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Oct 28, 2017
6,119
Maybe, except that an Eternal format can be given some leeway in this regard I think. The time pressure for f2p players isn't as great and people can use wildcards to fill out some decks.

I have also heard rumors that Arena has cards programmed all the way back to Shadows Over Innistrad. That could be an interesting place to start a new Modern 2.0.

Here's why I don't see it happening:
  1. Time. There is not enough time to release all of these sets. The game economy is delicately balanced right now so that players can spend a little ($50-100 per set) and then over time accumulate all the rest of the cards they're likely to use. Even doing that, most people won't get them all and the vast majority of players won't even get close. Releasing four or more new sets all at once would destroy the game economy and make everyone very angry. If, alternatively, they spaced them out over a year or so, they'd still not really have enough time as it takes a solid three months to build a reasonable collection even after $50. Again, this would make people upset.
  2. Goals. They've said they want people to be able to take decks they're playing right now and play them in Standard Plus. If you add Kaladesh, it will warp the format to a ridiculous degree. There's no way most of the current decks would survive. So instead of one new format for players to make decks for (new standard rotation), they'd just have two. They'd make the problem worse, not better.
  3. Design. Ixalan was the first format where the new design team had heavy input. The two standards featuring only their cards have been wildly successful. Everyone loves the balance. Why on earth would anyone take these well-balanced sets and throw in shit like Kaladesh that had a ton of banned cards (and I realize these might be banned again, which is really not ideal either) and mechanics that people generally thought were very unhealthy for the game? That doesn't make sense. The game will be more fun without those sets in it.
  4. Familiarity. Arena houses many brand new players. So many new sets in a short amount of time would be extremely overwhelming. None of those new players would know what most of the cards do. That's bad.
 

Volimar

volunteer forum janitor
Member
Oct 25, 2017
38,521


༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Nicol Bolas TAKE MY ENERGY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Nicol Bolas TAKE MY ENERGY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Nicol Bolas TAKE MY ENERGY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Nicol Bolas TAKE MY ENERGY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Nicol Bolas TAKE MY ENERGY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Nicol Bolas TAKE MY ENERGY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ



Guys, I'm beginning to think that nicol bolas might be a bad guy.
 

Justin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,758
Seattle, Washington
Here's why I don't see it happening:

3. Design. Ixalan was the first format where the new design team had heavy input. The two standards featuring only their cards have been wildly successful. Everyone loves the balance. Why on earth would anyone take these well-balanced sets and throw in shit like Kaladesh that had a ton of banned cards (and I realize these might be banned again, which is really not ideal either) and mechanics that people generally thought were very unhealthy for the game? That doesn't make sense. The game will be more fun without those sets in it.

This isn't correct. Play design did not exist during Ixalan's development.

The first set to have Play Design input is Dominaria, the first set to have a full Play Design focus is code named Milk, and the first set to have Play Design input in vision design is codenamed Archery.

Milk is WAR
Archery is the fall 2019 set

So we still haven't gotten to the sets that had Play Design influence since the sets conception.
 

Bigkrev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,327
Arena already has a ton more cards released per year than any other TCG
Shadowverse releases 4 sets a year with about 100 cards in each
Hearthstone does 3 sets a year with 135 cards in each
Eternal appears to be doing 2 sets a year with 250 cards in each

Magic, on the other hand? 4 sets a year with 250 cards in each- that's more than twice as many overall cards per year than other TCGs. Also, there are aspects like needing 4x of cards for a complete set (while a lot of games don't have requirements that high)

Here is another way to look at it- Hearthstone currently has 1800 cards in the game
Magic adds about 1000 new cards to Standard each year (when you subtract basic lands and add in Planeswalker deck cards)
If you wanted to add 1-2 old expansions per year to the mix as well, you are looking at adding close to the entirty of Hearthstone in a single year to your game
 
Oct 25, 2017
3,771
I think the Arena Extended format would be better with Shadows Over Innistrad/Eldritch Moon in it, but much worse with Kaladesh/Aether Revolt in it.
 

Bigkrev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,327
Also, The Standards that involved SOI-KLD-AMK were some terrible standards, while the Standard that exists on Arena right now is one of the best Standards in years
Why would you build the foundation of a new format on a bad core when you could instead build it on a great core?

A lot of the reason that those standards were bad and needed bannings was they decided that answer cards couldn't exist. Now you want to introduce these cards to a format that is likely primarily going to be played only as best-of-1?
 

Ashodin

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,599
Durham, NC
Also, The Standards that involved SOI-KLD-AMK were some terrible standards, while the Standard that exists on Arena right now is one of the best Standards in years
Why would you build the foundation of a new format on a bad core when you could instead build it on a great core?

A lot of the reason that those standards were bad and needed bannings was they decided that answer cards couldn't exist. Now you want to introduce these cards to a format that is likely primarily going to be played only as best-of-1?
money.
 

Justin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,758
Seattle, Washington
I feel like y'all are a bunch of people who are traumatized by being repeatedly mauled by Long Tusk Cubs and have closed your hearts to such cards as, Paradoxical Outcome, God Pharaohs Gift... Harry... remember that one token deck from Kaladesh?!
 

