If you could change exactly one thing in MTG, what would it be?
General forum
Posted on June 7, 2016, 9:12 a.m. by Boza
Simple question, it should be short, simple and concise answers, no more than a sentence, with a quick example.
I'll start:
I want MTG to have a lot more format diversity at the competitive level - Highlander FNMs, Commander PTQs, Emperor GPs and Cube Draft Pro Tour.
Edit: I forgot this at the start, but please, choose anything other than the Reserved list, no need for this to be "that" thread once again.
I would want many more reprints of cards, so competitive could be cheaper overall.
June 7, 2016 9:56 a.m.
Ohthenoises says... #4
The devise between competitive and casual players. Specifically to reduce the hate that casual people have for competitive players and the disdain in the other direction.
June 7, 2016 10:03 a.m.
I want try-hards to stop flicking their cards constantly. There's a reason I play 8-Rack. -___-
June 7, 2016 10:04 a.m.
Generally, I agree with the reprint comment. More reprints, in higher print sets would be awesome.
However, even more so I want to get my Eldrazi triggers from Quicksilver Amulet and Tooth and Nail. example: "When Kozilek, Butcher of Truth enters the battlefield from your hand, draw 4 cards."
June 7, 2016 10:37 a.m.
iBleedPunk says... #8
June 7, 2016 11:11 a.m.
Edit: I forgot this at the start, but please, choose anything other than the Reserved list, no need for this to be "that" thread once again.
June 7, 2016 11:34 a.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #11
Okay so, ASIDE from the reserved list, I have one thing alone that i would simply love...
Damage still going on the stack. I loved it when this still happened. So much maximization of value...
June 7, 2016 11:35 a.m.
Mtg, as a fantasy game, should never mention anything about the real world in any way.
Wrath of God (I know it doesn't specify which God, but still)
Jihad
Anything else referencing real life.
Idk if the PTK legendary creatures are real historical people or not, but if they are then they shouldn't have been.
Know what I mean?
June 7, 2016 noon
I kinda wish I was around for the mana-burn rule, just because it sounds like an interesting rule to have to take into account.
So yea. Id like to see mana-burn come back xD long live Mana Web!
June 7, 2016 12:03 p.m.
Titilanious says... #14
I think i would say that i would change the availability of deck lists online. I think it would lead to a much more diverse and interesting decks.
Before anyone gets bent out of shape. There isn't anything wrong with it but I think it would be more interesting.
June 7, 2016 12:05 p.m.
i wish they never came out with the planeswalker card type.
June 7, 2016 12:12 p.m.
hotiedethknt says... #16
I would eliminate the Blue color from MTG. It would be nice to play a game with no Jace the Mindscrewer, Snap Crackmage. Going a day without the annoying little blue players wagging their finger back in forth, like the spoiled little rich kid in the playground, no no only I am allowed to have fun toys to play with. As a substitute teacher that has seen way to many penis drawn in text books. I now everytime I see a Jace I want to draw the aforementioned penis on all Jace cards.
June 7, 2016 12:26 p.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #18
On a more serious note, I'd like to see more shops and groups around me (I guess not entirely related).
Otherwise I second OhTheNoises' comment. I'd like to see that divide grow smaller.
June 7, 2016 12:39 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #19
@hotiedethknt you can't just eliminate a color. its an inherent part of the game. blue interacts with things just as well as anything else does. Saying we need to get rid of blue b/c it counters your spells is like saying we need to get rid of creatures b/c they lower your life total.
June 7, 2016 1:17 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #20
I wish you could buy singles from WotC, and that they artificially put a cap on the price of formats.
June 7, 2016 1:29 p.m.
Make it illegal for shops to mark up MSRP on magic sets.
June 7, 2016 2:12 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #23
Agreed 100%. It doesn't happen often in my area, but it pisses me off none the less when it comes to eternal/modern masters stuff.
June 7, 2016 2:43 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #24
Yup, MSRP is the price. My buddy owns a shop 15 hours from my house (much further south and much more densely populated,) and the drug store I buy sealed product from sells stuff for less...25 dollar EMA packs...
June 7, 2016 3:19 p.m.
That's not something you can really blame the LGS for.
They're the third person to touch the product you're buying from them, typically.
The distributors are the ones who drive up prices. You can blame them.
Wizards sells to the distributors who sell to the LGS. We had to raise the price on our packs and boxes in the last year because our distributor kicked their price up a bit. And they do it a little bit at a time every x months or ever year. I've heard similar stories from other distributors.
They're the real reasons price are so up.
Now major retailers who don't actually pay for the product and just have Hasbro vendors come out and put the stuff up for them (I used to work for Toys R Us - I know this process well), can set the cheaper prices because it's their own product and that's what they want them at.
That's why BFZ fatpacks were $45 at Wal-Mart and Toys R Us and Meijer and what-have-you, and $70 at LGS's. Because vendors saw all the full-art lands and were like YAY HYPE MONEY! So they charge up on them, so your LGS has to charge up on them to still make money.
It's a brutal cycle. Like I said, the major retailers don't even really make money off of vendor product. Toys R Us didn't even keep track of our MtG product (which was usually stolen instead of bought) in our inventory. We had item numbers for them, but the stock level was set at zero and then went negative when they were purchased so our vendor could just see how many were purchased (or stolen). That's also part of the reason we weren't super concerned when they were stolen. Not really a loss in money on our part.
Most the vendors put product out before their actual release date anyway. I had to take Jace vs Vraska off the floor a week and a half before it actually released cause the Hasbro vendor was an idiot.
Sorry for the derail, but I felt the need to address that you can't always blame your LGS.
TLDR: It's the distributors fault prices are high, not your LGS (usually). Major retailers have it cheaper because they don't sell it. Hasbro vendors do and just use their shelf space. Sorry for derail.
