[MtG] Metamorphosis 2.0

[Rodrigo]

Change #1—The Fall, Winter, and Spring Sets Will All Be Large Sets That Are Drafted Alone

Change #2—The Summer Set Will Be a Revamped Core Set

Change #3—A Different Approach to the Gatewatch (less often)

Change #4—The Masterpieces Series Will Revert to Being in Fewer Sets (none in Ixalan)

Change #5—We're Changing Things Behind the Scenes (new R&D group "Play Design")

 

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/metamorphosis-2-0-2017-06-12

 

The hype is real!

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

So...they're going towards more of a Yu-Gi-Oh! model in terms of set release...

Cool!

[Poc]

good changes all around. The return of core sets is a huge boon to magic as a whole and definetly helps on the reprint problems magic is currently facing. In the same vein. I'm not sure on their change to masterpiece cards in sets. They drove the price of otherwise inaccessible cards down and people like bling. I think how poorly the AKH invocations were recived influenced this choice a lot but that was mostly because of how ugly the frame was and the illegible text. People aren't going to complain when 20$+ are reprinted unless you're some sheet eating autistic fatlord.

 

Also, thank God were done with this Gatewatch crap. I cant handle another pushed Gideon card and another dog sheet jace card IN EVERY funking SET. Explore some of the other characters in the MTG universe instead of the same 5 Mary sue murder hobos.

[Flame Dragon]

What I find amazing is my friend predicted this a month ago. We were coming back from an event (think it was the prerelease) and he talked about a handful of the issues that Mark did that the small sets had. Can't say I'm sad to see them go honestly, since they never were as exciting.

 

One of the nice changes form this though is the freedom is allows for them when doing sets. I know people were curious how a return to Ravnica would work since the 2 block model really wouldn't work well with it. Under the 3 and 1 plan they can allocate however much space they want to it.

 

I'm curious how the Core Set will play out now. For the more experience players it seems likely that it will be a 3 month "break" due to the less important nature it has. However since they've already been using the Summer as a time to put out other limited aimed products I think the two could in theory balance each other out.

 

I think how poorly the AKH invocations were recived influenced this choice a lot but that was mostly because of how ugly the frame was and the illegible text. People aren't going to complain when 20$+ are reprinted unless you're some sheet eating autistic fatlord.

 

Also, thank God were done with this Gatewatch crap. I cant handle another pushed Gideon card and another dog sheet jace card IN EVERY funking SET. Explore some of the other characters in the MTG universe instead of the same 5 Mary sue murder hobos.

I don't think this is the case. Remember, Ixalan would have been hands off by the time they got any feedback on the Invocations. I think they saw internally what we'd already saw, that the Masterpiece cards were getting less and less exciting. Even from an outside perspective to keep getting exciting choices for cards looked to be getting harder and harder and that is only after two years or so of having them. While they could have kept doing them, the diminishing returns would have only gotten worse. That being said, I think my biggest issue with this change is their removal since, as you said, they did an amazing job of eating the prices of the other cards in the set.

 

See, I still don't get this issue. They've always pushed the Planeswalkers and the various legendary cards. We've always had a Jace in standard thank to the core sets. I guess the fact that they were just now drawing attention to this is what made people realize how much they disliked it or something.

[Poc]

it's not the power level of the cards that irks me. it's the character fatigue. These characters have been the focus of magic for the past few years and there has bee very little character development in any of them. They're boring at this point. It's hard to get hyped about a new set when these characters are shoehorned into every situation whether is affects their character or not.

[Flame Dragon]

it's not the power level of the cards that irks me. it's the character fatigue. These characters have been the focus of magic for the past few years and there has bee very little character development in any of them. They're boring at this point. It's hard to get hyped about a new set when these characters are shoehorned into every situation whether is affects their character or not.

I feel like Chandra and Nissa have grown this past year, and Gideon has gotten a little. The biggest issue has been Jace whose just been there. He 100% didn't need to be on Kaladesh and has done nothing major other than than be used as a weapon on Amonkhet. I think/hope they would have pulled back on the Gatewatch showing up eventually (Justice League and Avengers don't use the full team for every mission), but the character fatigue is certainly real for people and I do get it.

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

Hopefully, with Nissa going Blue, Jace will be sidelined, since he's literally only there to be Magic's poster boy.

[Simping For Hina]

Hopefully, with Nissa going Blue, Jace will be sidelined, since he's literally only there to be Magic's poster boy.

Nissa being Blue doesn't mean anything about Jace being sidelined. Jace was supposed to be lowered in amount of prints when he became the *i forget the name* thingy in Return to Ravnica.

