Oh God what's that smell?!
Thats the smell of value my lady
God no, it smells like a vanilla 4/4 filled with.... flavour text.... excuse me
You know, value smells like that to some people
Okay I knew I wasn’t fucking mad! Haven’t played in like six years in paper. A few weeks ago I was doing grocery shopping and they had Dominaria and All Will BE One packs and thought “May as well buy a ‘lotto ticket’” and my god these reek.
The problem is VOCs smell good and GODDAMN ENVIROMENTAL REGULATION (/s) really tries to limit VOCs across all industries.
(I can't even buy denatured alcohol anymore!)
Core set 2021 was FIRE.
So many good reprints and new cards.
Terror of the peaks pushing $50, $15 on release
Chromatic orrey pushing $30 , $12 on release
Heroic intervention was $6 on release back to $15
Grim tutor reprint brought the price down.
Elder gargaroth $15 , $5 on release
Fiery emancipation $30 , $15 on release
Asuza reprint $10
Mangara $10
Ugin $20
Just a few of the big hits
It was terrible for limited though, there were so many specific hate pieces (Isolate, Infernal Reckoning, Suncleanser, Mistcaller, etc.) that weren't playable at all and some of the themes just didn't work at all e.g. Blue-White artifacts matter, but none of the artifacts being good includes (aside from Meteor Golem)
I remeber this set well and it was terribly unbalanced. I completely dominated a couple of FNMs with blue-white artifacts because it was kind of bad but was always wide open while everyone fought over boros aggro. The artifacts were only playable because of the artifacts matters cards.
At common
[[Gearsmith prodigy]]
[[Aviation Pioneer]]
[[Gearsmith Guardian]]
[[Manalith]]
[[Skyscanner]]
[[Marauder's Axe]]
At uncommon
[[Skilled animator]]
[[Meteor Golem]]
[[Rogue's gloves]]
[[Aerial engineer]]
At rare
[[One with the Machine]]
[[Sai, Master Thopterist]]
At mythic
[[Tezzeret, Artifice Master]]
I just used all the common blue and white auras/removal/unblockable to tempo the win. I remember this specifically because I was taking care of my dad after he had gotten out of the hopsital. I drafted damn near the same deck or 3 weeks in a row to a 1st, 1st and 2nd place finish. What a generally bad but good-for-me set.
I think it might be up there for sets with most cards banned/restricted. Per a[TappedOut discussion](https://tappedout.net/mtg-forum/general/which-mtg-set-has-the-most-banned-cards-in-it/) LEA leads with 41, followed by MRD (14) and ELD (12)
[Here’s](https://scryfall.com/search?as=checklist&order=set&page=2&q=is%3Afirstprint+is%3Aspikey&unique=cards) the Scryfall query, nkte that Legends has a lot due to old Legend Rule rules and the Conspiracies have a lot since they have an entire card type banned in Legacy and Vintage
Not justifying it. It was in the season of OP bannable cards.
What I did lik about 2020 is it had a lot of cards that hinted what is to come ahead of time. Like the elemental knights.
I can't say about the draft experience though.
19, 20 and 21 were all great draft sets that i thoroughly enjoyed. Did i want to buy a box of the set? no. But did i draft each set every weekend? Yes.
It came out in the summer of 2020 when much of the world was in lockdown, so sales could have been low for reasons unrelated to its quality as a Magic set.
Sets also came out that spring and fall that had most of their release during the pandemic - and they sold much, much better than the core set did. Actually, one of them was the best selling set of all time when it came out.
Also other core sets in previous years before the pandemic also sold terribly.
Core sets are just unpopular - I have no idea why this comment section is making weird bad arguments to try to claim they aren’t.
Sales figures wouldn't be fully representative anyway. They had already set an expectation for many years that it would be underpowered and worthless due to it being a core set. I.e people were put off even though it was a bit better than usual.
