Is Wizards Printing Too Many Sets Every Year?
General forum
Posted on Feb. 23, 2016, 4:17 p.m. by CheeseBro
After seeing so many new sets spoiled so close together, the question arises for me:
Is Wizards printing too many sets every year?
Lets see what sets will or has been been printed this year.
Oath of the Gatewatch
Duel Decks: Blessed Vs Cursed
Shadows Over Innistrad
Eternal Masters
Eldritch Moon
Conspiracy, Reign of Brago
Duel Deck for next block
First set of next block
Most likely a new From The Vault ( We have had one every year)
Most likely a new Commander product.
Lets look at that. 10 sets in one year. How does one keep up? As soon as one spoiler season is over spoilers will be rolling in for the next. New players will have to idea what to get, and experienced players will be spending too much money to sets for more cards.
This also brings up the crucial question:
Is standard rotation to frequent now?
I believe it is. with rotation so soon, players will have little time to fine tune and get used to their deck because once you do, its gone! Everybody will be rushing to buy more packs and singles because they need new cards to replace the cards that have rotated out. I believe Wizards created the Two-Block Paradigm not for the good of the players, but to make more money.
Discuss!
First of all most of what you mentioned isn't a set.
I see four real sets. Two side sets. A yearly commander set. A yearly collection set. Two duel decks.
You realize they've actually REDUCED the number of non-eternal constructed sets with this new block structure?
Did you read the article where they discussed the change in block structure? They intended for the faster rotations to help create a faster moving competitive environment because they didn't want decks like Mono Black Devotion ruling the Standard format for an extended period of time.
And what is Magic but buying packs and singles. What is your point? How else do you get cards? If you don't buy them yourself you buy them from somebody else who bought them first. That's the whole market.
February 23, 2016 4:25 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #4
Let's look at 2015.
Sets: Fate Reforged, Dragons of Tarkir, Magic Origins, Battle for Zendikar.
Duel Decks: Elspeth v Kiora, eldrazi vs zendikar
Supplemental sets: commander 2015, Modern masters 2015, FTV Angels
Seems to be the normal number of things they print. They've got to make money somehow, and printing things is the way they do it.
February 23, 2016 4:26 p.m.
I don't know about you, but I sold my kidney and a lung to buy all of the sets for this year, so I'm ready! I say---
BRING IT ON.
February 23, 2016 4:32 p.m.
Serendipitous_Hummingbird says... #6
Actually, with the end of event decks and clash packs, we're down a few supplemental products a year
February 23, 2016 4:33 p.m.
i agree with TMBLRZ, standard only counts 4 of those mentioned sets, so everything else doesn't affect it. and frankly, the same number of sets have been printed for a while. just some like the core sets have been replaced, (last year origins, this year conspiracy the sequel)
February 23, 2016 4:33 p.m.
I'm all for clickbait on a site where the best way to get views on your decks is literally clickbait, but this is ridiculous.
February 23, 2016 4:58 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #11
This thread was moved to a more appropriate forum(auto-generated comment)
February 23, 2016 5:17 p.m.
"I believe Wizards created the Two-Block Paradigm not for the good of the players, but to make more money."
I'm sorry but I still can't get over this line...
February 23, 2016 5:22 p.m.
TheFoilAjani says... #14
TMBRLZ Ah yes, the TWO block paradigm. Not 3, 2 :P. This op is... dumb?
February 23, 2016 5:52 p.m.
TheFoilAjani its called the TWO block paradigm because 2 blocks every year. you can even check MaRo's article.
February 23, 2016 6:58 p.m.
TheFoilAjani says... #16
CheeseBro Fair. I recend my statement on your dumbness based on that criteria, but please answer what TMBRLZ or literally the billions of other people who have posted here.
February 23, 2016 7:03 p.m.
logansullivan says... #17
I'm personally fine with it. I thought it was a little weird when wizards announced both eternal masters and conspiracy 2 but you won't catch me complaining
February 23, 2016 7:03 p.m.
logansullivan While initially it seemed odd, it doesn't because both sets feed different crowds. Conspiracy is for drafting and EDH/Kitchen Table players, and EMA will serve to get people hooked into Legacy with much needed reprints. Not to mention Legacy players salivating at the thought of Foil Wastelands and Forces with sick art.
February 23, 2016 7:06 p.m.
I'm sorry but this is just freaking ridiculous.
Do you know how we have the game of magic today? BECAUSE WIZARDS IS TRYING TO MAKE MONEY. If they don't make money magic will disappear. And honestly I don't see a problem what you've displayed is a diverse range of products that support the player base and the game.
