The Lie That Kept Magic The Gathering Alive For 30 Years 

Flesh and Blood's "rotation" is interesting. Heroes get points when they win tournaments and when they get enough points, that hero rotates out. It has kept the meta fresh since I started playing.

One of the biggest problems with Standard MTG is the cost of entry. When I first started playing Magic in 2013, Mythic rares were considered 'fun' cards, but now even staples like Sheoldred can cost more than a AAA game. Rotation used to facilitate the creation of creative decks, especially during relatively weak standard periods, where there was more room to experiment with quirky decks. However, power creep has now made every constructed card essentially an 'answer or die' scenario. Remember when cards like a 3CMC 3/2 that drew a card or a 2/3 that bounced a creature were banned? Now we have a 3/2 that loots a card and can kill a creature, all for just 2 mana. Additionally, many different archetypes for Standard have been killed off. For example there are no longer tap-out control decks, . We now live in a world where Rampant Growth is considered 'too strong to print,' yet we have Rampant Growth attached to a 4/4 body or as an instant-speed exploration effect. There are no more simple cards; everything must do multiple things and brew coffee for breakfast. With the elimination of block mechanics, the shortened rotation period, and the rampant power creep, Standard has been dealt another blow. I believe they should reassess how rarity works in games like Hearthstone or LoR, where uncommons form the backbone of decks, and epics and legendaries offer unique effects without just being power creeps of rares/commons, often with a penalty in stats. It's absurd how MTG has abandoned the idea of 'vanilla tests' and the notion that abilities could come with a stat penalty or mana-tax. If you create a creature that costs 5 mana with a good ability, why not consider making it NOT a 4+/4+? At LoR You could have like 3/3 for 7 mana that would be playable.

Any time I consider getting into Standard, I remember Sheoldred, then I give up ever wanting to play Standard again

Mark my words, you will see Magic have the "Yugioh Problem" in Commander within 2-5 years. It will become even more unapproachable than what it already is without major maintenance. The Commander Community is starting to really feel the cracks in the ground given the Rules committee's indifference towards bannings and Daddy Hasbro's goals to squeeze more even money out of the dying goose.

Speaking of rotation, There are two things I want to mention: 1) LoR had a rotation mode where it moved out cards not by the factor of "oh when was this released" but "is this a card taht we want to use design space on in this current standard rotation" and when it hit, sure some people were not happy about it but for the most part it was a huge improvement to the game! There was a lot of fun stuff that happen from there as they used the previously occupied design space to make cards that were much more interesting, even if at times a bit more broken (for the specific example here, Katarina was rotated out of standard, which gave Noxus Rally effects. In their space they gave us Samira, who was definitely more broken for the longest time but was without quesiton more interesting because she needed to level up (which was harder than Katarina) and then still needed you to play 6 other cards, which meant you needed to figure out and preplan your rallies way more rather than just spamming Katarina for 4 mana and hit the enemy over the head with whatever that entailed. Issue with Samira was that due to her ralllies being less powerful she got (too much?) power in other areas) 2) Speaking of LoR, I would love it if you could talk about like... monetisation in card games. Specifcially from the designers standpoint of like "Hey I am making a game that people should enjoy to its fulled but I also need to eat". The standard there is of course booster packs and starter decks, but I am curious what alternatives you could come up wtih or what examples of it working well you know, given that LoR seemingly fucked it up somewhere along the way!

Please don't talk about Artifact, I haven't finished GRIEVING yet.

Love this podcast! I totally feel you with the "i want first strike to mean something!" haha, i wish i could be playing vanilla creatures in my competitive magic decks, now they all have to have a book of text on them to be viable xD

Back in the day, me and my friends used to play with our own format: You could use cards from core sets and any ONE block. So it was T2 power level (even lower), but you could keep your old decks to play if you liked them hehe Eventually we allowed to include multiple blocks related to the same plane, except for Dominaria for obvious reasons hehe.

I really wish instead of really forcing pioneer, I wish they reintroduced extended. Extended would be super cool imo, also a coreset that never rotates would be super cool, like I'd love it if it was stuff slightly less powerful but staples. Shock, mana leak, soul warden, llanowar elves, etc. (my soul sister bias is showing but I think it should be playable all the time ;-;)

I'm watching One Piece with interest because it has "blocks" printed onto the card that they have pulled the trigger on. That is to say, a little "1" in the boþom corner that flipped over to a "2" after set 5. Could at any point say "alright, only cards with a 2 or 3 on them are legal for tournament play."

