So what's the problem with Magic right now? I've been hearing way more complaining than usual

You have no idea how glad I am that RDW is finally back and yet even if you compare it to past versions like theros-era heroic red or innistrad/ravnica era hellrider with the green splash for flinthoof boar, its vastly underwhelming. I hate how they are trying to turn the game into hearthstone

Ah, it all makes sense now that you've posted that. WotC is secretly killing non-Standard by trying to make it so only Standard players get good promos.

>They've said for the longest time that "all the market research says that players don't like it when their stuff is destroyed".

I like how they tried to fix this problem with no regard for anything else in the game.

It's a game about INTERACTING with your opponent

When you take out that in shocking turn of events the game fucking sucks (ie standard)

The way they handled the decision was just so incredibly, incredibly stupid.

They basically just removed a well love gift to the fans out of nowehere and then said that people who disliked that (their enfranchised players) that they're unwanted and make FNM's worse with their presence.

Insulting your consumer base never goes well.

Wait a sec, I've been knee-deep in Kingdom Hearts all weekend. Did I miss something important and is there a source?

But user surely after all the mean competitive enfranchised players leave all millions of non-competitive casual players will enter FNM and just not care who wins! They'll all buy boosterboxs and throw them at each other too

Right?....right?

Or maybe the casual players won't go because I dunno maybe they are FUCKING CASUAL PLAYERS

no more fnm promos

source would be somewhere on their website

youtube.com/watch?v=4N2XTYIQF2I

>Constant R&D fuckups leading to constant bannings
>Reverting two set blocks
>Reverting rotations
>Reverting expeditions
>Reverting the formats at the Pro Tour
Wizards don't know what they want their game to be, and it's making their players confused. And since this game isn't cheap, this confusion is leading to anger.

No FNM promo cards anymore

Now you get double sided tokens. Wow!

Good FNM promos were causing people to be competitive for a prize. Which is bad (?)

magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/store-play-evolves-2017-07-16

magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/store-play-evolves-2017-07-16

Basically no more FNM Promos. Any promos they have will be at Standard Showdowns instead and there will only be 4 a year.

When they got obvious blowback for that they claimed that promos made FNM too competitive and they were looking for a different environment for FNM.

markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/163220178518/youve-explained-to-us-that-the-data-shows-that

My problem is I don't know why there was a problem in the first place

MTG seemed to be very popular and stable before they decided to want to change everything. All the problems they have right now are basically self-imposed because of their own stupid changes.

This, the long short is that WotC is investing in new players in the HS to College age and they want to mainly get the white women dollars hence all the POC pandering, cause black teens love Yu-Gi-Oh! and could care less about pandering they want anime titties. This combined with all the changes to play and prize wise to bring new and causal players to the table.

Casuals become established due to competition though, at least thats how I started. Took me two months to win a single match and almost a whole year until I won my first FNM, but it was such a rewarding feeling when it all clicked and I knew my deck, I knew the meta, I knew when to respond, what to sideboard, etc.

>white women dollars
This is a myth.

Thanks. I don't even attend FNM very often, but now I have something else to be livid about. What on God's green earth possessed them to make this decision? Did every little 0-4 bitch complain en masse?

I don't know why Rosewater talks so much on tumblr. He only ever really adds gas to the fire.

>hey if you try to win a prize we provided, you are the problem

Thanks Mark

Yes, it is, but it is one WotC believes in now. And there you see the fucking problem.

Magic is popular with the secondary Market, sure you can say that in theory WotC will see that money, they rather have more casual players who will buy packs and boxes at Target in hopes of getting that one card, instead of just buying the single at your LGS.

Another big fuck up is that magic has an odd way of dealing with the fan community, it's clear more then every that they care "progressive" players and they DMC lewd art work all the time. We live in an age where the women in Pic related get full support from Wizards (the same women that want to ban lewd playmats that also happen not to be official WotC playmats), but small mtg sites get no support mainly if they have been "toxic" in the past.

>that picture
>enterthewarp.jpeg

>Reverting two set blocks
I quit after new zendikar dropped because it was such a miserable set, are we going back to 3 set blocks?

no more blocks, just 4 big sets per year with one of them being the return of core sets. So theoretically you could have three sets on the same plane now or each set being on a different plane.

Not him, but we're going to a "however many sets the story needs so fuck if I know?" model. If I recall, Ixalan is the last set guaranteed to be a two set block.

>but small mtg sites get no support mainly if they have been "toxic" in the past.
Have you considered that small MTG sites don't get support because they're small and don't get visited often?

Huh. That sounds alright, might alleviate some of the god-awful design fatigue that last-sets in each block always suffered from.

