The State of Magic

>mfw I see how far down the Twitch directory I have to scroll to find MTG

There are 2x as many people viewing MTG clone Hex:Shards of Fate streams as there are viewing Magic streams right now.
There are 1000x as many people viewing Hearthstone streams as there are viewing Magic streams right now.

Is WotC the Kodak of the card gaming world?

Magic is shit now.

Movie at 11.

they are too autistic to leave the house and play the game, so instead the shut ins just watch others play online

Fortunately for Wizards, Magic doesn't make money off of Twitch streams. Every block since Return to Ravnica has seen record-breaking sales that were better than the set before it. A lot of people are getting into Magic these days

these

>Wizards doesn't see Hearthstone as a threat because it appeals chiefly to a casual audience
>99.99% of their profit comes from casuals buying sealed product

I love Magic but man these guys are blind

A clue to this would be in what board you posted it in, Traditional Games, Magic is first and foremost a tabletop game you play at a store or with friends. Coupled with the fact that MtG is a lot more involving than Hearthstone and the online version is not amazing, it obviously won't appeal to casuals.

This doesn't change the fact that it's wildly successful currently, and you need to remember, MtGO is a supplement to paper magic, not the other way around.

To elaborate on something, when I say casual, I mean the average casual gamer who watches streams on Twitch, primarily because of 'personalities' like Kripparian who has a large following and is atleast a part of why Hearthstone was even successful on the scale it was. Magic doesn't have these for the most part, and the few it does(LSV) are certainly not pre-established streamers.

...

casuals buying mtg products will have cards they can physically own

hearthcucks will literally never own their decks

MTGO is a shit client and doesn't appeal to casuals.

Wizards could have tripled their profit if they just offered a real online alternative (like Hearthstone) and put codes in real booster packs that gives you the same booster pack in the online version as well. Or coins or credits or whatever. Wizards is years behind when it comes to online play.

I bought a case of Khans of Tarkir. Was planning of selling it in 10 years for about $1999, but it feels like magic will be dead by then. Should I sell it now or open it in hope of getting some foil expeditions?

That would be nice.

I also bought a case of Theros, but I think I'm going to hold it for a birthday draft at my sons twentyfirst birthday, since theros has one of the best limited metas ever.

Why on earth would you think it's going to be dead by then? The game is already over 20 years old, and like an user already pointed out, it's only getting more and more popular.

If you're that worried, just sell it the first set that doesn't beat a record.

>bulkers and drafters are casuals
Consider me trolled.

the fact that it's so old and set in it's ways makes it all the more likely to die

See, you'd be right in most circumstances, but in this day, where people complain about all these things, it's still getting more and more popular. So, clearly something isn't as important as people are pretending.

Are drafters not casual?
I only draft and i'm casual as fuck I would have thought.

So you think I did good businuess?
How many cases are you hoarding?

Pokemon does it right

>caring about Twitch streams

I wish playing magic online was half as convenient as hearthstone.

I don't like hearthstone but the client is pretty easy to use and looks like a piece of software from this decade.

a casual in magic is a psychopath obsessive in any other ccg/duel game. Ive never seen my friends who play heartstone drop 100 dollars in a day while ive seen other buying boxes at my lgs that are obviously more than 100 dollars.

They will start giving you drops for packs, they just need to decide what online client will be superior, duels or mtgo

>thinking Kahn will be worth more than $300 in a decade

Even assuming you're right, wow, 2K in only TEN FUCKING YEARS. you must be an investment banker

>keeping a booster box as investment

This reminds me of that mouthbreather YouTube channel where he open boxes with a surgical glove and opens booster packs like it's something delicate.

this.

I never understood people who make investment purchases like that. The returns are TERRIBLE.

>Theros had one of the best limited metas of all time
> Theros aka Eggs in Basket: the format
> Also has a case of Khans - one of the three greatest limited formats of the modern era
> wants to sell it

Niggers what?

Is that the one who literally came in his pants when he opened power?

that famous video with Black Lotus card

>basing the state of the game on how many people watch it on Twitch

By that logic it's hard to say League of Legends is a shit game with horrid developers backing it with all the people watching it normally

that said, Magic is only shit right now because Wizards is too afraid to go all out. BFZ, OGW, and SOI all were lacking mechanically. BFZ only brought back Rally and created Ingest, which would've been alright if it was like Annihilator and not constrained specifically to creatures. OGW only had the colorless errata and created things that used took colorless specifically, but otherwise was lacking mechanically. SOI rought back Madness, which wasn't even an Innistrad original, and double-faced cards only because if they left that out people would shit themselves. All it gave us that was new however was Delirium, which is more or less a more specific Spell Mastery. One Curse made it out of the woodwork like that one white Eldrazi from OGW. Aside from all that, however, there wasn't much it had to offer. All that variance in mechanics and all that lack of mechanics just makes deck-building in Standard - Wizard's premier format - very boring and lackluster. They're too afraid of making another Birthing Pod, when in reality they should only fear making THE Birthing Pod, if that makes sense.