Yugioh is an example of what happens when the only built in brakes for power creep run up against the game's monetization. There is no incentive to balance anything in Yugioh so they don't bother. Even when Japan has an unplayable tier zero format with obvious design mistakes Konami doesn't bother fixing anything when those cards come to the West since hitting them early means not making money on them. It's a really bad situation and one of the reasons why I'm mostly done with the game after playing it for most of my life. Pokemon's power creep is weird. Complexity is the same as it ever was or lower but numbers are larger but still proportional. They balance around how fast they want games to end by making big bosses that give up extra prize cards to avoid having the dreaded 40 minute game 1 where the opponent has locked into a control loop that has to be pecked apart one prize at a time.

Originally introducing Standard and rotation (via the Pro Tour) was genius, otherwise why buy new cards after you had collected your Power 9 and Dual lands? The alternative was power creep, which didn't become an issue until many years later.

And what is good about "evergreen set" - you could make A LOT of different promo versions of cards.

Standar was great back when it was like 6-8 sets to worry about. Now they have 500 products so now it is impossible to take standard or any format with rotation seriously

Bro, rotation is the only elegant solution to powercreep and focusing on eternals is not sustainable. It's why YGO is a turn 0 meta and an unplayble complicated mess for anyone new trying to pick it up. Banlists are meant to be bandaides not solutions. They need to hard stop officially supporting eternals in anyway or its only going to get worse. Eternal formats should be niche things to do with your friends at a kitchen table, not the flagship... if the genie doesn't want to go back in the bottle they have to force it back in.

Have you thought about talking the powering down of MtG with Mercadian Masks block? That was after Urzas Block, and it was quite challenging as a lot of players quit.

I've always been and probably always will be strictly a kitchen table Magic player but I identify with both the standard loving crowd (specifically the desire to have new toys with which to refresh an existing deck or build a new one) as well as the eternal format players (specifically the desire to have access to and use old cards from throughout Magic's history). I keep buying singles from all over Magic's history but I also sometimes buy booster boxes of new sets that I find intriguing (only when I can afford it). My point is that rotation isn't necesarilly an incentive to buy new sets because people will buy new sets regardless (as proven by all the other games with no rotation) but a rotation cycle feels like an organic way to refresh the meta once in a while and a guarantee that even if it goes stale it wouldn't stay so. I also think the effects of rotation across all levels of play from competitive to kitchen table Magic which I believe is more of a positive then a negative.

I've been playing MTG for 28 years; stopped buying new Magic cards when Strixhaven released. Now I just play Old School 93/94 and Pre-Modern; I also just started playing Sorcery: Contested Realm.

When you have the artifact conversation, you must release it as 3 videos that only make sense if we watch all 3 at once.

Consider that in its earliest use, the cards being rotated put were either very OP or very uncompetitive, but for the most part lacking in synergies. An argument for the complexity chunking moving ahead meant they also needed to have certain degen strats (like Channel ± Fireball) to eventually become uncompetitive without having to make them so. Early MTG was reluctant on a lot of fronts with alot we take for granted being developments after the fact, like a four card limit not being the case at launch.

My issue with Standard as someone who tried playing it on a budget as a teen is that your card's value generally doesn't hold when the format rotates so when you pay a couple bucks per copy of a card and it rotates out, its value tanks due to it rotating out and then you're looking a $0.50 per copy value, at best. Rotating formats work in a digital format where trading in cards should be significantly more reasonable for players. Modern isn't kind to budget players either due to powerful cards out of print sporting steep costs per copy and there's no expectation that those cards will be reprinted to draw in new players. This is what got me into Commander, no rotation and budget friendly allowed me to build something like Daretti with large artifact creatures.

I like the idea of an "evergreen" core set that never rotates, and I think going for the lower end of the power scale is the correct choice for it. That way, you can have Shock in the core set which is a decent card, but you can also print Lightning Bolt in a rotating set and it'll be something exciting that will change how the game plays until it rotates out again. You print Tormenting Voice in the core set, so you can print Thrill of Possibility in a rotating set. You print Murder in the core set, so you can print Hero's Downfall and Go for the Throat in the rotating set. This way you have a solid baseline of cards people can work with, with the rotating cards adding a bit of spice and variety to the format. I like the idea that players can have a core collection they can rely on, and the rotating cards provide flair and new exciting mechanics. It also makes things more accessible. Yes, Thrill of Possiblity is strictly better than Tormenting Voice, but you already have 4 copies of Tormenting Voice - is it worth the investment to upgrade them, or is your money better spent on getting a few copies of that new cool creature? Idk, I just feel like that would make standard feel more accessible instead of having to replace your whole card pool on a regular basis.