Haha just kidding, enjoy a bunch of new +1/+1 counter mechanics, now without thematic connections to last sets +1/+1 counter gimmicks.

Why do you want to play with lewd playmats? Of all the complaints I see people have about Wizards, not wanting to be associated with softcore porn seems pretty low on the list.

No
We're going to only large sets
which could be a good thing (since their sets nowadays can only be creative or playable, but never both)
But they'll find a way to fuck it up anyways

This unironically. I've never met anyone with a lewd playmat who wasn't the worst kind of neckbeard with no idea of proper social convention. It's a real shame that we need a rule for what should be common sense.

Some people play with them because they believe it will upset or unnerve their opponents with their brazen lack of tact giving them a competitive edge.

Some people just have no social awareness.

Either way, the end result is the same. They look like a douche-canoe and drive the well-adjusted players away from the LGS.

Obligatory.

Me personally, I don't play with Lewd playmats. My Playmat is Sacred Foundry. But I am no fucking idiot, I know how feminist work, I seen this shit take away everything in games and nerd culture over the last 8 years. I personally wouldn't use a playmat and I agree phonographic ones are not to be used in public. But they want to ban mats with anime girls in bikinis. And you give them that, it just keeps snow balling. What happened to common sense, the fact that they push to ban even tame shit shows they are seeing how much power they have. NEVER GIVE THESE PEOPLE A FUCKING INCH!

>According to them pic related is too much skin.

I had a good laugh at the "or has a heart attack". Actually that wouldn't be too farfetched now that I think of how many fatasses I sit across from.

whatever you say man

>and I agree phonographic ones are not to be used in public
Nigger I bet you don't even own a phonographic playmat.
And no, you can't have mine. "Against the Wind" is special to me.

Would The End play hard control or one-shot combo?

jesus christ imagining thinking like this nerd over here
> I know how feminist work
lmao

Puritans never have a goal in mind. Whats "lewd" is incredibly subjective and people who try and campaign against that always end up going too far.

While I agree with the idea that playmats shouldn't really be regulated beyond what the store owner deems acceptable, you sound like a nutcase. Just saying.

Well I've never seen a pornographic playmat at my store or at any event I've been to. And I've also never seen someone claim that a playmat that isn't pornographic is still too "lewd" to be allowed. These "incredibly subjective" sensibilities seem pretty well rooted and they match my own so I see no reason to complain.

take a look at you're life you are upset about not being able to have sexy cartoons on the table when you play your children's card game :/

I am the crazy one, look at what's happened over the years
>Games censored by removing parts, lines, or editing outfits
>People like Anita gets game devs to bend over backwards to make her happy
>Comics become a shit show of polotics and pandering
>Certain games stop coming from Japan to the west
>Magic has characters rewritten to be gay, passive, or even a minority even thought they look white, combined with a huge tone done on cleavage.
>Anime cons are now filled with safe spaces for trannies or poc.

But I am the crazy one.

Exactly, so why change anything?

If there is something that is too blatant, that can be handled individually by the store owner. No need for moral crusaders.

The only playmats I own are of land art but nice try,

Then why are you complaining about people voicing their opinions on what qualifies as too lewd, especially if you agree that their stance hasn't negatively effected the community? That moral crusade seems just like the status quo to me.

this is all fine lol

Are those supposed to be negative things? All of that just looks like capitalism at work, and companies recognizing that the appearance of inclusivity = cash. It sucks that some weeb games don't get translated but I can understand companies not wanting to touch stuff that looks questionable to the public with a ten foot pole. It's not they have to release games over here.

Sorry the anime children aren't showing as much skin in Nippon Child Abuse Simulator 2022

Because people who complain about nonissues are usually only seeking power.

Plus some people are rather extreme in their desire to police others and go as far as saying anything anime-esque should be banned.

If something is already being handled by common sense, why bring it up in the first place?

You are complaining about nonissues
If something is already being handled by common sense, why bring it up in the first place?

I'm not the one who brought this topic up.

>Because people who complain about nonissues are usually only seeking power.
Why can't you take their concerns at face value? You don't even have to agree with them. Why can't you and them both want the community to be the best it can be?

Why can't you take my concerns at face value? You don't even have to agree with me. Why can't you and me both want the community to be the best it can be?

WotC is sucking the secondary market's dick hard. Card stock quality is at an all time low. Full throttle on SJW pandering. Ixalon looks like shit. HoD was shit. No more FNM promos. Less premium product. Severely limited quantity of premium product we do get.

It's like they are trying to kill the game on purpose.

Well, feminists do hate nerds, so maybe we're moving to the next stage.

>Because people who complain about nonissues are usually only seeking power.

