Did Duel Decks go out with a bang or a whimper? I'm genuinely curious what your thoughts are

Merfolk v. Goblins is awesome. My buddy and I split one so we could make tribal EDH decks, and the fact that I got Krenko, Rabblemaster, Goblin Grenade, and a ton of other great gobs for ten bucks is awesome.

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I get the matching deck boxes and sleeve them up to save as an off the shelf casual game.

Are Challenger Decks replacing these? Don't know how I feel about a Standard product replacing a Kitchen Table product.

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Yep.

they release challenger decks once in a while
>remembers buying up innastrade challenge deck just for strangleroot geists

it's normal product, challenger decks are not replacing anything

Commander precons do what Duel Decks do but better and with more bells and whistles. They're your yearly Casual product.

Is there anyway WotC can capitalize on old MtG players? Feel like they could release a product that has enough jank for 4 players to make decks, play them, then afterward build a shitty cube to draft. Release yearly expansions or something. Feel like with the rise of board gaming, MtG could really capitalize by having a side set of products sold like Dominion or something.

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Theres only been like 4 good duel deck, and almost all of them were towards the beginning before muh reprint value. Look at how many good cards there were in elspeth v tezzeret.

Wizards set an unbelievable precedent with that Angels versus Demons deck. Every duel deck after that has been a colossal disappointment.

>Is there anyway WotC can capitalize on old MtG players?

They can start printing and reprinting quality cards.

That would have unironically become the fastest selling and most praised MTG product since Alpha.

>Is there anyway WotC can capitalize on old MtG players?

Literally just make the game stop being shit.

An old MTG player is the easiest target audience in the world because they bit the bait once already. Literally all you have to do is print the kind of cards they like. They've already proven they will buy your product if the product is tailored to their tastes.

The issue here is that people at WotC appear to have no fucking clue, and no real interest in what kind of cards old Magic players like, so instead they just shit out products like Ironic Masters and Ironic Masters 2.0 with no real plan and just hope it works.

I have never even seen so much as an online survey from WotC on what kind of Magic product I'd like to see. They have online surveyus on all sorts of stupid bullshit such as their website, but for some reason "what is a thing you would buy if we printed it that we're not currently offering" is not a question that interests them.

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I really liked Duel Decks, and I'm gonna miss them.

Izzet vs Golgari was pretty good tho.

>Commander precons do what Duel Decks do but better

No they don't, unless your definition of "what duel decks do" is "reprint random shit without affecting Standard meta".

For me the main thing duel decks di, and their main point overall, was to be a Magic product that lets two players play against each other casually after just buying that one product. It's the "I want to try out this game, what should I buy" product. Commander decks are utter shit for that purpose, even if you buy two of them, because they use Commander rules (40 life, 100-card singleton, death after 21 commander damage, command zone shenanigans) and those rules are fucking bizarre. They should not be on anybody's consideration until they are already fairly experienced Magic players.

They could've made a duel decks:lands, full of nothing but dark depths and mana lands reprints and it'd be much better than any other duel product.

For that purpose Challenger decks are actually fine (if you buy two). You can play them against each other casually, and unlike with Duel decks, you can also take them to an FNM and not get automatically slaughtered.

Buy from Europe, the stock is better at the Belgian printer.

>The issue here is that people at WotC appear to have no fucking clue, and no real interest in what kind of cards old Magic players like, so instead they just shit out products like Ironic Masters and Ironic Masters 2.0 with no real plan and just hope it works.

It's not that simple. The "old Magic player" base is quite diverse, ranging from Vorthos Players, to Nostalgic Cube players who like to recreate old enviroments, to ultra-competitive players, to forever kitchen table players. And there's no way to please all of those groups simultaneously.

>buy from Europe
I have been tempted to do this, but I wish to support my lgs so we can still have one in my town

>And there's no way to please all of those groups simultaneously.

How do you know, when they have never even tried?

Release a box like this that comes in three piles. Two have a bunch of commons and uncommons to make casual decks (think deck builder toolkit level) and the third just has lands. Hell, they could put on gold borders and new backs, like the Pro Tour decks, and print literately anything they want. Market it to 20-something-year-olds as a "Relive your childhood!" experience, throw that shit in a Target, and people would go bananas. In 6 months, release an expansion of cards that gives you enough to make a 4-player Cube.

No 25-year-old wants to go to FNM and deal with Standard, but he could get 3 friends together and fuck around with a couple of beers easily.

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>a perfect opportunity to reprint GB tribal land (the only one that sees any play)
>NOPE, here are your shitty reprints nobody called for

It's trash.

Pretty much this. Duel Decks are what I've used to introduce people to magic, without well standard craziness.