I see 4 standard sets all with the goal of introducing new cards to our game which players love. I see after that 4 products(eternal masters FTV and the duel decks) that will give us reprints of cards other formats want to support long term players. Then I see 2 products that target causal players(commander and conspiracy) that while yes they give reprints but they also give us cards for edh.
So no I don't think wizards is printing to much I think wizards is doing awesome.
February 23, 2016 9:25 p.m.
No to too many sets.
Yes, to they need to bring [back] more fun ways to play, like the booster battle packs!
February 23, 2016 9:29 p.m.
logansullivan says... #23
Bring back planechase, archenemy, and vanguard
February 24, 2016 10:06 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #24
More work for me I guess.
There is one big problem with this 2 block paradigm. As we've seen with BFZ and OGW, the set design for these could easily be disappointments at every turn. BFZ failed at the Zendikari scheme, while OGW failed at the Eldrazi scheme. The entire block has been less than stellar, and many are worried for SOI. Only time can tell if this 2 block per year paradigm results in the one thing that hurts WotC the most but wasn't a common concern when introduced: product quality.
February 24, 2016 9:31 p.m.
Femme_Fatale I've not heard anyone worried about SoI. In fact, everyone I've talked to is insanely excited for the set as Innistrad was one of the best blocks in recent years. The return of Madness is also very cool.
February 24, 2016 9:33 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #26
I've heard many complaints. It has died down with the recent mechanics release being intimately tied with one of the best horror lore concepts we know. But before that many were concerned that the quality of work absent from BFZ and OGW will be repeated in SOI. From a lore perspective SOI seems to be a success, but we have yet to fully experience it from the mechanics perspective.
February 24, 2016 9:46 p.m.
I can't argue what Femme_Fatale is saying.
I wasn't around for the OG sets, save for the last part of RTR's (sub-OG - Third Ravnica block heavily rumored) lifespan in Standard in RTR/THS, but I can definitely tell that Wizards has done a poor job of living up to their own legend when it came to Zendikar.
It appears as if they are trying to reduce the power level of Standard. Whether or not that is intentional is another issue. I often will look back at cards in OG Zendikar and Innistrad and utter "Damn." because the cards are so mind bending.
You also have to look at WotC's actions in this last year alone. It appears as if they're trying to put their market more towards the income side of the scale. That meaning - where as a business decisions can be focused more towards the good of the game or the good of the profit (and there's typically a happy medium that everybody is happy with), Wizards is focused more on the profit end. At least that's how it feels. I hope it doesn't end up being that way, but there are warning signs.
There's also a second problem that needs addressed and that is subtle but seemingly mass shift in MTG focus to Modern. Standard is a suffocating - or at least that's what I'm perceiving. Maybe that's just my neck of the woods corrupting my view of the nationwide focus, but I feel like Standard is losing life...
Idk - just some thoughts stemmed off of Femme's points.
February 25, 2016 9:36 a.m.
TMBRLZ I don't know what area you're from but where I live and even in my own play group there's a larger shift and interest in modern. I think standard is becoming a place for newer players to test the waters for a few years gather what they need and then the dive into modern.
The fact of the matter is modern is becoming more accessible for players to get into. We now have the khans fetches as a budget alternative to the zendikar ones and we even now have "budget shocklands" in the tango lands. And now that the pain lands are looking to actually become relevant we have those budget alternatives to. Add in modern master FTV and other non standard sets(which also include their own cards to add to the mix) you begin to see the allure of modern. It's a place where all the effort you put into standard is still relevant and doesn't rotate out. There is not a single part of me that would not be surprised if modern became the most played format in the next few years(if it isn't already I don't know the logistics of the top of my head) for these reasons alone.
February 25, 2016 10:03 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #29
Khans is the only thing that made Modern easier to get into Ej1997. It has been harder with each new set as buy outs and speculations occur. Especially with this new year, many of my decks have had their cost to build increase by ~$100-$400. The price increases more than Modern Masters decreases the price.
Modern has lost a lot of players due to the straight-up bannings of both highly invested decks of Pod and Twin. Eldrazi doesn't help either, and what the meta will be after Eldrazi many don't want to think about.
BFZ block was a disappointment in that A: It's the first 2 block spectrum. B: Not enough time was allocated to getting the sets right. C: They tried bringing back mechanics that are not meant to be played in a slower format. Mechanics that are supposed to be explosive and fast do not work when you have to weaken them to put them into a slower environment.