>Full throttle on SJW pandering

I don't even get this argument. Some Magic characters are female, or have black skin; therefore Magic is now ruined forever? What even the hell? I don't remember anyone complaining about Captain Sisay. And LGBT characters? Magic introduced the first one 20 years ago, in Shattered Chains by Clayton Emery.

I don't understand this fandom anymore..

Same reason people are complaining about games and comics so much these days. Companies pandering to the lowest common denominator (i.e; liberals).

Disagree here. The old stuff is just getting rarer due to the afformentioned pandering to libs.

That's because on Veeky Forums you never know if you're talking to a fan or someone trying to slide Veeky Forums.
Protip: One of those groups knows virtually nothing of Magic beyond the last four years.

Apparently if it was before 2012 it wasn't politically motivated, but if it's after that it is. Skin color or sexuality aren't attributes of the human experience that people can relate to, they're just politics.

I think one of the main criticisms is that characters in more recent fiction are more two dimensional, so it seems forced.

I can't substantiate this because I don't read their shit. The last of the "lore" I've read was the original Ravnica books.

I thought it was just more the feeling of every female or minority character prior is just put in the story because 'blah, it's a character' where these days every one of those characters is now just put in to push an agenda or something.

I don't fucking know. I just play cards.

It doesn't help that they think Kamigawa was a mistake and now we get shit like Kaladesh where skin color matters but culture doesn't. And people are expected to enjoy these settings because of their "diversity" even though they're written like shit.

The company has been completely fucked sideways by John Corporate and the asshats at Hasbro thinking they can do WotC's job better than them.

>shorten Standard for more money
>force design to switch Kaladesh and Amonkhet less than 3 months before release, meaning WotC had to release an artifact set into a Standard that was originally going to have artifact hate in it from Amonkhet already
>force the writing team to completely rewrite Kaladesh from the ground up to push the Gatewatch, who were supposed to disband after Amonkhet's original release
>remove promos for more money
>cannibalize FNM with Standard Showdown and cut Modern events

And after being told this would happen, they put WotC in a fucking arm bar and unleashed a horrible era of Magic into the consumers. WotC is only now regaining their agency as a company.

When Kaya was released, Wizards made a big fucking deal about how they went and hired a consultant (the woman in) to get her just right. They skipped giving Eldritch Moon an Epilogue story so we could have a story about Kaya. And there was absolutely nothing special about the story or her. It was just another Magic story, but it was so damned important that they didn't give us an epilogue to wrap up the story of a fan favorite plane, all the while telling us how hard they worked to get it right.

Tell me right now it wasn't polticallt motivated, especially when in Magic's history we've had important black characters, important female characters, and important black female characters. It should just be par for course for Wizards, not a big fucking deal.

fuck off shills

That's a problem with the writing being shit (which I agree with). There's plenty wrong with the writing and the story's direction, but making the black characters white or the girl characters guys and those problems would still be there.

A good deal of it is forcing the Gatewatch. They want face characters for the movie when the worlds themselves have always been Magic's strongest story telling asset. So instead of interesting settings where we do experience the plane through the characters living there we get cheap backdrops for the stage that the Gatewatch plays on.

See
The Gatewatch was going to be broken up long before now, but Hasbro made Wizards switch around blocks so they could market Bolas and start the fiscal year with a bang to pad their numbers. What was going to be the setup for five individual protagonists interacting with the worlds of Magic has been slurred into a revolting cocktail of corporate focus-group cancer as the writing team has bent ass-backwards to try and extend a temporary situation far past the intended due date.

I'm cautiously optimistic that spreading the gatewatch out after they flee from Bolas will improve the story. Having five major recurring characters on every plane clutters the story and we barely have time for the five of them, let alone expanding on the world we're on. If you removed two or three of them from the past two blocks nothing in the story would have changed, and you could have expanded on the 2 or 3 that were on the plane.

>force design to switch Kaladesh and Amonkhet less than 3 months before release, meaning WotC had to release an artifact set into a Standard that was originally going to have artifact hate in it from Amonkhet already

I knew something was off, with all the cycling and discard synergy between Shadow and Amonkhet it felt too weird to not have them back to back

>Wizards legit fucked up standard with a few untested cards that ended up being way to good and producing T4 kills pretty regularly, and so now people have taken that as a sign that whatever pocket gripe they have with wizards is legitimate and they deserve a personal apology and a pan pizza

You are on the money. Does standard and magic have issues currently? Sure. But people really like to bitch and bitch.

Sure it's not the most fun standard, but if you're not a pathetic cunt who can't enjoy any aspect of life you can still have a good time.

>>force design to switch Kaladesh and Amonkhet less than 3 months before release, meaning WotC had to release an artifact set into a Standard that was originally going to have artifact hate in it from Amonkhet already
>>force the writing team to completely rewrite Kaladesh from the ground up to push the Gatewatch, who were supposed to disband after Amonkhet's original release

Source on these?