Now that said what says is also good. The fact that challenger decks seem (emphasis on seem since i'm not sure theyr're out yet) pretty good standard introductions, that can be played against eachother make them good for introducing people to magic AND having a nice entry way into competitive. But ultimately that relies on well... how plentiful these things are gonna be and if they'll be up for sale somewhere else other than game stores. If these things are like the commander precons and duel decks, and manage to be found hanging up on a rack at targets and walmarts, then yeah they'll definitely be a good replacement mostly since at regular retail stores they're more likely to be sold at msrp. Yes I'm still mad that A)the Vampire Commander Deck was upsold at hobby stores, and B) that when I missed the chance to snag one at msrp at a retail store because I was too busy buying food things to eat.

This. Kitchen table needs more products. I actually feel like the recent boardgame-like products would work if they didn't add weird gimmicks.

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...How would that differ from Deckbuilder's Toolkits? Other than being larger?

>Hell, they could put on gold borders and new backs, like the Pro Tour decks, and print literately anything they want

No power limit based on cost. They would be able to print cards from the restricted list and disregard the relative values of the cards vs the box. Basically they could put out $1000 of cards in a $30 box without disrupting their main product sales.

But the post said
>Two have a bunch of commons and uncommons to make casual decks (think deck builder toolkit level) and the third just has lands.

We already have a product that has a pile of commons, uncommons and lands. It's the Deckbuilder's Toolkit.

They tried with standard sets a lot.
>Draft only stuff
>Cards thatll see some play in modern
>Legendary meant for EDH
>Timmy Creature
>Build around me rare

I think a big hurddle for MtG is people need to pay for it. Anyone will play Catan with me once I buy it because it's free for them. Hard to transfer that to a TCG.

Side note, should make another one of these bad boys.

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It depends, Elves is a good deck if you didn't buy the C14 Freyalise deck. Inventors is shit tho.
WotC suffers from a pathological need to reprint the same cards 10 times in a row instead of rotating reprints, that's why it's so easy for speculators to make money off them like leeches.
Elspeth vs Tezzeret was worth $80 on release and was avaliable at Wal Mart and Target 6 months after release when it was still worth rougtly $40.
This was before "MTG Finance" tho. WotC started making their precons shit on purpose after C13 because apparently they absolutelly detest having to reprint non-Standard product because it sold out everywhere.

I mean the masters sets come across as one of the areas that definitely suffer by trying to hit too many targets at once... and I'd think they'd be better if
A)They stayed the same as they were now; And stayed draft focused with some important reprints, But just SOLD at something closer to regular price. It wouldn't be so bad cracking a Tree of Redemption in your Masters 25 if the damn pack cost only like 5 dollars instead of 15.

or B) They keep the same ~15 dollar price tag, and just disregarded Draft playability entirely. Literally make it Reprints the set, to hell with the consequences, let the draft environment be crazy, have all the Jaces, Damnations, Fetchlands, hell even vintage duals, you can shove in a set with a convincing theme, and just up charge for the privilidge of "These are cards that are crazy important reprints" rather than "These are for Drafting."

I definitely prefer Option A to Option B.

>I think a big hurddle for MtG is people need to pay for it. Anyone will play Catan with me once I buy it because it's free for them. Hard to transfer that to a TCG.

Cube draft.

All my friends quit MTG and sold their collections, but I can still play cube draft with them, because the only thing that requires is for them to know the rules.

literally reprint the reserved list. reprint it so fucking hard that the most expensive rare is $20. The orignals retain their price thanks to scarcity of premium version

they just need to put arch enemy schemes in the token/land slot of conspiracy

Bring back iconic characters that people really care about, such as the fairy from Earthbind.

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>Elves vs. Inventors

That's pretty racist. Elves can't be inventors now? Elves are antithetical enough to inventors to serve as their counterpoint in the way Angels do to Demons and Phyrexia does to the Coalition? Jeez.

lol, they wrote garruk out of the story over pic related controversy, theyd never get away with that.

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20% of the colors destroy 80% of the artifacts

>White
>Green
>Red

>20%

Where's Garruk? He's the best and I haven't heard from him since first Innistrad.

He almost punched a morally bankrupt piece of human garbage and everyone said it was raped.

Did they fucking really? If people stopped focusing on the persons gender and more on her actions they'd see that Liliana is a fucking bitch and deserves everything she gets.

>his pants are on
>her clothes are on
>clearly punching
>both parties pelvises are clearly apart
Fuck 'progression'

Not even joking here, I would buy a set that was just this one character going on fun adventures. She doesn't even have a name, but she is unquestionably one of the most important characters in this game's history, one of its original two cover girls (the other one was Serra Angel). If you have ever masturbated to a Magic card, the chances are very good it's this one.