>Should I sell it now or open it in hope of getting some foil expeditions?
>Khans of Tarkir

user, I have some bad news. Expeditions were a Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch thing.

When will we see ***** or goblin welder back?

>codes in real booster packs that gives you the same booster pack in the online version as well
Not a bad idea actually.

It is and it's their own God damn fault.

Hearthstone is convenient because all your cards are right on your phone. You can sign in and start playing.

Of course we all know technology is crap and last thing I want is my account getting hacked or something and lose all my cards so maybe paper cards and go to a shop too...

Oh wait. Magic is a fucking expensive game unlike say Pokémon.

But hey, at least the people are friendly and...

Oh wait, that's pokemon too. Magic players are elitist assholes.

Well, Magic's one virtue is that amongst trading card games it's the only one that stays relatively balanced and only has minimal power-creep and rarity isn't a big issue...

OH WAIT, I'M STILL TALKING ABOUT THE POKEMON CARD GAME.

>All it gave us that was new however was Delirium, which is more or less a more specific Spell Mastery.

I prefer to think of it as "the bad Threshold".

>post at 4:22 AM EDT
It's the middle of the night in the US, Mid-morning in europe, and early afternoon in Japan. Why the fuck would you expect magic streams at that hour?

The hour doesn't make a difference as long as you take stats for other games at the same hour too.

I wish mtg had a pokemon like online game.

>Well, Magic's one virtue is that amongst trading card games it's the only one that stays relatively balanced and only has minimal power-creep and rarity isn't a big issue...

>OH WAIT, I'M STILL TALKING ABOUT THE POKEMON CARD GAME.

>shaymin-ex exists.

And that's exactly why Hearthstone alone is crushing Wizards in terms of profitability. To sell a Magic pack, one has to be physically produced, whereas a Hearthstone pack is just a number generated by an existing algorithm. This is why physical goods can't even touch electronic "goods" when it comes to profit. Like nigger not even close.

Reminder that BFZ brought back Rebound. You didn't forget already did you user?

It does make a difference, since Paper Magic pulls in way bigger numbers than MTGO.

It depends, drafting is part of the pro tour, so it can be done at high level. Personally, I just do it because I like opening boosters, Im fairly decent at it and standard is expensive as fuck. I could buy one baby Jace or do 8 drafts.

Paper magic doesn't deny face to face interaction and it doesn't rely on a outdated piece of barely usable software, hearthstone wouldn't have any players if the client this bad.

>tfw people are so gullible and they fail to see that electronic goods are worth 1/3 of normal goods (due to the lack of physical factor).
>steam games are being sold for 40€
>people are ok with it

>if the client this bad.

Was this bad. I need to proof read my posts before I submit.

>it's a collection of numbers and code so it's worth less than paper squares with drawings on them

Actually yes. Just consider the resources used to make both. Not to mention people living from the whole logistic chain of physical goods.

>goods have no value beyond the cost of their components

not even arguing that Magic cards are cheaper, you're just retarded

>outdated piece of barely usable software

can we please put an end to this meme?
the MtGO client is not barely usable, it's flat out unusable

He didn't say that at all, just that producing and shipping physical goods costs much more than coding another card. You're the retard here.

what does cost have to do with anything?

Why are you asking me? I'm not the one arguing about that, I'm just calling you out on your inability to read.

i'm not even that guy but it's you who can't read

just because a physical Magic card costs more to manufacture doesn't mean it's more valuable

it's not that difficult to understand

Except for when you compare the prices of actual magic cards to MTGO cards, the actual ones are almost always more expensive then the virtual ones.

This is because nobody cares about some random person playing the buggy mess known as MTGO, or the shitty Origins game.
Watch during a PT or a SCG Open and it will be on the front page.

because MTGO is a mess and nobody cares

yes because they pay to get there

the MTG Pro Tour Top 8 still gets less views than a Hearthstone streamer gets on an average weekday evening, by a longshot

A tier pokemon deck is still 200 to 500 bucks

That was in Dragons of Tarkir, not BFZ.

hey don't talk poop of Hex you meanie.

>minimal power creep
A friend of mine was a fairly regular player when we were kids and used to go to tournaments at our LGS where he would routinely take first place with his haymaker deck. A few years ago another friend of ours and I bought starter decks because we wanted to fuck around and Haymaker guy thought it would be cool to "show us how it's done" by breaking out his tier 1 deck from 15 years ago.

He didn't win a single game we played, the pre-constructed decks were that much stronger. It was a total blowout every single time. So you're a liar.

mtgpt top8 doesn't act like cunts, either. kids love garbage like trick2g or (i cant even name an hs streamer) because they pander to their audience.

how many Hearthstone streamers have literally killed a guy?

so?
look at the top 10 most subscribed twitch or youtube chanels, look at the content they make.

the main audience is 12 year olds with ADD
fucking kill me I dont want to live in this world anymore.
it's designed for fucknuckles, and now we can't have nice things.

