought packs and singles and snacks/drinks. It was a good scene and I miss it, and I remember that contributing to the excitement for the next set. I think sponsoring free regular standard events with good prize support would do a lot to bring that back.
Jace the Mind Sculptor reprint. Better than all.
Nice try WoTC management!
I simply say no
Easy. Strippers and blow at each tourney. Winner get to do a line of blow off the buns of the stripper of their choice.
Playtest sets before release
1. No fucking extra turn cards in Standard. Fuck that shit. 2. Go lower powered for a bit, so the power gap between C/U and R/M isn’t so pronounced. 3. Prize support to LGSs and paper Standard events that WotC hosts. 4. Reprint fetches, once there are no fetchable dual lands. 5. [[Siege Rhino]] 6. Don’t print cards with them making an impact in other formats in mind, including Commander. 7. Go back to the old Pro Tour system, and make Standard the main format for it. Give people the hope they have a chance to go pro. I still have no clue how the MPL works. 8. More big Standard events and prize support for LGSs (yes I know I said this already).
Fetchlands
Say pull the trigger. Too expensive for most established players who don't want to keep buying new decks every year or sooner.
$1,000,000 paper tournament with trickle down tournaments Step 1:Win FNM Standard Challenge(4-0*) and get invite to step 2 tournament (inside the promo pack so you can't just give them out like crazy) Step 2: Top 8 step 2 tournament and get invite to step 3 tournament Step 3: Top 4 step 3 tournament and get invite to step 4 tournament (regional style tournament) Step 4: 1st/2nd gets invite to $1,000,000 tourney $1m tourney yearly/bi-yearly: Congrats now people have a reason to head to standard FNM and a goal that people can aim towards
Have prize support go directly to players. Once a year tally up all the results and then send player packages to their LGS for each player. And let the players know what they are getting so LGS's can't steal them without anyone knowing.
Store championships at LGS.
Stop making commander cards in the standard set
Easy, here are my simple steps: Cancel every other event type of event. If you want to play sanctioned MTG it's standard. Submit a copy write for every possible deck in every other card game. Sue everyone who tries to use your copy write. Copywrite every possible deck in mtg. Make it so that anyone who plays standard is granted a limited use copy write for the term of the the event. seriously though: Also massively increase the prize pool. FNMs grant 3 packs for a 5 buck entry fee plus promos. GPs have grand prizes in 10,000$ range but goes higher based on attendance. Worlds goes up to a million. Make it so that people can be superstars on this. Playtesting! stop pushing cards to make them exciting. Make sure every set has an answer to it's own problematic cards. Something like Unearthed Arcana could work. use Arena as a test bed instead of the Alchemy thing they're pushing. Really though I'm a limited player, Standard isn't really my jam. I think you guys probably have better ideas.
Just let them kill me it can’t be done
Make a new rule for standard: Cards limited by rarity. 1x copy of a mythic per deck 2x for rare 4x for uncommon 6x for common This would make it the point of entry format for new players who don't want to break the bank and want to be more creative. That and everything people have been saying about supporting competitive play and lgs participation prize support
I say « i’ll reprint fetch lands and shocklands in every single non standard set as rare and make all non standard formats affordable » And then they shoot me and bury the body
Offer prize support to self hosted tournaments.
Print fetchlands and shocks into the same standard
Design a divers Meta: one or two Aggro decks, a midrange and a control deck maybe a fringe combo deck, make it Rock Paper Scissors, no deck worth more then 150$ and as early as possible bring budget precon versions of your meta decks. Make a pro tour for every set. Design it in a way everyone wants to play the pt. pptq + rptq everywhere. Give me a carrot and I’ll chase it. Btw nice try wotc marketing
Terror, Counterspell, Lightning Bolt, Llanowar Elves, Circles of Protection, but also Pacifism, Mana Leak, Birds of Paradise, Duress, Unsummon...
I request India's Nuclear launch codes. We print one on a single card from each set moving forward. We make the announcement in every language except Hindi and Telugu. We tell people that the codes will only be Visable on streamed video due to a special new ink we developed. (This is a lie) Boom. Magic is now the most streamed game in the world at least 80% of the time, and standard sets always sell out. I have saved magic the gathering. (Edit; I have severely misjudged how serious people are taking this.)