[Delibirb]

None of these changes are bad. That said, none of them particularly excite me, either. I know I personally love the Gatewatch, and thankfully they're only promising we won't get tons of cards of them; they'll still be the primary story focus with occasional sets unrelated to them directly but relevant in the grand scheme. So while its good that we have now more planeswalkers slots each set to explore the plane, and new mechanics, better, the Gatewatch will still be prevalent for the most part. Which is not exciting, but not bad.

 

I understand the limiting of masterpieces. It would become hard to pick which cards got premiumed too quickly if done every block/set.

 

I do hope that flavorful cards will still be able to be constructed playable, as long as they steer away from Promised End territory (which really was only prevalent because of Marvel, which is a fair card with unfortunately unfair interactions.)

 

And isolated Sets... We'll have to see how that one goes. I suppose it will make the stories less predictable: no more "characters arrive/are introduced to new/changed world shortly before or right at the start of some major event, culminating in the major event occurring or becoming significantly more grim than it was, moving us to act II where the characters unite against a major threat in one way or another" situations. We can have less simplistic conflict, like one-off unconnected planes, taking up single sets, the basic formula every so often taking 1 or 2 sets, and presumably Vraska and Mazirek's coup taking anywhere between 1 and 3 depending on how sophisticated it is. Heck, this could allow them to do something similar to what was done with the Eldrazi; original Zendikar block ended sorta abruptly, with seemingly no hope as the Titans awoke, only to be resolved, what, 5 years later? We could see more of the Gatewatch retreating to regroup before returning to face a major foe, instead of being more or less bound to defeat them asap.

 

Its all going to need to unfold before proper judgement can be given. But as it stands, I'm hesitantly optimistic.

[Flame Dragon]

I do hope that flavorful cards will still be able to be constructed playable, as long as they steer away from Promised End territory (which really was only prevalent because of Marvel, which is a fair card with unfortunately unfair interactions.)

Promised End has issues outside of Marvel. Her issue is that when she is just one of the best things to do the Mind Slaver effect gets super old super fast. I don't know if she would have been banned had Marvel not pushed her over the top, but I think it could have still happened.

 

Marvel is a weird card in that it puts limits on what they can do with their most expensive cards. When all of a sudden your 8 mana spell is only 4 you run into problems. This is a classic issue though, cheating on mana tends to break things.

[bury the year]

So my thoughts:

 

1) Very cool with this. I agree with MaRo that standalone sets seem to draft the best; and adding the small set usually doesn't do enough and just presents more problems. Plus, this lets Wizards spend as long or as short a time as they feel necessary on a plane, instead of being constrained to the block format. Finally, every set being large means that more cards will be opened, meaning we won't have as extreme a problem as we've seen with small set mythics (looking at you, Last Hope and Grim Flayer).

 

2) Halle-fuckin-lujah. I don't know how Wizards thought they could reprint as judiciously as they said they could when so many answer cards have some modicum of flavor to take into account. Core sets may be unexciting, but they're a necessary safety valve for Standard shenanigans. Plus, if the new direction they take with them is anything like Origins, I think they'll be much better received.

 

3) Again, fine with this. Started feeling tired of the Gatewatch as early as Eldritch Moon. We don't need to shoehorn them in everywhere, and there are plenty of more interesting characters to talk about.

 

4) Was already starting to see arc fatigue with this idea, so having it be intermittent again should be to everyone's benefit.

 

5) This isn't new. But after the clusterfuck that was Copycat and Copter, it's still very welcome.

 

5/5 in agreeing with new changes. That's a good sign.

 

Remember, Ixalan would have been hands off by the time they got any feedback on the Invocations.

For the record, Amonkhet Invocations had nothing to do with this decision. Ixalan was already slated to have no premium cards like the Masterpieces before Amonkhet was even finished.

 

Nissa being Blue doesn't mean anything about Jace being sidelined. Jace was supposed to be lowered in amount of prints when he became the *i forget the name* thingy in Return to Ravnica.

Living Guildpact?

[Flame Dragon]

For the record, Amonkhet Invocations had nothing to do with this decision. Ixalan was already slated to have no premium cards like the Masterpieces before Amonkhet was even finished.

Isn't that what I said? That they couldn't make any changes to Ixalan by the time we saw the Invocations. Mark has said they could make last minute changes to Eggs, but thats thanks in part to it being a small set.

[bury the year]

Isn't that what I said? That they couldn't make any changes to Ixalan by the time we saw the Invocations. Mark has said they could make last minute changes to Eggs, but thats thanks in part to it being a small set.

If so, whoops. Misinterpreted what you said.