Sure, I don't like it when my shit is destroyed, but I like it when I destroy my opponent's shit.

Speaking as a casual player, promos were one of the few items that tempted me to go to FNM. With standard being a money pit, and the past few sets being mostly garbage I have not bothered. Now that promos are toast there is no compelling reason for me to attend FNM.

Oh yeah. I remember winning my first draft so fondly. I opened Nicol Bolas first in M13, built a theme deck and won.

I think it has to do with getting stomped by better cards that casuals arent willing to spend the money on when they enter the game I started with New Phyrexia, so I despise Jace in all his forms since I couldn't afford Jace the mind sculptor, so I basically couldn't play standard.Thank Christ for commander.

The upcoming products lists 'Ixalan' 'Explorers or Ixalan' and 'Rivals of Ixalan'.

Explorers of Ixalan looks like a different product, not a full set. The next series is Ixalan, Rivals of Ixalan, Dominaria, magic 2019.

Explorers of Ixalan is an out-of-the-box multiplayer Magic experience that challenges you to defeat your opponents along the way as you search for the lost city of Orazca.

Thanks Mr WotC marketing.

Yes those are bad things. For the player. Any time the quality of a product is reduced in order to make more money from it, it's a bad thing from the consumer's perspective.
I mean it's not as if WotC or those game devs would go bankrupt if they didn't do these things (and if so, it would be because their product wasn't good to begin with, meaning again that their survival is a bad thing).

Seriously. Sisay and Teferi were big deals. Teferi's still probably my favorite character in Magic.

If we got a standard year with the powerlevel back to RoE/NP or even before with OG ravnica or Shards I would give them all my money. Until then I'm not dropping a dime.

I will say this much, I have no idea how the FUCK design and development design even one single card keeping in mind 1.)standard, 2.) Modern, 3.)commander, 4.)legacy 5.)reserved list limitations 6.)Hasbro mettling. In fucking possible, it cant be done. Nuke Modern, call it vintage 2: electric boogaloo, scrap all of NWO and start fucking over. They need a plan to unironically make magic great again, not "let's double down on these nonsense policies that only alienate our core demographic who literally built this company for us by buying in to our ups and downs for over a decade. Yeah we need more strong independent women of color in magic".

Forgot that they have do design around sealed, draft, AND constructed when designing a set. Impossible.

What when wrong is they forgot how to money. Making bad decisions left and right just because mean minoroty on the internet is unhappy. Fuck them, sex sells we all know that. Artworks don't have to be very lewd, you can make sexy stuff without showing any skin! Also the thing with Standard, it was supposed to be an quick and easy way to get into Magic and give players a lot of deck options that can compeate with one another, instead it is a format dominated by pregenerated meta just like YuGiOh. It is pathetic YuGiOh is more compeditive then magic and suits pro players more, because Wizards are pushing pro play so hard and pandering to them, still did not beat YuGiOh that does not give a flying fuck about the Pro Players.

>Wizards don't know what they want their game to be, and it's making their players confused. And since this game isn't cheap, this confusion is leading to anger.
Amazing observation

Fuck the other guys replying to you, I agree 100%. Want to hear a fun fact? The one girl I know who actually *enjoys* playing magic loves the lewd playmats people bring in. She likes to be "one of the guys", she doesn't want to sit in the designated safe space Tumblr table.

Your head is too far up your own ass, you won't understand until magic leaves you behind as well

Since Zendikar and New Phyrexia brought in new players, they decided to ignore their enfranchised players and try to grab as many new players each set as possible. This resulted in everything post-Avacyn Restored, culminating in Theros, Khans, BFZ and SOI and Kaladesh blocks. Dumbing down abilities and mechanics that didn't need it, forcing the Gatewatch down everyone's throats and treating new players like they're retarded.

This led to Standard devolving into a fucking shitshow, producing Abzan Midrange, Collected Company (I loved this deck but apparently other people hated it), Mardu Vehicles and the recent bannings. Combo took over because they got rid of good counters and instant-speed removal, creatures became way too good and board wipes became five mana.

You're gonna have to cite some of those sources bud

Hasbro's made bank with Transformers/GI joe movies, they're forcing Mtg into this gatewatch narrative so they can milk it sideways.

Are you retarded? The entire point of keeping Vintage, Modern, Legacy, and Standard separate is so that they don't have worry about those other formats.

The current set is designed around 2 things: what is currently legal in Standard and what will be legal in Standard after the next rotation. Why do you think the banned and restricted lists for Modern, Vintage, and Legacy are so fuckhuge while Standard's is 5 cards?