Hero

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,794
I talked to an Arena dev at PAX East and said while they would like to do Commander down the road they would have a long way to get that point.
 

Steve Winwood

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,589
Kaladesh was sweet, and as a bonus putting it in Arena-Modern gives them an excuse to run triple-Kaladesh drafts. If cards are degenerate it's easy to ban them, plus the early race to find the most degenerate decks is fun until equilibrium. Kaladesh also contains a core of powerful-but-not-obviously-broken cards that enable brewing in the format. Starting with Ixalan would be a waste.
 

fuzzyset

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,556
They can't just drop the sets for an Eternal format. The whole point of Eternal formats is so your deck only adds a few cards every year. I imagine no one would play Modern if they had to buy the back half of the catalog at once. I really think the only way for it to work well is to give players a cheap way to get all the cards, and maybe package it with some thematic single player experiences. But that would confuse folks and devalue future sets.
 

Arkanim94

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,124
They can't just drop the sets for an Eternal format. The whole point of Eternal formats is so your deck only adds a few cards every year. I imagine no one would play Modern if they had to buy the back half of the catalog at once. I really think the only way for it to work well is to give players a cheap way to get all the cards, and maybe package it with some thematic single player experiences. But that would confuse folks and devalue future sets.
I have bad news for you on the horizon.
 

Imperfected

Member
Nov 9, 2017
11,737
Feather seems pretty legit for a boros pump EDH deck if I'm reading that right.

Much better than a lot of the other boros commanders who are way, waaaaay too slow/inefficient save maybe Aurelia.

You need a fair amount of mana to really get nutty with Feather, but considering there are ways to use the triggered ability for both cheap card draw and potentially even mana production, there's definitely stuff you can do. Plus Smothering Tithe can be tutored, obviously.
 
Chandra, Fire Artisan; Chandra's Pyrohelix
Sep 14, 2018
4,625
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-preview/chandra-fire-artisan-2019-04-09

Chandra preview:

en-34yu-ULerc-P.png
en-eq-Prb-Rh93-V.png
 

Metroidvania

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,772
I run Gisela in mine and do alright. Granted, my EDH pool is pretty durdley, but as a rule if she comes out, I win, assuming no Control shenanigans.

Heh, I run against a roon, ghave, and dethrone marchesa board who all but abuse ETB, tokens, and red-take control followed by sac outlets, respectively.

Gisela would be too slow - but feather keeps getting more with recurring pump, and is cheaper.
 

Deleted member 29293

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
1,084
I talked to an Arena dev at PAX East and said while they would like to do Commander down the road they would have a long way to get that point.
It would probably take a lot of effort to have the UI accomodate 4 players but they could have a real first mover advantage here. Afaik none of the other big online CCGs have a multiplayer mode. I wouldn't be surprised if a Commander mode made the userbase explode.
 

Metroidvania

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,772
It would probably take a lot of effort to have the UI accomodate 4 players but they could have a real first mover advantage here. Afaik none of the other big online CCGs have a multiplayer mode. I wouldn't be surprised if a Commander mode made the userbase explode.

Though I'd love to see it, IMO there's two huge problems with setting up commander in arena.

One, how do you account for people quitting/conceding, considering the time investment a commander game can take? In a faceless online format where you don't know anyone, how do you get anything resembling a kitchen-table or local store atmosphere, with the politics and such that accompany it? (Assuming, ofc, that it's not just 'competitive' EDH)

The second is that how do you pick and choose which old legendary cards get put in? Without access to the vast majority of sets, the pool is.....well, quite restricted, which moves away from one of the largest (maybe the largest) part of the format for a lot of people - which would then be compounded by a homogeneity issue.

Unless they import a bunch of cards/info from cockatrice or something, I can't see it happening.
 

Deleted member 4198

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
231
Though I'd love to see it, IMO there's two huge problems with setting up commander in arena.

One, how do you account for people quitting/conceding, considering the time investment a commander game can take? In a faceless online format where you don't know anyone, how do you get anything resembling a kitchen-table or local store atmosphere, with the politics and such that accompany it? (Assuming, ofc, that it's not just 'competitive' EDH)

The second is that how do you pick and choose which old legendary cards get put in? Without access to the vast majority of sets, the pool is.....well, quite restricted, which moves away from one of the largest (maybe the largest) part of the format for a lot of people - which would then be compounded by a homogeneity issue.

Unless they import a bunch of cards/info from cockatrice or something, I can't see it happening.

They should just implement the standard only Brawl format, that would solve the second issue. Brawl is probably a faster format too which would help the first.
 
Dovin, Hand of Control; Law-Rune Enforcer; Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
OP
OP
SigmasonicX

SigmasonicX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,501

Orb

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
9,465
USA
It must be maddening to be MaRo, someone who has worked on the game for 20+ years, and hear endless pedantic complaints from people who think they know better about whether or not dogs can planeswalk.
 
