mike

mike, 2 days ago

As the number of cards in circulation grew, Garfield went out of his way to keep common or easier-to-find cards powerful, while also keeping the rare cards narrowly attuned and never so powerful that you needed them to win. He would sometimes demonstrate this by bringing a deck full of common cards to games stores and beating players who had decks stuffed with expensive rares.

Today, getting rich kids to buy 10 sets of the game seems to be Hasbro’s primary business model. Wizards has adopted a punishing release schedule, printing so many new cards that the Bank of America recently reprimanded Hasbro for trying to over-monetize their players and downgraded the company’s stock. When I asked Garfield what he thought about this, he pleaded ignorance and told me he’s been completely disconnected from the game since the pandemic. He’s heard rumors that have alarmed him, but he thinks Wizards of the Coast old-timers like Bill Rose and Mark Rosewater still have the game’s best interests at heart.

I thought this was particularly interesting. I love the original vision Garfield had with commons vs. rares, bring that back!

mike, 2 days ago

Regarding his biggest fear and Magic’s biggest threats:

“The places I get worried about are Magic’s tournament system, which has historically been important to Magic’s health. And then the philosophy that you should not make rare cards so powerful that you need them. People feel that’s a philosophy that has been broken from time to time, and I think it’s always been a mistake. It might have made money in the short run, but it has hurt the game in the long run, or at least until it was corrected,” he said.

“I think things that are existential threats for a game like Magic is if the community breaks down, and here I’m thinking of the community built around tournaments, but not just that. Or if people see it as being a game where you can buy victory, which is associated with this idea of making rare cards too powerful—or powerful cards too rare would be another way to put it. Those are serious problems which might lead to short-term profit but will lead to long-term problems that could be catastrophic.”

mike, 1 day ago

So far, fwiw, the best take on solving mana screw imo has been what the game Sorcery Contested Realm has done. You have a 40 card deck and a separate 20 card lands deck. In Magic you would start with 4 spells and 3 lands, one free mulligan in both decks, and then you draw from either deck for the turn. Cards would have to be erratad en masse to make this work in Magic, but I think Arena kinda solves it with “seeking” a land vs. a spell. I don’t know how that works in Magic outside of at least smoothing an opening hand. The game would need to refer to the deck separately from the “atlas” of lands.

mike, 2 days ago

This is a really interesting set of competitive decks right now. I really like all of them, except I’m pretty tired of Domain in general. I’m very excited for the triome lands to rotate out.

mike, 1 day ago

This is the most busted 1 drop I have ever seen. Absolutely mental imo.

mike, 3 days ago

Very good bans here

mike, 8 days ago

I’m actually really looking forward to Commander draft. Seems absolutely wild, and I like that you get a Collector booster to choose a commander from and kind of know your colors before the draft starts.

mike, 10 days ago

I am looking forward to playing this kinda strange Baldur’s Gate commander draft event at my local store on the 18th. It’s a casual event but I wonder if it comes w/ the Arena draft token.

mike, 16 days ago

I honestly don’t buy that there is a pristine 10 Alpha Black Lotus in existence. The fact that they’re claiming a 10 makes me extremely skeptical of all of this.

mike, 18 days ago

I’m not super into drafting this set but I always love a draft token in the daily deals

mike, 18 days ago

Yea I’m very surprised Esper didn’t take this one down

mike, 1 month ago

Congrats Evu! That’s certainly the highest ranking from an MTGZone player I’ve ever seen!

mike, 1 month ago

This was really cool. I often think about ante and Garfield’s insistence on it, but every time I come to the same conclusion “what was he thinking?”. I don’t understand how you could play the game for a year, or watch people play, and still think ante is something the game needs.

Many Magic players don’t like the idea of putting a valuable card at risk each time they play, especially if an opponent antes a land. While some players eliminate the ante altogether, others have developed ways to make it a little less intimidating.

— James Ernest, “Magic: The Gathering Variants“

I started playing after ante was removed, but there’s no way I’m sitting down with a stranger and letting them keep the top card off my deck, ever. That just isn’t fun, and the entire game I’m thinking about possibly losing that card. I understand card values were not the same back then as they are now, but I still think it’s counterintuitive for a fun game to introduce something anxiety-inducing and un-fun. What were the playtest games where Richard Garfield saw the benefits with ante? “Collection building” has to be the worst argument. You’re adding 1 random card from an opponent’s deck 50% of the time after each game, but for $5 you could buy 60 random cards in a box of Revised. Isn’t the latter how you build your collection?

mike, 1 month ago

Dusts off Epic Games Launcher

mike, 1 month ago

This is so cool, might get me to actually find out how to install MTGO on my computer.

mike, 1 month ago

I completely agree, and I just don’t play this event anymore because I in no way find it enjoyable. I don’t even find the wins fun. None of it is fun to me. I question what anyone is even doing when they decide to spend their time in this.

Same more Momir draft for me too. I love the MWM events that let you play any card in the format for free. That to me is the absolute best thing a Midweek event can be doing. The phantom sealed and drafts are not bad but still feels like only people with stellar pools are playing the games. And then they play them over and over to farm win rewards.

mike, 1 month ago

The Ravnica event was awesome. That would definitely get me back to playing regularly if they had more stuff like that.

mike, 1 month ago

Yea this seems pretty good actually. Sorcery speed shock that can continue to pump out 3/3s. At first I thought you had to sacrifice this artifact, but any other artifact is pretty good actually. And it can be done at instant speed.

mike, 1 month ago

This honestly makes me think how easy it is to make a booster box look real. That had all of the wrappers and everything looking 100% sealed, and I don’t know how you could know the difference.

mike, 1 month ago

Another huge addition to Timeless