Unfortunately, for a certain type of person morality is entirely decided by sex. They see a woman of power and assume she must be someone to look up to, even if she's basically fantasy Hitler. And then you get broken half-stories with villains who never get a comeuppance.

>bitch and moan about inclusion and diversity
>get upset when being included means taking a whuppin from time to time

All WotC had to do was say "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the oven" but they cucked poor Garruk to death instead.

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because some of those groups contradict each other with their taste

Just bring back the world championship decks, bundle two together and there, great pre-made gameplay that doesn't upset the jews at wtoc.

I don't think they do, on account of the fact that all of them got into Magic when it was young and loved it. The specific reasons why they loved it may vary, but all of them were embodied in Alpha.

This is exactly how Game of Thrones is, i'm not sure exactly how George originally wanted Danaerys to shape up but currently she's not 'Hitler' but she's a pretty shitty person and leader.

>the strictly kitchen table only player and the hyper-competitive player
>not two complete opposites

Both can coexist just fine.

They don't like the same things though. You can't cater to both of them at the same time without upsetting the other.

Not always, alpha isn't a perfect set and in hindsight many people find it disappointing in many aspects. When young you might've liked it because you didn't understand everything going on, but I'm willing to bet most people would not want to try drafting Alpha, the set is pretty bad for that. Cube builders may want vastly different cards for their decks and some may have no interest in alpha and so on.

You can ask a bunch of people to list their favorite blocks or sets and most will actually not say Alpha. Even better, you'd be able to figure out a lot about their tastes by seeing the list of their favorite products and when they started playing.

Clearly you can, since as I said, both of those players loved Alpha. Appealing to both is all a matter of recognizing what those people genuinely care about and providing it - and making sure they never meet each other over a play table because the competitive guy is going to rape the casual.

>alpha isn't a perfect set and in hindsight many people find it disappointing in many aspects

Definitely true, Alpha is far from perfect. And that should already be encouraging, since if Alpha with it comically poor balance and cheap art can be great enough to carry this game on its shoulders for years, they can definitely appeal to the same crowd now, if they simply try.

And that's the problem. They don't try. The last time they tried to appeal to old MTG playes was fucking Time Spiral. How many years ago was that? I look at their current sets and I see zero cards or mechanics that even look like they're aimed at me.

>I'm willing to bet most people would not want to try drafting Alpha, the set is pretty bad for that
What that tells me is that draft isn't important at all to old players. Makes sense to me - draft as a format didn't even exist until around Mirage block if I recall. Maybe it was even later than that.

Alpha didn't carry the game on its shoulders for years, it just jumpstarted things and had the following sets trying to work on it. Had they been like alpha, Magic would be dead today, they just salvaged what was good and started working on getting a game going. Which is fine, they didn't have a huge card game market to study and develop on, but it was more of a stepping stone than something that actualy carried the game.

By the way, look how successful time spiral was, it taught them appealing to old players is not a smart choice. They were incredibly lucky it came after what's considered by most one of the best blocks ever(which sold very well) so they could afford to take the risk and see that appealing to old players would come back to bite them in the ass. My store and a lot of others I visited still sell Time Spiral boosters. That, Origins and Dragon's maze being the only ones that aren't not standard legal they still have so that's not a good sign.

I just used draft as an example, the point is that alpha does not appeal to all players, most sets or blocks have more or less focus on certain parts of the playerbase and while they've made some that were close, they're better off trying to offer a good experince to a specifc types of players.

This would actually be pretty cool, just print the final two decks from the Pro Tour the play with.

I am a fan of the new art.
Why are they getting rid of duel decks?

Don't want to have too many products with Challenger Decks coming out.

Wizards higher ups must have shit 4 brains.

everyone wants to cast black lotus

They'd call it a failure because people actually bought them.

See: First run of Commander

shekels for brains

I think Elves vs Inventors is ok, but due to that sweet new Ezuri card since I run Elves in Modern. Goblin Welder is no slouch either

Why would anyone play a tcg in the the year of our lord 2018 when there exist better games in the LCG format?

How about just playing another game? Like an LCG or Mage Wars or something.

No, they'd say it is a failure because the wrong kind of people bought them, like the clash packs. They're meant for casuals to pick up and play, not people searching for value, god forbid we increase the print run of a high demand product so we have enough supply to satisfy both market like the pokemon TCG does.

Fucking wizards.

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UK here. The last cards I bought were some Unstable ones from around Christmas. They curled like nobody's business.