By and large OGW is better than BFZ. Smaller set made it easier to get it right. However OGW Eldrazi mechanics had no unifying identity besides just doing "weird things". Had both sets been BFZ eldrazi and OGW Zendikari, the entire block would have been a resounding success and Modern wouldn't have to deal with a format oppressive deck.
Anyways. It will be a few more sets before WotC can fix the errors they perceived from BFZ, so we could see the same issues in SOI. However, second time doing it, they have more experience, and the lore background for Innistrad is MUCH easier to get right than Zendikar, which abandoned its explorative expedition style design that sold the Block since Rise.
Basically, we can expect to see the same issues of SOI block being not very cohesive in all of its mechanics, but it won't be as intensively obvious as it was with BFZ set.
February 25, 2016 5 p.m. Edited.
Femme_Fatale - My main complaint with your argument is that for some reason you feel that BFZ failed as a block b/c of lack of time spent designing the block? I find this to be an unsatisfactory explanation. We have had no indication that BFZ was in design/development for any less amount of time than any other large set, nor was OGW in design/development shorter than any other small set. So, to me at least, the time argument falls flat. The real indicator of the issues with BFZ was that the block structure changed during BFZ design meaning that some things had to be condensed since they were designing for 2 sets instead of 3.
I also take issue with the complaint that BFZ wasn't "adventure world" as ZEN was before it. We were never told that BFZ would be the "adventure world", we were told that it was about the battle between the Zendikari and the Eldrazi. We weren't promised "Traps, Maps, and Chaps"; we were promised a war. You can certainly be disappointed that we didn't see some of the flavor, but holding that against the block is poor logic at best.
February 25, 2016 5:12 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #31
Yes I do JWiley129. It was a complaint done by MaRo that he wasn't satisfied with what was handed to development. I can't find the source, think I remember reading it on Twitter.
And me saying that Zendikar abandoned its expedition theme meant that it dropped one of the unifiers that made the plane cohesive. I've not once complained about BFZ being about war and not about expeditions as BFZ is designed to be a block about a pivotal story line in MtG rather than the plane they are on. Similar to the Weatherlight Saga. The lore of the plane itself is abandoned for an important focus on story. The problem with this is while you've told an enticing story through a numerous collection of cards, you've lost the lore aspect that the entire plane itself brings as a collective whole.
BFZ is about a story of war and conflict rather than about a plane of expedition and survival. BFZ told that story quite well, but its mechanics had lost a cohesive feel because A: they ultimately tried to return mechanics that had nothing to do with the story and B: much of the diversity that displaying the lore of an entire plane through mechanics is lost in a focus on one aspect in story.
February 25, 2016 6:59 p.m.
Femme_Fatale - I couldn't find MaRo saying that he was dissatisfied with BFZ during the handover, but I did find this from an AMA he did a while back which goes against your claim. Also, being dissatisfied with a set during the handover does not mean that there was not the same amount of time spent on the set as other large sets. From a previous answer on his tumblr, I recall him saying that large sets get 1 years worth of design/development. Now it could have been the case that 1 year of R&D was not enough to get BFZ "right", but we won't hear that.
My use of the word "complaint" might have been too strong, a better word might have been "disappointment". As far as the "adventure world" theme, that was the oldest theme from the set. The most recent Zendikar set, prior to BFZ, was Rise of the Eldrazi. The most recent memories from Zendikar are of the Eldrazi. I guarantee that if you approached any casual magic player and ask them "What do you remember most about Zendikar?" more people would respond with "Eldrazi" than "Adventure world". So while there are people who would have expected more "adventure world" themes in BFZ, the court of public opinion would have wanted more themes of the war against the Eldrazi. And Mark Rosewater is a large proponent of not fighting your audience's expectations.
February 25, 2016 7:30 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #33
Mark specifically said that he was pleased with the development team in that post. Nothing about design, which is what I read that he wasn't satisfied with.
Once again, I never said BFZ block should have had an expedition theme. I said specifically that BFZ lacks the cohesiveness that comes from focusing on an entire plane's lore because it had focused on a pivotal story point. It told a riveting story, as the set was designed to be around that story, not lore. OGW was specifically focused on story and had worked better than BFZ, which MaRo had stated that they tried to put both Rise and Zendikar mechanics together (and they did) but that ultimately led to a consequence in BFZ's cohesiveness as a whole.