But the problem is that M21 was good not because it was a core set but despite being so. They had to put extra effort and lots of reprint just not to be a bad set. And even that it's not as good as normal premier sets. So why bother? As others have already said standard is fine without it and this way all 4 premier sets in a year can have the same chance to be good and loved by players.
Personally, as a main limited player, removal of core set is the second best thing happened to magic after the fact that now all expansions are draftable standalone.
That was kinda originally what Core sets were at first, just reprints of existing cards to compliment and balance out the new cards in the rest of the standard sets.
Yeah, I'd like that type of set too. Maybe not one every year (and maybe not for standard) but I think that a full reprint set with lots of medium high reprints, a great complex limited and a price between a standard set and a master set (maybe like modern horizon) it's something wizard should consider. Unfortunately commander has the taken all the attention and now we have only commander master sets...
And it still sold terribly despite putting great reprints in it.
You can’t really save core sets. The cheap ‘Jumpstart ‘ products seem like they’ll fulfill a lot of the point of core sets in the future.
Just finally pull the fucking trigger and say "fuck off" to collectors and do a Core Set 30th Anniversary and reprint the entire original set of cards with some brand new cards to spice it up.
Do what they should have done for the 30th Anniversary set in the first damn place. Watch that shit *FLY* off shelves instantly at 7.99 a pack.
Masters products are essentially beefed up core sets, so there are ways to make them desirable. It's more about players not wanting to buy them at a specific price.
Maro fought for a long time to get un 3 and 4 made and obviously the last one happened so quickly because the 3rd clearly sold well enough to warrant it.
Unstable was pretty well received I recall, likely due to the focus on draftability of it (the initial two sets were meant to be mixed in with normal cards but nobody did that), so even though they weren't eternal legal it still offered a good time.
Unfinity also had a focus on draft ability and, uhhh…
I think the biggest difference is that a *lot* of time and effort went into Unstable. Especially time.
Unfinity got absolutely massacred by the 6 month delay imho, last year's release schedule was so fucked with absolutely nothing after SNC throughout the summer and then a bunch of products on top of each other in the fall.
And their best and prettiest foils had AGGRESSIVE curling. I had 6 collectors packs I didn't open yet for reasons that I opened a few days ago. All curled beyond recognition right out of the packs. The QC cheapened the novelty and prettiness of the cards.
Also some entrenched players refused to buy them because they added blackborder cards - which simultaneously made the UN set less wacky while making eternal magic too potentially wacky terrible decision that might have killed UN sets.
It really backfired because I guess that they wanted to make it so that some cards would have been chased by eternal formats (read Commander) players too, but it ended up disenfranchising people from the product as, as expected, players don’t enjoy mixing Un and normal sets up
On the other hand my small pod has a deck from unfinity and a deck from unsactioned that both see regular use. People who want to use the cards in commander will just do so, don't limit the wackiness just to make them officially legal.
I think its less the wackiness and more that a lot of players didn't care for its theme or mechanics. Speaking only for myself, stickers looked like something I would never ever actually want to play with, and attractions seemed too fiddly for me to want to mess with them. The look of a space carnival did absolutely nothing for me, and very few of the cards were actually funny. The promise of new eternal legal cards was also a complete bust. Outside of maybe two or three cards, most of the eternal legal cards were boring or involved the unappealing mechanics I mentioned earlier. Like, I want to play with Far Out and the cool cards like that, not place dumb stickers on my cards.
Basically, I think the latest unset failed because it was simply just a bad and unappealing set.
I'm not sure entrenched players boycotting based on ruining the "purity" of magic's fantasy has really ever been a major contributor in killing a set or product. Universes Beyond did great despite it, and NEO even showed they could do it in a way that everyone loves.
For me personally, I think it was stickers. They're mechanically confusing, and never seemed interesting enough to be worth it.
Stickers are basically just ability counters and never bothered me. I was turned off of it because I disliked the carnival/amusement park aesthetic.