June 7, 2016 3:59 p.m. Edited.
RoarMaster says... #26
Get rid of the NWO "Dumb things down" approach that wizards has admitted to be adopting. Give me complexity you douchbags, if I wanted simple Id be playing Yu-gi-oh or Hearthstone or something, like fuck.
Pardon the excessive curses, I feel very strongly on this matter though, lol.
June 7, 2016 4:04 p.m.
I wasn't directly blaming the local shops. I understand there are behind the scenes factors but when an LGS can preorder EMA for $180 before spoilers, $220 after halfway through and then $250+ after all spoilers, there's an issue. I know two local shops that did this. Not to mention, after the initial release they will sell the boxes for $300+ depending on sets. That's what I'm talking about.
It's not all distributors either. If a shop can preorder at $180 there no reason they need to bump up the price over MSRP.
June 7, 2016 4:38 p.m. Edited.
MagicalHacker says... #29
I played a mock draft of alpha with ante, and it was fun actually. :)
June 7, 2016 6:46 p.m.
iBleedPunk says... #32
Havok.Bane, may the Almighty Storm Crow pick at thy flesh for such blasphemy
June 7, 2016 8:21 p.m.
Getting rid of the Reserve List would make me super giddy. It will never happen though.
They should also get rid of the mythic rarity for Standard-legal sets. It's absolutely insane that a Standard deck costs more than $200. KTK-BFZ Standard saw multiple $500+ decks due to the cost of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Flip, fetchlands, and other format staples. Most of this has to do with needing multiple sets of 4x mythics in a deck.
Just look at the cost of building a simple B/W deck...you're looking at 4x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, several copies of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, and some number of Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Archangel Avacyn Flip, or Linvala, the Preserver. That's over $150 for less than a dozen cards and doesn't include all of the other cards for the deck. It gets even worse when you add a 3rd. color and need to drop another $100 on your mana base.
The mythic rarity is great for a set like Modern Masters because it lets them print powerful cards for Limited and not just tank the price of cards people have spent a lot on already. But for Standard? It's defeating the entire purpose for why Standard was created in the first place (which is when Black Lotus hit $100 on the secondary market).
June 7, 2016 9:31 p.m.
I would swap the frequencies of the Infect and Poisonous keywords.
Poisonous is a totally fair mechanic. Doesn't matter how much damage you deal, it's gonna add an unalterable number of poison counters. Most creatures could have poisonous 1 or 2, big fancy ones like Blightsteel Colossus could have more.
Very very few creatures should have Infect, if any at all, as outside of limited it's a totally busted keyword due to pump spells and the like. Poison counters are fine as an alt wincon, but not when you can spend all of 4 mana and maybe some life to do so effortlessly.
June 7, 2016 10:02 p.m.
mathimus55 says... #35
What would I change? Nothing. I've never run a large game company so I'm sure anything I would want to change would have huge ramifications I have no idea about. It's still a great game even with all these nit picky things people like to gripe about. Obviously good enough for everyone to overlook them and still play
June 7, 2016 11:01 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #36
DrFunk27, part of what you're talking about is still the fault of the distributors. Your LGS sees their prices go up too, and as it gets closer to release and demand is getting higher the distributors have more power to gouge people. The LGS loses money (margin) on the first few boxes probably simply because of the spiking expectations.
Can I change my vote to "spoiler season?" Spoiler season drives the hype train...hype train drives the prices.
June 7, 2016 11:14 p.m.
KillDatBUG says... #37
Magic Online. What a horrible program, especially for someone like me who barely gets a chance to play locally.
June 7, 2016 11:41 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #38
Unrealistic change: remove the lands from the reserve list because they are directly crucial for eternal formats to thrive.
Realistic change: the secondary market community. I'm sick and tired of reading forum after forum of random price spikes from cards that some group of people bought out. Hell even mainstream sellers like scg is guilty to some degree of this. I wish I could change the green
June 7, 2016 11:44 p.m.
IcyLightning says... #39
Agreed, improve both Magic Online and Magic Duels series. Magic Online is just such a bad program, its an absolute pain to navigate and play. And Magic Duels is trying to be way too many things at once. I would love it if WOTC simply made Magic Duels an easily accessible, casual version of Magic Online, with multiple formats and good multiplayer support.
June 8, 2016 12:09 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #40
Monsmtg, why do you wish to eliminate the legend rule?
There are far too many aspects that I wish to change about this game to choose only a single one, but the top two that I would choose are to change the legend rule back to how it was post-Kamigawa, because that version made the most sense, to me, and to eliminate the reserved list, because I believe that it is unhealthy for the longevity of the game.
June 10, 2016 3:51 p.m.
DemonDragonJ I originally said the reserve list, but that was disallowed so I said one of the first things I though of. It's one of the things Maro said he would change if he could. It stops legendaries from being pushed and makes it harder for them to be printed. On second thought, I would brings squirrels back.
June 10, 2016 4:01 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #42
Monsmtg, I did not notice that condition at the beginning of the thread, so I shall say that I would change the legend rule to its second incarnation (from Kamigawa to Theros), since that version made the most sense to me.
However, I must say that the legend rule exists as a factor to balance the power of legendary creatures; a legendary creature is typically more powerful than other creatures of the same converted mana cost because only one can be o the battlefield at a time. If you eliminated the legend rule, how would you balance their power, and how would you retain the feeling of such a creature representing a specific character or being from the story?
June 10, 2016 4:13 p.m.
Nothing. Magic is perfect as it is.
Who am I kidding? REPRINT STORM CROW!!!!!!
Atony1400 says... #2
The reserved list.
June 7, 2016 9:51 a.m.