Path of Exile devs were heavily inspired by mtg. It is really nice to hear them speak about game design. Rotation (leagues) gives them so much design space to try stuff. Some new toys become core, some other stuff gets discarded to keep the design space open.

You guys are one of my favorite channels now. Always great content

Is it possible to find this as a podcast (i.e., audio-only form)?

The fact that if it wasn't for the ban list standard had at the same time, sheoldred the apocalypse, Liliana of the veil and meathook massacre is insane to me. And instead of following the 30 years tradition that worked they increased the standard rotation time. Freaking wild.

12:25 to 12:52 it sounds like you talked yourself through why rotation exists. Im sure theres a monetary aspect to it, would be ignorant to think otherwsie, but there's also a game design purpose. Rotation exists so that the next Bear doesnt have to better than the last Bear for you to get interested.

I might be the oddball in the crowd, but I'd love to see your perspective on Artifact! That would be a cool video!

It might be interesting to have a rotating format separate from Standard that rotates through previous sets. That way, when your cards rotate out of Standard, you know they will be periodically legal in this other format, yet they aren't all legal all the time like they would be in Modern or something. I don't know if I'm explaining that very well, but it might be an interesting thought experiment.

[Just some opinions and suggestions] 1. I like the 3 year rotation so far. It took away some of the stress of trying to get the cards to play with before the rotation happens. 2. I do like trying out new formats. But it's tough to play competitive, play with many different decks and not go broke doing so. If sets weren't loaded with crap maybe this could work. Build a deck that only has cards from only five sets. This would allow players to have access to a legal deck even if they stopped playing for a while. Plus, this would make it easier for player's to get into the game too. Some older dead product packs could get some new life as now they could be supplying a new market. 3. Maybe change the game a little bit. A small tweek could be needed like... 1. Legendary cards means you can only have one in the deck. 2. The minimum deck size is increased (65 or 70 and sideboards should be reduced to 10). 3. Starting life goes up to 25. I play the game all the time. I always feel like things get dull fast. I just want to play without going broke because a rotation comes along and makes everything you had just becomes unusable.

From my experience, pokemon has been using the formula of rotation + power creep since the design space of the game is more limited than other games and they to avoid the game being too repetitive. What i mean by that is there is a limited number of effects on cards themselves that if they print the same functionally the standard rotation would not mean anything since there is not different. One examples of that is Jirachi Ex and tapu lele gx - both cards do the same thing but there’s a power difference.

Actually, Magic was always conceived of as a rotating game- kinda. Namely, "Magic," was always going to be the name of the game, and, "The Gathering," was intended to be, essentially, a first edition that would always be played by itself, with subsequent editions also played by themselves. Now, this got scrapped pretty quickly, as they realized that people didn't like the idea of completely ditching the cards they'd collected and wanted to be able to play with cards from both sets, and so we ended up with, "The Gathering," being a permanent part of the game's name due to it being printed on the card backs.

About the decision to cancel rotation this year and go to a 3 year rotation: Am I in a new Mandela effect universe or did I just completely imagine them doing this exact same thing like 8 years ago only to fairly quickly go back to shorter rotation because it was a terrible idea?

With the success of Commander (and revitalization of Magic), Wizards had to adjust and adapt (the mentioned power creep and such). Rotation is now a "joke" that originally made sense. You had to keep new players safe from the depravities of older Players 😂 Even more of a joke since Arena basically has a Pioneer adjacent format in Explorer(I think?) and both are almost the same. It's just ways to segment players and cater to them. I also feel like the amount of yearly products they put out is linked to Commander as well. The cardboard is cheap and easy to produce, and Players now only seeking to improve their decks and/or create new ones! So the pool of available singleton cards increased to match and keep, as well as the amount of Variants of such cards (Secret Lairs).