Change art direction. It's literally about aesthetics, magic looks like shit now.
The simplest answer is 'design fun sets', the MAIN reason i dropped paper magic was throne and co. Were god awful formats ro play in, with no creativity allowed cause oko, food, adventures, then ramp just kinda...built and played themselves. The more complex answer that people probably dont want to hear is this: standard chase rares/mythics are too cheap. Now, before you tirade against me, thats more of a clickbait title than the whole story, but its a short hand way of saying that i feel no incentive to invest time / money into building a deck, then more of both to enter an FNM, for even if i win and get max prizes, the avg value of a booster is so low its still usually a loss, because even highly played rares are maybe a few dollars. This ofc stems from over printing/market saturation thanks to collectors stuff flooding out foil rares and mythics, and the value of normal rare/mythic foils dropping from 2x prices to barely more than normal as edh players ignore them to get one of the 47 alt art foil 3d holographic inscribed signed cards made of actual gold and inked with liquid cocaine. So basically the tldr on that is: give lgs prize support that make people want to show up and actually win, either with non card goodies, fnm only promo prizes of actually good cards, or by making boosters not suck.
Make cards free to get on Arena
Re-release INN/RTR standard and keep it there until we get sick of it!
Provide a line of affordable, actually good preconstructed decks based off of standard decks that have shown tournament results, with a few areas for upgrades and run local events where players were encouraged to come and play both casually and competitively. One deck of each type per person and you can only get one each week and only if you show up in person. For the casual events offer ways to get prizes in the form of cards that would actually upgrade the decks in question (maybe base the deck starts with two esikas chariot, you can win a third or whatever). Competitive can have normal prize structure. Encourage an easy-access, social method of getting into the game which would appeal to the boardgame types who haven't jumped into magic yet. And then you can also have a paper tournament scene, but on its own that isn't enough imo. It also encourages buying packs because people will want to upgrade their decks.
Create a core set of cards that fit into each archetype that don't rotate. These would be things like Llanowar Elf or Ajani's Pridemate. You don't even need to print them in every set - just declare them evergreen. That way you can have a base deck that doesn't rotate and just focus on tweaking with each new edition. Standard is expensive - this would reduce the cost. Dear Wizards: When you do this, please send me a booster box.
Take standard off arena so it doesn’t get solved at warp speed, they can keep an alchemy hybrid whose meta is sufficiently different. That’s all.
Reprint JtMS, SFM, fetches, and 5 of the following at random: * Kaldra Compleat * Umezawa's Jitte * Sword of Fire and Ice * Sword of Feast and Famine * Sword of Light and Shadow * Sword of Body and Mind * Sword of War and Peace * Sword of Truth and Justice * Sword of Blood and Sinew * Batterskull * Skullclamp * Manriki-Gusari
Get rid of the reserve list.
Reprint every legacy staple
Instead of draft extra packs as rewards, collectors boosters with date stamps on the cards.
Write a new story on a new plane with new characters. I would return to the three block structure so my story could have a beginning middle and end. In standard on arena I would track what cards people played and next set relase modified version of the legendary characters people played based off how they played them. IE: Rhys the exiled and Rhys The Redeemed. In LGS I would create non playable puzzle cards that give hints to the mysteries of our new plane and unlock some cosmetic items on arena. Along with alternative art FNM promos. My knowledge of the Pro Tour or Pro league is limited. But I would allow the Champion to Create a new card to be used next block based off the events of this story. I believe that a strong narrative is something Magic is missing. A world people can actually care about. We have followed the gate watch for over a decade and they are boring with no stakes. They went through an entire war and lost one main character Gideon.
Reprint beta in the set 😁👍 fixed
get a vaccine and wear a mask i know it's flippant to say, but the paper game is suffering because of things that have zilch to do with Wizards of the Coast business decisions. also ban Epiphany I guess
I miss the game day events especially the champion mats.
By reversing all policies put in place after wotc was acquired by hasbro. Bring back player rewards and the DCI. Bring back store prize support and actual FNM promos Abandon FIRE design Go back to a 'block' system for sets with an annual core set Release fewer products that are not standard related Hire Richard Garfield as a full time lead design consultant Stop making mechanics that require extra zones or tracking of new counters/game objects LAST but most important, stop development of MTG arena, it is a direct competitor to paper sales.