Sep 14, 2018
4,625
dovin.png
law.png


This Dovin just isnt good enough for constructed, reminds me of trying to make random cards like Time of Ice work in UWB, its really just not worth it to run subpar cards, still fun though.

Saheeli looks very runnable for UR, maybe others.
 
Oct 28, 2017
6,119
Though I'd love to see it, IMO there's two huge problems with setting up commander in arena.

One, how do you account for people quitting/conceding, considering the time investment a commander game can take? In a faceless online format where you don't know anyone, how do you get anything resembling a kitchen-table or local store atmosphere, with the politics and such that accompany it? (Assuming, ofc, that it's not just 'competitive' EDH)

The second is that how do you pick and choose which old legendary cards get put in? Without access to the vast majority of sets, the pool is.....well, quite restricted, which moves away from one of the largest (maybe the largest) part of the format for a lot of people - which would then be compounded by a homogeneity issue.

Unless they import a bunch of cards/info from cockatrice or something, I can't see it happening.
They should just implement the standard only Brawl format, that would solve the second issue. Brawl is probably a faster format too which would help the first.

I think you'd modify brawl to some extent and make it standard plus, but yeah Brawl is the answer.
 

Deleted member 29293

User requested account closure
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Nov 1, 2017
1,084
Though I'd love to see it, IMO there's two huge problems with setting up commander in arena.

One, how do you account for people quitting/conceding, considering the time investment a commander game can take? In a faceless online format where you don't know anyone, how do you get anything resembling a kitchen-table or local store atmosphere, with the politics and such that accompany it? (Assuming, ofc, that it's not just 'competitive' EDH)

The second is that how do you pick and choose which old legendary cards get put in? Without access to the vast majority of sets, the pool is.....well, quite restricted, which moves away from one of the largest (maybe the largest) part of the format for a lot of people - which would then be compounded by a homogeneity issue.

Unless they import a bunch of cards/info from cockatrice or something, I can't see it happening.
On the first point, tbh I wasn't even thinking of a queue, imo this would mostly target friends playing with each other. I agree playing with strangers could be a mess.

For the second point I would just live wuth the smaller card pool. I completely agree that this makes it less interesting but it will get better set by set. Maybe they eventually releasy Legacy cubes etc. which then could also be used in Commander.

Having a rotating Brawl like format would be shit.
 

jph139

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,382
Love that new Saheeli. All my favorite parts of the old ones in a new cheap package!
 
Oct 25, 2017
3,686
Note the link has an interview with the writer of the currently ongoing Chandra comic... which I'm pretty sure zero people on MagicEra are reading.

D3uEO0_WkAAzRIP.jpg:large

D3uEH-oWsAAZiDQ.jpg:large

2hxscxjt79r21.jpg


Saheeli looks crazy just for her static.
Now imagine using her power to duplicate a Parhelion II!

How does her silverwing eat thopters? Aren't those things metal? Won't it get indigestion? :(
D3uI_PqUcAAgW7Q.png:large


... So basically, a 2/3 flying creature for 4.
I guess you couldn't duplicate a Niv-Mizzet because the silverwing would still become legendary?

*edit 2.0* It's only until end of turn AND the Parhelion is also legendary so this isn't as good as I hoped.
 
Last edited:

Firemind

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,543
It would probably take a lot of effort to have the UI accomodate 4 players but they could have a real first mover advantage here. Afaik none of the other big online CCGs have a multiplayer mode. I wouldn't be surprised if a Commander mode made the userbase explode.
You're focusing a lot on the UI, but did you ever think about coding all the possible interactions in a format as intricate as EDH?

I played Legacy cube yesterday, drafted Karnfather, used his ultimate after exiling a bunch of exiled cards and it bugged out. It restarted the game but I had no exiled permanents on my side. This is just one example of a unique ability that would exist in a digital EDH format.
 

Arkanim94

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,124
You're focusing a lot on the UI, but did you ever think about coding all the possible interactions in a format as intricate as EDH?

I played Legacy cube yesterday, drafted Karnfather, used his ultimate after exiling a bunch of exiled cards and it bugged out. It restarted the game but I had no exiled permanents on my side. This is just one example of a unique ability that would exist in a digital EDH format.
you were playing a non modern/legacy staple on modo, that's on you /s
 

Volimar

volunteer forum janitor
Member
Oct 25, 2017
38,521
Kind of disappointed that Dovin is one of the uncommon walkers.
 

Deleted member 29293

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
1,084
You're focusing a lot on the UI, but did you ever think about coding all the possible interactions in a format as intricate as EDH?

I played Legacy cube yesterday, drafted Karnfather, used his ultimate after exiling a bunch of exiled cards and it bugged out. It restarted the game but I had no exiled permanents on my side. This is just one example of a unique ability that would exist in a digital EDH format.
My statement was based on the assumption that the Afena card pool would not be affected by this.
 

LProtagonist

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
7,589
I'm going to make that Saheeli work in something. Potentially get Izzet Drakes going again with it.

Maybe I'll even try to jam it into Izzet Phoenix in Modern.
 
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