So, I think the major push and pull about standard comes back to getting rid of the core sets. They got rid of them because they didn't sell well...but that's because the main benefit from them was determining staple legality for standard in the form of reprints. So if you have those staples you don't need to buy the packs that much. Longer rotation can possibly solve this issue if they commit to spreading out these staple reprints across the larger range of sets, with the potential upside for them that they aren't all concentrated in one set, so folks won't avoid buying it like a core set. Now, will they do this? I don't know, but I do think it's a route that could solve a lot of the issues. We just have to wait until the old way of designing rotates out to see haha

Its actually way better than other games. If you look at the mmorpg WOW, the raid rotation is a couple times per year. But each time it happens, you lose EVERYTHING. Your gear immideitely becomes obsolete, as does all the repuation youve been grinding, the recipies youve been collecting, even the specific currency youve been using gets patched out. Amd this happens several times per year. I played for one single raid rotation when this happened and flat out quit.

To me a rotation format is good to have as your on boarding to the game. To get new players to play the game. It was why I liked block constructed as well. You could then try to take what you started with and slowly move into the older formats while collecting. Pure eternal format games have the problem like was mentioned power creep. Yea power creep is in all games, but when eternal you have to always make things that much better, or ban/restrict those cards. But a rotation format to have the new players try and learn the game before they go off to the big formats has at least to me always been a good stepping stone.

They should sell singles officially if the prices go too high for the average player to bring the prices down. And be more ban happy if they wanna have rotation extended the way it is. Players need the hope that those boring strategies (whatever they perceive them to be) will get their just deserts. Maybe allow proxys in tournament, too.

Jfc. You want Lightning Bolt to be standard legal... in perpetuity? That would be probably the most severe power creep in standard in a longtime. We dont even get instant speed deal 3 to a creature for 1. Much more "any target". Yeesh.

@11:56 : Yes please, I am all about returning MTG back to its root. Let's make it basic again. 1 Core set + 3-sets blocks a year and no more than that. Let's go to the traditional and awesome art and styles we had. Back to the elegant and to the point wording.

Please talk about Artifact

I think at least because of limited play, a lot of the core things wind up reprinted anyhow - the Murder, Disenchant, Shocks/Lightning Bolts, and the like. There's usually something that's close to the basics if not just a reprint, and that's alright.

I think a unique point about paper games like MTG and I'm a big Magic player I try to play once a week at a local card shop and play pioneer, standard, and commander. This rotation works for me personally as a player. Make a strong standard deck, deck rotates out, do something in pioneer and or commander with it. Now I know there's the creeping power problem with pioneer and maybe a new non-rotating format starting at like magic core set 2020 or something will be made who knows. The main point I want to make is that video games get to hit the big red REBOOT button most of the time. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2019 is a great example. New game, new engine, hard reboot of the lore and how players start all the way down to the setting. Magic CAN'T do anything like this. It's too late for "Magic 2 Electric Boogaloo" or Magic Rebooted, reloaded whatever, cause the toys will disappear and we REALLY love these toys and these toys are worth A LOT of money. Magic has such a unique problem of being truly an infinity game that must be infinitely balanced and iterated and expanded. I think they've done a good job of this so far (haven't got sick of it for 11 years) Magic is facing a unique door here where there's no other game that has existed for THIS long as this ONE game. We still tap mana to slap people with creatures just like they did 30 plus years ago.

In all honesty, a two year rotaton for standard is still ideal to me, why they changed to 3 year is beyond me.

Rotation is interesting for players the first time they experience it. Every subsequent rotation feels like a burden. In the past, we would just quit. Now, we play Commander.

you talked briefly about the yugioh f&l list adding a bunch of complexity for knowing how many copies ofna card is legal for play. as someone who plays this game, remembering this isnt something you really have to do. many cards that are banned are either banned for significant lengths of time (see cards like masterpeace the trudracoslaying king or majespector unicorn kirin) or have been banned recently (kashtira ariseheart and isold the two tales of the noble knights). in both cases these lead to players knowing a card is banned. the former because players just havent considered these cards in deckbuilding for literal years and the latter because people remember the recent banlists due to the fanfare that they receive. as for limited and semi-limited cards, the semi-limited list is exceptionally small and only affects a small handful of cards, at most 10 at a time, and the limited list follows similar rules to the forbidden list insofar as player knowledge of it goes. all in all then the f&l list isnt really a major increase in complexity in my opinion except for when you join the game (which is mitigated by entrenched players just telling you "hey that card's banned" when you try to play pot of greed at locals)

I know that click bait titles get views, but Type II / Standard isn't a lie - its a format. So are Limited: Draft, and Limited: Sealed. So was block constructed. The biggest mistake and "lie" is the reserve list. If there had never been a reserve list and they could ave continued printing power and original dual lands and other staples like Library of Alexandria and so fort, then WotC could still regularly support Vintage and Legacy. Of course, there is a separate problem of them killing off he DCI and meaningful sanctioned play.