In short, BFZ block tells a one-directional riveting story because that is what it was designed to do, but it loses cohesiveness because it can't focus on the plane's lore. It's a trade-off and one they did for the sake of the purpose of the block. One directional riveting story, or a bunch of smaller lore tales describing the plane.
February 25, 2016 8:27 p.m.
I agree, you never said that BFZ should have been "adventure world", however your complaints keep coming back to (and forgive me for paraphrasing) "BFZ wasn't about Zendikar". They did tell a story about the war, and not the lore of Zendikar. About as far as the lore went, BFZ referenced the Eye of Ugin, several legendaries from original ZEN, and the trauma of the people affected by the Eldrazi's release. But all of that was to further the goal of telling us the story about this war.
Now, the inclusion ofreturning Zendikari and Eldrazi mechanics were on purpose, and did fill a larger role. Yes the Zendikar mechanics were aggressive in nature while the Eldrazi mechanics were more slow and methodical. However that pushed the narrative of the set into the gameplay. The Zendikari are good in attacking quickly and can hurt the Eldrazi in the short term. The Eldrazi on the other hand are a consuming force that slowly eats away at the plane, and the longer it takes you to kill them, the faster you reach your destruction. This theme perfectly explains why they chose the mechanics they did. Additionally players have expectations, and returning to Zendikar without Allies or Landfall would have been inexcusable. The Eldrazi were a dead giveaway, with Ulamog being the Big Bad (literally and figuratively), but you couldn't return to Zendikar without the flagship mechanic of the set (Landfall) and a popular tribe (Allies). You may have felt that these mechanics were forced together, but they do play a larger role in the story.
February 25, 2016 8:45 p.m.
I've been reading your posts and no offense I'm confused by your arguments.
I understand that yes Zendikar(the first set of the block) was about the adventure spirit of the plane. But as that story line progressed to Worldwake theirs was a mystery as to what the eldrazi actually were. And to be honest that story line began in the beginning with Sorin who was first printed in Zendikar. Worldwake furthered it by brining us the Eye of Ugin and other eldrazi cards. The Roil one of Zendikars prominent features was the planes reaction to the eldrazi. Then came rise of the eldrazi and the trail leading to them came to an end and we were face to face with these horrors for the first time leading us to one of the greatest moments in magic lore since the death of yawgmoth. We finally had a threat that wouldn't be solved in just one block.
And the thing is the stories that have kept zendikar in our hearts and minds in the last few years haven't been stories about how it was an adventure plane. It was how this plane with all of its diverse and powerful mana was forced against this terrible foe. We watched in awe as the eldrazi DECIMATED the Angels of this plane. Before this Angels were one of the most powerful tribes lore wise and now we've seen them put to shame by these monstrosities with ease. We know that Zendikars role in magic history is solidified by the presence of three of the most followed and highly anticipated planeswalkers in Ugin, Nahiri, and Sorin my personal favorite. Almost every scrap of lore has something to do in the end with the eldrazi and I think it's a shame that you're putting so much focus on this Adventure world concept. The adventure world was merely a first act. The finale is what we've all remember and come to love.
Now for the mechanics argument. Once again I have to disagree since I think wizards has done a decent job. Not the best but not as bad as people make it out to be. Landfall made a return which I thought was a sound idea. Zendikar is revolting against the eldrazi and the land is Zendikar so it makes sense that we'd get a bonus for dropping more lands. Awaken debuts and flavor wise I loved it. It gave our spells a stronger presence late game and a lot more utility. It's a damn shame that they're a tad bit less expensive to make them more playable but hey they give us more options. Rally gave us the flavor of the old allies and honestly I feel like in a khans-less format we'll see more ally decks pop up. It's just right now khans has given us to many super strong options. Cohort was a disappointment true but it's fun in casual games and I like seeing it in draft. And I'll give it to you that ingest could've been better maybe hitting more then one card maybe putting it on more aggressive creatures(Reaver Drone needs it very badly) or even just putting it on more creatures and continuing into Oath. Though the newer eldrazi from oath gave me the distortion feel Kozilek was supposed to project and I like seeing the multitude of abilities. A singular focus was Ulamogs deal of devouring everything in a straight line.
So in conclusion I see battle for Zendikar as a success. It delivered what players wanted to see and it gave us the story we have waited to see and gameplay wise I can see why people are disappointed but you need to see that wizards tries not to power creep like Yugioh where in order to sell cards each set needs to smash the face of the set before it.
TMBRLZ says... #2
This makes no sense.
Like... I don't mean to be mean... but this actually makes zero sense.
February 23, 2016 4:19 p.m.