MTG thread

It's ~$150-350 (with the higher end being the greedy 4 color decks splashing the most expensive individual cards/complicated mana base) to buy a top tier Standard deck wholecloth. Tier 2 aggro decks are ~70-100, usually due to being mono-color. Which is about average for standard decks over time. Aggro is basically always cheaper than control, because control players are willing to pay any amount of money for their staples. Red Deck Wins was actually super expensive for a short while this year when it looked like it was going to be format-dominant, but then the format adapted, as it does.

The cost of a top tier (Using that term loosely, since Modern tiers are essentially sand) modern deck has actually dropped by a solid 20-40% over the last few years, as Modern Masters reprints got closer to reaching supply/demand equilibrium. And since Fatal Push dragged Tarmogoyf's price tag into an alley and beat the shit out of it. The average deck price for modern is a lot closer to $400-700 now than $1000-1200 (unless you fancy a deck that hasn't had many reprints, like the Mox Opal decks). Like, UR Storm Gifts is one of the better decks in modern, and is a $400 deck... with $250 of that price tag being the 4 scalding tarns you can replace with $1 Shivan Reefs for a 1 in 40 games differential in power.

Standard is has been an interesting ride for the last couple years. It's in a pretty good place currently, but they really managed to screw the pooch for a solid 24-36 or so months. The combination of their previously planned faster rotation cycle making 99% of standard cards worthless after 18 months turned off a lot of people, but then it got exacerbated by the fact that they had started designed standard sets with this rotation in mind (thus they had very pushed mechanics, with limited answers, since it would rotate pretty quickly anyway and stay "fresh") and really shot themselves in the foot when the backlash to the rotations was so high that they had to back off it to the normal cycle, but were then stuck with 24 months of Gideon, then another 24 of Emrakul to look forward to etc.

The general power level of standard has been such booty for so long as well that I can't help but think that's a major part of their current issues. We see what, 1-3 modern-playable cards get printed per set? Sometimes not even that (having a real hard time thinking of anything from Amonkhet block that has any modern application). Makes standard a pretty hard sell when literally every card you purchase is going to turn in to kindling the second it rotates. Then they removed FNM promos, GP prices are through the roof, etc. It's just a real rough time to be a standard grinder right now.

I'm sticking to my theory that we're getting a new format soon once Arena is up and running fully. I'm not sure how far back it will go, but Origins seems like a logical beginning. It'll be what gets fully supported in Arena (draft/standard/arena frontier or whatever they call it), with modern moving even further to the back burner and wotc basically dropping all support for it. That's why we're seeing the current infinite modern reprints happening; got milk whatever they can out of that format before they replace it moving forward.

Thran fucking Dynamos too, thank cheesus. F'ing Urza block shit tier uncommon being $10 was ridiculous.

Got a decent IMA box with 3 good praetors and a fluster. But mainly just to have the fun of opening packs again like a kid. Would have saved myself $40 if I'd just bought what I needed for my casual EDH decks.

If you fill the card art with fat purple haired troll beasts, yeah, it's gonna be bad.

I'm pretty legitimately concerned they are going to blunder ahead the same way comic books have. Make massive changes to your product to try and placate a non-existent female customer base, alienate your existing male-dominated player base, then whine on Twitter about how inclusive you are and how all the terrible misogynists are ruining your game and driving away players.

I don't understand their fascination with trying to so hard to push their idea that the game is open/for everyone. It very clearly is not, when you have a 90+% base of male players the game very obviously is not interesting to females, and it has nothing to do with how progressive you are, or card art, or any of that shit. It's the same reason STEM is dominated by men, they just won't admin reality.

I seriously give 0 fucks about the recent dramus over at the MTG subreddit. The dude everyone is losing their minds about is a complete cunt, but he's not wrong on a lot of fronts is the real issue. The vast, vast majority of your player does not in fact give any shits about Sprankle or her cosplays, and probably never will.

The danger signs are there in the story as they have SJWs writing it now (transgender character, masculine women character, genderless race), but there's been nothing preachy about IRL yet. It's been ok, there's just less of it and less interesting. The art has it too (black greeks, lesbian statues) but I don't really mind it and it's not a lot.

What worries me is the quality of the cards and gameplay decreasing with shitty "if this happens pay 1 to" mechanics and trash cards and increased mana costs of everything, but then you put a few overpowered cards into your depowered game.

I don't know if that's maro going up his own ass with his design philosophies or diversity hires where it matters in the gameplay (since women in general can actually write and do art).

Punko said:

There is no decent IMA box. While you cheer for that $10 uncommon to drop in price, the price of every card in that box has dropped, and will continue to do so.

Its pretty funny seeing modern & EDH players cheer about reprints, not realising their entire non-reserved collection is tanking in value.

Click to expand...

Well, I don't collect for value. I get cards for my decks and because they have sentimental value. I want everything to be cheaper. I want to be able to buy cards. Cardboard as an investment is fucking comical to me.

And that's the problem Wizards faces.

Their product is trying to serve two masters (players, collectors, although there's heavy overlap), while also trying to help float the LGS economy (so that there's a place for players to find the game and get addicted), which is made up of some the dumbest motherfuckers to ever run a business.

And yet they're also trying to add a third master to the list by attempting to become an esport.

The trainwreck when those three tracks are untenable is coming, and it won't be pretty.

Take the numbers with a grain of salt, but the MtG playerbase has been steadily 'shrinking' for the last few years. Local store a friend owns barely gets enough to host FNM anymore. More people playing Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh. Weird days.

It'd be better for the legacy formats if everything on the reserve list was banned and not playable.

I'd take everything Rudy/Alpha says with a fucking entire mine of salt. The dude is so heavily leveraged in to MTG financially that you have to assume literally every word out of his mouth is somehow about trying to protect his "investment".

Without a doubt. But I am also going by what I have seen. Very little MtG, other than EDH, anywhere I look, save the odd person grinding for a tour.

Leadsalad said:

It'd be better for the legacy formats if everything on the reserve list was banned and not playable.

Click to expand...

Better for who? The whole damn point is to play with those old cards. If you banned everything reserved from legacy you'd have shitty modern.

The slow fall of SCG or at least SCG events was the first sign of magics decline for larger scale events. It has greatly impacted my area losing IQs and the number of opens has also dropped way down.

The Sprankle drama sucks on all sides but the frothing anal juice at the fore front is a piece of shit and all he does it bring grief to many of the people that have the misfortune of seeing his content.