The premise that Standard was the main format when it was first announced is questionable. It used to be called "Type 2", as in, "this is a different way to play, where you don't have to outbid people for dual lands." Then they pulled the trick of designing sets for limited play. And they tried all kinds of formats like block constructed, extended, and the list goes on. EDH is just vintage/legacy (type 1 and type 1.5 respectively) with some tweaks. And there always has been and always will be kitchen-table or "cards I own" casual games that might or might not actually fit into any format.

Turn 2 Deep Cavern Bat, turn 3 Gix/Preacher, turn 4 Sheoldred with Go For the Throat in hand 😴😴😴😴😴😴😴😴😴

I super miss playing standard. I enjoy low-power formats and I miss playing jank. It was a bad deck among low-powered decks meaning I'd be able to play the cards i want. Now i go to play jank and the cards don't get to hit the table anymore.

I think the framing of the idea is incorrect. Magic did not invent the first game to need rotation due to size, that has always existed with games releasing parts that were independent, they were just early on releasing a game that could use previous parts in current versions. Think of it this way, Diablo 1 had an unofficial expansion and then went onto becoming Diablo 2, while World of Warcraft was more like Magic in that it built on top of the base and continued on despite things changing. Now WoW has that vintage format of classic, but rotation isn't a lie or deception, it's a bridge between the new game and the old, as opposed to Edition 1 and 5 not being playable together. The problem comes in when you try to break the separation of the games by making the bridges too broad and you end up with power creep that makes even non rotating formats feel like they're rotating as in the case of Modern Horizons 2.

In addition to seasonal variations, Path of Exile obsoleted legacy builds through revision of fundamental gameplay and character building mechanisms. WotC has done this to some extent with online card text changes and errata to paper cards, but aside from the ban list, it has generally avoided rule changes that would make legacy cards obsolete.

Calling it counter to human nature is a bit much I think. After all you dont buy a chair or a bike expecting them to last forever. The difference is that cards dont get much wear and tear, in intended use, and less so with all the protection available. And the replacement for your, continuing that analogy, broken bike/chair would surely not be the same exactly. The difference with rotation is that it is, depending on your interpretation either the product being built to not last long or the manufacturer breaking into your house on day to break it. But in both cases that is done because otherwise it would last so long that they would go out of buisness before it breaks and then you would be stuck with a broken bike/chair and no way to repair or replace it. While in tcg's if the manufacturer goes out of buisness that means no new cards and no organized play annymore, though with how mtg releases are these days that might be more blessing than curse.

I wouldn't call Rotation a complete lie since it does have benifits to it, as well as other card games using rotations to help keep balance (like Pokemon, Hearthstone, Flesh and Blood, ect). Rotating format means they don't need ot keep a super large ban list compared to enternal formats (as mentioned, like yugioh) as balance fuck ups will eventually go away. Or you can use it to test a new mechanic in your card game and if it flops, it will go away eventually while in enternal games those mechanics need to get banned or errata to work. Part if the issue of why standard in MTG is dying is due to just the amount of product being released. Since 2010, MTG has released more and more and more cards each year. Last year (2023) we saw 12,274 cards released divided between 11 different sets compared to 2003 where we had 1,159 divided between 3 sets. There is so much product, people just don't want to keep up. It does have that issue as you mentioned of people wanting to use *what they bought*. Like early 2023 wild actually got way more popular than standard in hearthstone due to people not liking the new sets coming out.

I like your guys analysis and largely am on board with your pontifications. But MaRo has been transparent about the importance of rotation. It's not a machivalian scheme to sell more cards. It's to make the best possible game they can make.

I think rotation is great honestly, but we are at a point in the tcg space where players simply prefer massive powercreep over rotation. That's why pokemon has power creep even though it is also a rotating game. It's interesting that of the dozen new games, all are eternal except for flesh and blood. I think bandai is leading the way with digimon's complexity creep as an answer to power creep and the rebooting of the dragon ball card game. It's just harder to balance sorcery speed games, I imagine lorcana will start collecting infinite loops like candy eventually. Yu-gi-oh is in a very interesting spot as local attendance is beginning to wither away but regional attendance is growing. Konami is the best company at printing absolute mistakes and not being punished for it by the player base.