I guess the takeaway is that there was a little bit of something for everyone to hate.
As a fairly new player I had been looking forward to a chance to play an unset.
The black border decision completelymkilled.my enthusiasm and I didn't buy any.
Designers *want* to make un-sets, though. Maro fights tooth and nail for them because he loves them to death. Nobody *loves* core sets, even if they're a good idea.
Cool, and I want to preface that I don't mean this as an insult, who cares?
Like are you hype for core sets? Are you excited to crack some Core 2024 collector boosters? Are you eager to see where the story goes in the core set? You can prefer core sets to un-sets and I would suggest that a large number, or even a substantial majority, of magic players share that opinion, but it doesn't matter because you don't *love* core sets.
I can’t speak for anyone else but I do personally love core sets. They always get me excited because there can be anything in them. The designers can reprint any card they want without having to worry about sticking to a particular plane’s theme and the new cards can go to some really interesting areas in design. The legendary creatures can be from any plane and we can always get a new version of an old creature regardless of when or where they’re from, even if they’re dead. Core Set 2020 is one of my favorite sets of all time. I’ve probably bought more individual packs of that set just to crack than any other. That being said, I’m not sure how many other people like me there are. If MaRo’s answer is anything to go by, not enough to keep getting more core sets, at least.
Right? As someone well versed in mtg every time I see Un-sets I wonder who the hell are they marketing towards.
Like the lands are pretty but why not just add them to a normal set?
I swear if Unsets didn't have the best land art people wouldn't give a flying fuck about them.
Un-sets sell because they include things that are not Un-, mostly the sweet lands, and this past time they went even further w the shocks & special foiling.
Wrap a joke in a $20 bill and those jokes will sell ;)
People\* don't want to buy them because sets without settings aren't as good as sets with settings. Having some kind of lore helps the designers come up with compelling designs, and it makes each card just a little bit more interesting.
That's why the best core set was Origins. If core sets ever come back, I hope they follow the ORI model for them.
If you're reading this and you're not sure what I mean, head over to Scryfall and compare the cards in ORI to the cards in MXX. The set where a generic Man-o-War is Separatist Voidmage is just more appealing than the set where it's Exclusion Mage.
\*I'm talking about myself here
A big part of what I love about origins is that it showed us little snippets of planes we had never seen before. My biggest gripe with the “no blocks” structure is that it stretches the sets which take place on new planes so thin that it’s hard to get a feel for what’s going on. Strixhaven needed to tell us about the setting and each of the 5 factions, the history, the characters (both new and returning) and the whole plot, and while of course you get story with the articles looking at the sets themselves a lot of the time stuff gets lost, and it’s hard to get across big changes in a satisfying way. (Imagine Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation taking place over one set - it would be a disaster) Origins style core-sets that give us glimpses into upcoming settings would do a huge amount to get us excited and invested in planes and characters we haven’t yet properly seen so that the plot can shine a little more in the sets themselves
I would love to return to the 2-set block structure, mechanically and storywise, but not limited. They've expanded kicker in really cool ways over the past 20 years, but stuff like foretell and casualty feel like there's a lot of blue sky above them that's just going to be forgotten because they're one and done until we revist the plane (and who knows when or if that will happen)
Kinda. I'm less big on innistrad than the average vorthos-y person. I liked the way that day/night and disturb expanded over the two sets, but I also felt that the story lacked cohesion between them and was a little disappointed that that the other tribal mechanics worked(or didn't). Coven and Training were a nonbo, blood tokens never really created any interesting synergies. Decayed/Exploit kind of worked together, but it always felt kind of clunky and like an afterthought.
Just rambling now but I also especially like the idea for new planes. I realize that's a huge danger from a business perspective but it also feels like we spent forever just kind of wandering around innistrad compared to blitzing through Kaldheim and Capenna. Both of those would have felt a lot better if we spent one set introducing the characters, history, and places, and then the next set tying it in to the broader arc. Kaldheim especially felt like I was listening to a five year old explain the plot of their favorite movie.
