A couple of thoughts on the announcements today: (Dylan) First - This is SERIOUSLY long over due. The inherent issues facing Magic have been discussed in MaRos article about sum it up: Metagame, Core set Irrelevance, Story Telling, Third Set Issue. All of these basically follow the old guidelines of Three Set Blocks + Core that was established way back in the day of Classic VI Edition. During that time period - the information super highway was very slow. Not only that, but the player base of Magic was much smaller than it is currently. To understand how this problems coalesced into a frustrating nightmare, you also must understand the transition that Magic has taken during that time period. Magic has officially gone from 3rd Gear ie building up its product cycle and looking to attract more players, participants, and stores - into 4th Gear or even 5th Gear. That means that word of mouth has officially taken on a life of its own, and that you dont HAVE to convince anyone to jump on board and try Magic. That wasnt always the case. When the current block system was created, during the days of Ice Age and introduced fully into Mirage Block (1996-1998 era) Magic was fighting desperately to even hang on. The collectibility factor of Magic had just been rocked as Chronicles was the first attempt at reprints. That went over about as well as trying to get a rock to float. Collecting was really catching on, and playing was still super casual. There were competitive tournaments only at your Local Game Store and the first Pro Tours were really only just beginning to pick up steam. As times have changed - this has needed to reflect that more. Not only have competitions become more and more frequent, but as MaRo pointed out - this has lead to formats getting solved faster, and becoming more and more stale. Leading to less innovation, and loss of attention sooner. This will change with sets shaking things up, and formats rotating more often. Smaller sets address the issue of players spending money on cards more often, because of rotation - but this also means that even if sets are cranking out faster - that reprints can become more a part of the game. Especially now that 20+ years of cards are available in order to fill that. This means that if you have been gone for a length of time - you can possiblty come back to something familiar (like Return to Ravnica or Scars of Mirrodin) Revisits to fan favorites become more possible with more changes to the time line of set releases. Collectibility is still fine, but now the issue of cards being lost forever to the Ether no longer raises the barrier of entry to older formats. This is INCREDIBLY important for the secondary market and your local store. We dont want such a small portion of cards to be interesting to you (ie Standard) This is part of the reason Commander has been such a god send for your LGS. It has renewed the life of many an older card. This addition to the cohesiveness of the Magic experience is exactly the infusion Magic needed, and with plenty of time for this to take effect, players, stores and collectors can prepare that much sooner for what should end up being a smal change with a LARGE impact. We would love to hear your thoughts on this - Do you think this change benefits all players bases? After reading MaRos article, are you excited about two rotations a year? Does this feel like a more cohesive experience and story to get excited about? TELL US YOUR THOUGHTS!
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 02:37:03 +0000