"If you have lightning bolt, than you dont have Shock"....so does a burn deck only have 4 bolts in it?

So im not well versed in other card games but just for the fyi: pokemon tcg has a rotation wherein every card has a 3 year life in standard format. The big staples almost always get reprinted every "block" so they're always in format. they appear to be using rotation to fight power creep this time around, but we'll see.

I salute to my Standard only brethren for keeping that indie card game afloat. But I can't go back to playing Standard. Not after getting the taste of cushy consistent mana base of shocklands.

When you look at magic power creep and just compare it to yugioh power creep you realize how well managed magic actually is. Yugioh is unrecognizable from the game it was even 10 years ago.

The only team that gives me hope is Bandai @Digimon, they decided to kill the sales of a box if that meant to keep their plaeyrs happy and with a lot of playable decks. I feel so mad when people barely talk about digimon specially how fun, diverse and cheap is their metagame

So the way YGO works is that the core of the game doesn't rotate at all. They just print new stuff on a regular basis that is more or less always power creeping what came before, and then if a deck is a little too powerful they ban one or two busted cards until they've power crept enough it's fine again. Thing is, though, this has made YGO's Advanced format (essentially Legacy) very unapproachable because of how much you have to learn to play even a basic deck that can compete, so one thing YGO regularly does is make smaller side formats that start over again with a curated card pool. The weird thing is that these formats don't get to really be called YGO like how MTG does it, instead they're basically considered different games. Duel Links is YGO's original Gacha game, it started over with a different rules system featuring skills and it also had a very basic card pool that developed slowly over the years to incorporate cards as time went on. They also made Speed Duels, a similar simplified format that started from the beginning with a very small card pool, and Rush Duel, a completely new reboot that hasn't gotten brought to the West at all and prints its own separate cards. Ultimately I think the lack of Rotation makes it hard for YGO to appeal to a specific portion of its player base, so it's doomed to constantly try and start over. The most incredibly weird thing about it to me is that YGO players all play fan formats that are versions of the game based on exactly previous formats - like Edison. Imagine if nowadays people still played Ravnica-Time Spiral Standard, and it was one of the most popular ways people played MTG - That's what YGO's Time Wizard formats are like. To be honest, I've always found these formats kind of disappointing - there's room to come up with new strategies, but it still feels like the format is locked in stasis - the fans NEVER come up with their own special banlists for these old formats, so very frustrating cards or decks that dominate them will always dominate that Time Wizard format, and there's nothing you can do about it even if you overall like that format's gameplay. This leads to a weird consequence where most YGO decks are useless and not playable competitively but also don't have any weaker format where they're very good, which makes me feel bad. I think Rotation does help avoid this pitfall.

I remember getting so upset a few years ago when they shortened the rotation and I stopped playing, caring or following standard. I drafted and played modern. WOTC was clever with modern horizons, bypassing standard and creating rotation in that format. They are so cynical.

13:02 The bubble was getting thin, and they let Covid pop the darn thing. I'm not sure it can be rebuilt.

It's wild to me how the mindsets of people differ. I've played standard exactly twice: once when I very first started the game of paper magic (in Return to Ravnica) and once when MTG Arena launched. So both times when I was trying to build a new collection. As soon as my cards were about to rotate, I instantly switched to commander / historic. In the video you guys brought up this mindset with Hearthstone where "My cards are useless now, guess I'll just turn them to dust and make the new ones." But like that never even crossed my mind. When I played Hearthstone, I switched to Wild as soon as it became available and never played the standard format again. My cards aren't useless, I can just play the format where they're useful. Why would I ever play standard and give up the cards that I like and have invested time / money / resources into? Of course I get the reasons why people play standard. An environment with all new toys, they're designed to be balanced around each other, the limitation can breed creativity forcing you to adapt and make new strategies, yeah yeah yeah. It just doesn't appeal to me at all. I like my cards and I want to keep playing with them, and I like having a larger card pool that spans the game's history. I never really understood trying to keep up with standard rotations when there's a format where you can play with almost all the cards instead. And it's weird to me that there's enough people that do play standard that the game has been balanced around it for so long.