15 years is a long fucking time, though. And there are strategies that were viable then that just don't exist now - like relatively fast combo kills. Your standard deck does jack shit to turn one Necro, turn two you're dead. It can beat some midrange deck from back then because the threats are so much better now.

He was talking about the Pokemon TCG, which someone claimed hasn't been power creeping.

>Reminder that BFZ brought back Rebound

That was DTK, and none of the cards are even remotely memorable. I only know that Narset gives Rebound as well as Taigam's strike. Can you call that interesting?

And that's what I get for not reading the thread properly.

Early pokemon was close to a completely different game. The pokemon themselves were much weaker, but the trainer suites were overwhelmingly powerful. Also, the new rule changes basically meant all of the old decks don't work anymore.

Old pokemon was a really strange and interesting game. It never really got solved, and a lot of really weird things happened as a result. Yea, everybody knew the basic competitive archetypes. Yea, scy/buzz/chan was the best haymaker package. It was still more interesting than the EX spam that's going on now.

I was very confused
I was sure pokemon couldn't have anything called "necro" in it.

I remember back in the day collecting that shit at school
nobody ever had any idea how to play the game, I'm pretty sure our school developed our own rules and played the game in a fucking outrageous manner.
throwing cards at other cards was a key mechanic.
I think we used a number on the cards to determine how many attempts you would have at throwing the cards at the opponents pokemon, and depending on how many times you hit it was how effective the attack was

you dont even want to know how we played DBZ TCG
that got violent.

>I could buy one baby Jace or do 8 drafts.
fucken ae man that's it

In pokemon, every deck was "necro." It was possible to see half of your deck in the discard pile by turn 6, depending on how the game was going.

The ironic thing is that pokemon right now is much faster than it used to be. Early pokemon had ridiculous resource management, but you ultimately still had to grind your opponent out to finish the game. Modern pokemon decks only need 2-4 cards to start sweeping, rather than drawing twenty cards and still not presenting very much damage.

BUMP

Wizards is really dropping the ball on this one

>develop a shiny new MTGO client with bells and whistles
>get rid of the $10 sign up fee
>hold more Phantom events with packs as prizes so poor people and casuals can still play and spend millions of hours grinding to get gud cards
>put a timer on a player's priority to speed up the game and make it more interesting for spectators
>????
>profit

This a hundred times

I used to play pokemon tcg with correct rules as kid. There wasn't many that knew how to play it, but we few who knew didn't care as long as we could 'cheat' good cards for ourselves. Holy shit it was a good game back then.

Although it has to be said that as an european kid the english wasn't exactly the best, so we probably made ridiculous misunderstandings with the abilities.

Veeky Forums: where you can explain why "make everything free" doesn't make sense to adults.

Also, MTG isn't a spectator sport. That's fine.

>people are watching video games on a video game streaming site instead of tabletop games
>magic is dead

no.

Although, I think magic will be kill in the next 10 years. I have already stopped playing 2p magic in favor of Ashes, but still play EDH.

see

perfect 10 alpha lotus is easily worth 50k usd, you better fucking use silk gloves when cracking packs of abu

lol it's a slip of cardboard.

Would you mind sending me a few of these, senpai? Any that are lying around will do. What do you mean "no?" It's just a piece of paper, lol.

I've been out of magic for a while. What's a good standard deck, price is not an issue

I just found out that core sets will no longer be made, what about vintage cards like Wrath of God? They going to reprint those sort of cards in the normal sets or are they going to wait until they have exhausted the English thesaurus for every possible example of genocide?

Wouldnt it be faster and more reliable to google, Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad top 8". At least you will get tired and tested decks rather than some neckbeards goblin deck that only beats 13 year olds with lunch money decks.

If price is no option as you say.

>Hex:Shards of Fate
>hearthstone

Niether of those games rots yours eyes out of their sockets. Magic is more fun to play in person because the cards are real and the software never advanced from Windows 3.1. Wizards and Puters just never mixed for some reason.

What is the appeal of Twitch?
I can kinda understand watching a pro to get better at something, but that doesn't seem to be what it's about.

Fuck...have I become the guy who just comes into these threads to point out that Veeky Forums doesn't know shit about MtG?
Because, seriously, Veeky Forums doesn't know shit about MtG.

Is Magic the Gathering losing vast numbers of current and potential players to it's rivals?

Yes. So shut the fuck up

It's social media at this point. Which also means that the game itself becomes secondary to that

MtG works like shit as a computer game.

What they should have done is develop a new game specifically for online.

The only reason it works like shit is because of all the unnecessary phases and passing back and forth of priority. A game of Magic is way slower than it needs to be

Priority should be timed, and if you don't do what you needed to in the time allotted then tough shit

>99.99% of their profit comes from casuals buying sealed product

Because a pre-release kit or a box doesn't cost 1500€ to be remotely competitive.

>You shouldn't have time to make decisions

Yeah that's probably the most retarded suggestion I've ever heard for MODO.

They need to put something out with a modern client and UI.

I'd pay a subscription fee if I could have access to all cards.