I'd watch that video about Artifact

sounds like old timers pining for the good ole days lol

Ooooo this is gonna be a good one, I have to react to this when Im back from vacation LOL

Why is sheoldred still in standard

i think they need to fix the set philosophy rn they can't choose what their sets are for is it lore is for draft,standard, modern, commander cause rn i'd say its more an amalgamation of it all were i think they should keep standard more simple and easy to get into keep it lore and draft base and not worry about designing cards for eternal formats and they should do more eternal set like modern masters and such and explicitly design those sets for eternal formats secondly try to keep the barrier for entry low which means more reprints maybe have the eternal formats be your main way to reprint old cards and leave them out of standard and let the less powerful cards cycle better in standard

There was no "reaching a critical mass of people willing to play a non-rotating format" a non-rotating format always existed alongside a rotating one. In 1995 magic was divided into type 1 and type 2 which ar now called vintage and standard. The idea of a rotating format was only able to succeed because there was a non-rotating format where people could play the older cards. Also, cards that never rotate out (or almost never) do exist, althought they are not competitive playable anymore. Shock is one of those, as is Negate, Abrade have seemingly became one. Those cards are simply reprinted over and over as designers see fit.

It's been a rough time for people who don't like commander

every card game i've ever played suffers from power creep. part of the way card game designs change also has to do with how people play the game, especially with the switch to digital. i've noticed mtg, hearthstone and shadowverse's card designs converging in the past decade. hearthstone designers got the impression that people do not care about balance, they care about interesting metas. so they can print busted cards so long as they change them/the meta frequently. btw, many of the core set cards have totally different effects or mana costs from when they were printed... you have to change the way the game is designed when the way it is played switches to casual bo1 ladder grinding, and everyone can jam dozens or even hundreds of games per day, rather than just playing with a group of friends, or playing a few times per week or month at lgs. any meta, and any deck will get boring or frustrating when playing at that rate, but that's not the only thing. cards are designed to make games end more quickly, so grinding many games is less taxing, and watching games is more exciting; decks revolve around must-answer, obviously overtuned cards that singlehandedly make archetypes viable. such cards now fall much lower on the mana curve, which, again, makes games end quickly, but the difference is, when must-answer cards have a low converted mana cost, the opponent doesn't have the time or the mana to produce an answer. so games become faster, but they feel more decided by the luck of the draw and/or who goes first. people quickly get frustrated, but then the meta is changed, so people become optimistic, only to quickly become frustrated again.

I HATE SHEOLDRED THE APOCALYPSE

Sheoldred really sucks but at a certain point you learn to play around it and tech for it basically. Like now I’m able to beat mono black with mono red just because I hold up damage spells and play to force them to block etc.

I have the same mug

Also BIG problem with MTG is how to get all those expensive cards. So - do you already have Xbox Series S money but want to get pile of cardboard to play once/twice per week at LGS? So now you should pay extra ~20% to get all cards in one store/seller or wait mails from all across Country. And just as reminder, you could get top-tier board game for half of price of MTG deck.

"No one will watch that video" that series is how I found you guys hahaha

A permanent set with Lightning Bolt and Counterspell? That sounds godawful.

you most certainly cannot have 2 pot of greeds you can none in advanced and 1 in traditional not that traditional is actually played much. also the sentiment about the yugioh banlist is shared by a vocal part of the yugioh community especially hatred towards the semi-limited list which is mainly used as a quarantine zone for cards going to three if they don't break anything at 2 they are unlimited with the exception of d hero malicious who shall live in limited 2 forever cause it always ends up broken at 3 does not function as a card at 1 and is fine at 2

As someone who plays both Yu-Gi-Oh And Magic, and has felt the effects both games balancing decisions I have to say with absolute Certainty: Rotation is not the way. Its not like Magic does rotation INSTEAD OF BANNING, they do both. And when they ban a card, its all or nothing. No limit or semi limit.

It's cheaper to get into Commander than it is to get into Standard... and Commander isn't a cheap format by any means.

Sheoldred gets a bad rap. It's a simple, broadly appealing, powerful creature that doesn't immediately win the game or even dominate a board state. It's a big-ish creature with one of the less useful keywords on a big creature, and triggered abilities that are only contextually relevant (life totals don't matter in every state of the game) Compare to something like Baneslayer Angel, which just crushed attacking decks, or Jace Vryn's Prodigy that would hit on turn 2 and be such a crazy value engine + draw fixer. Sheoldred isn't expensive because it's good - lots of cards are good - it's because it sees play in every format without really dominating any of them in the way we're used to seeing "dominant" cards, and it's actually a fun card people like playing! I would look into how Android: Netrunner did rotation. That game did not have the burden of constant releases, was not collectible, had a core set with a dozen plus "Lightning Bolt quality" cards in it that saw constant play (some as much as basic lands in Magic). After many years of playing with the same cards, rotation was a breath of fresh air, not having to play with Jackson Howard in literally every Corp deck, and having to stretch real hard to not use Datasucker + Desperado instead of the new cool thing Runners were getting.

Old cards are so broken that formats like legacy are rarely affected by new cards. There are new toys every now and then, but decks stay relatively the same until a design mistake comes along and shakes it up. Legacy is an afterthought, which means that the core of the format can stay the same.

I don't understand, what is the lie they are talking about?

People will hate me.. but I liked brawl.. I guess if it was a little bit longer, like three years.. that would be nice.

I think youre conflating two different types of player, the casuals and the competitives. Casuals playing against other casuals are fine not playing with the best stuff and even without rotation would probably check out new toys just for some variety. Competitives playing against anyone feel compelled to have the best stuff, and will only check out the new toys if theyre better than the old toys or the old toys are being rotated out. Commander is a weird case because theres no material incentive to be competitive at it (makes you a target, table politics prevent tournaments being run for it) and yet competitives play it anyway, creating demand for power crept stuff. How I would solve it would be to try and create a competitive format, with rotation, that had the same deckbuilding rules as commander. Make it 2v2 to keep that 4 people at a table feel which also seems to be a boon for making video content. It would mean that competitives who roll up to a store with their rotation-commander deck could still play casual commander if there were only other casuals there, and new players who want to be competitive would be able to jump into the new format straight away with the commander precon.

The commanderfication of sets is a much bigger issuee than rotation. When 90% of cards are unplayable in standard and every set is designed to milk edh rotation is very minor. The rotation of modern via horizon sets would have been a more compelling topic. All in all rotation is better than the alternative, powercreep, which is whats actually happening in modern.

You should look at Mike Elliots other games duel masters and battle spirits they both have better mana systems than mtg

WotC is lazy. they don't want to actually do work to bring back competitive play. the last time i played Standard was Guilds of Ravnica, and it was great, but those days are long gone.

oh right, standard.. that really wellplayed and popular format..... oh wait...

If there's no rotation, then you need to power creep to make the cards still interesting. Obviously that's not sustainable. I was once very heavily involved in vintage (back when a mere $1k for a deck was considered mildly exorbitant), I never wanted to play the rotation game. Much as I never let myself get suckered into rotating formats (pay premium prices for rotatoes that will have no value come rotation, just no thanks). Thing is the power creep has made broad swaths of entire old sets unplayable. A modern set draft deck/precon can beat a 93-94 deck even if it's constructed and has power nine. Yes, your best ten oldschool cards are better than their best 10 cards, but their other 50 cards are clearly better than yours so you will get wrecked. Old ways are dead.

So, rotation CAN work, but there needs to be a conceited effort to not power creep, still. Cause if every standard format is more powerful than the previous, we've accomplished nothing, which is what's happening right now.

This channel has the most interesting videos on magic istg

The problem with your non rotating core set idea, from Wizards of the Coast’s perspective is what happens when people have collected the entire core set. If it never rotates, eventually all the enfranchised players will own all the cards, and there’s no incentive for them to buy it. Then the set does badly and WOTC is looking to design something else. The problem with Magic is WOTC is always incentivized to make the game pieces scarce so playing at an optimal level requires a premium investment. But there is a work around. Just play Mono Red every Standard rotation. If I didn’t find that deck incredibly boring, Mtg would be cheap to play.

mtg needs standard and rotation, edh is a eternal format so thats endless optimisation and this is unhealthy for the game.

It's probably to blame for pushed Mythics honestly. During the height of Standard play around RTR -> KTK having so many of the best cards be Mythics pushes them out of the hands of normal players. At times Azorius Control could be a $300 deck - for that price you can buy a Game Console. Really the first time many experienced Rotation was watching Sphinx's Revelation go from $30 to $2. Which is why Commander also shot to popularity. It's easier to justify purchasing a $100 Mana Drain for your favorite deck, not 4 for your little kitchen table games or a set a playset of mythics for your local LGS.

PLEASE make an artifact video!!!

or just play pauper

Just play Premodern. Problem solved.