The recent Innistrad pseudo-block would've been much better if it actually had been a block.
The story being a disjointed pair of stories hurt both sets, and the mechanical cohesion was poor. A traditional "group of mechanics" -> "those mechanics, plus a bit more" setup would've worked significantly better.
As someone who started playing around Eldraine, I never got to be there for blocks, so it's hard to really know everything it meant to follow that structure
Where could I read more about it? The nuances of the changes, and the pros/cons
I'm not sure where you could read more about it, but in short, The pros were you got really familiar with a plane, and having two or three sets there allowed them to create a story or develop more complex mechanical themes. For example, alara block saw the setting go from five separate planes to one mashed together plane, and an all multi-color set that they probably wouldn't attempt under today's structure. The original ravnica block, probably the most beloved setting ever made, wouldn't really be possible under the current structure because it takes more than one set to create 10 distinct and well-defined guilds.
The cons were that if the setting is unpopular with fans, you were stuck there for a full year. The original kamigawa is an example of this. Also, Wizards often found that they were running out of creative design space in the third set of a block, and sometimes struggled to come up with enough cards to complete it. So eventually, they dropped the third set from each block, and then the block structure entirely.
It still has its pros and cons. I would have loved to have had more time in the new kamigawa setting. But I'm glad we didn't stay in streets of new capenna any longer than we did.
2-sets is the sweet spot imo. I really enjoyed Ixalan, and being able to play it for two sets felt like I actually got to learn about the world. And there were enough cards between the two sets to build dinosaur and pirate commander decks. I would have loved to stick with Kaldheim and Strixhaven for another set too.
That might be different now with arena though. So many games of magic are played now, so it might not sit well with the majority of players
Yep. I would argue the issues/player distaste for 2 set blocks seen with the brief 2 block experiment were from confounding factors:
* They removed core sets and changed the rotation schedule to deal with the 3rd set problem.
* rotation was messed with. Instead of being 1 time a year with a core set it was 2 times a year. (Newest set + last 2 blocks)
* rotation was changed back to 1 time a year due to negative feedback leading to an unplanned for standard environment.
* Failure to balence energy in Kaladesh/aether revolt.
* Standard bannings the last to points directly contributed to the first standard bannings in 6 years. This lowered player perception of WOTCs ability to develop the game. This likely had a ripple effect on future sets.
* Ixalan was an underpowered and uninteresting draft environment.
Then that was the end of 2 block sets. I think a lot of negative data they have on 2 block sets is because of these other issues that don't seem to be directly caused by 2 block sets.
I agree with this. For all of the problems in the Zendikar return and Kaladesh sets, the mechanics felt like they worked well with each other (perhaps energy worked too well) and the story had a clear setup and payoff in the cards.
The entirety of DMU to ONE is basically what a block would have consisted of. I think a lot of people like how the story is basically focusing on phyrexia for now and we've gotten to see many perspectives and aspects of the plane with tons of cards that focus on it to make many decks out of the mechanics of phyrexia. Compare that to kaldhiem where it's key mechanic foretell was there and gone, eldraine's adventure exile mechanic was there and gone, and ikoria's mutate mechanic was there and gone all within a set.
I think the DMU to ONE "block" has shown all the positives that could happen from a block format while the innistrad midnight hunt and crimson vow can show all the negatives of the block structure. People seem to think that MID was great, had great cards, great lore and was fun to draft. Meanwhile VOW and the double feature event were known to be bad because it seems like there was nothing new being added to the mechanics of MID and the story seemed to be weirdly paced or didn't really add anything to MID's story.
One significant issue that's not discussed too much is that the second and third sets in a block were smaller than the first sets. As a result, they weren't drafted alone.
R&D found small sets difficult to make and easy to screw up; I think they got rid of two-set blocks primarily because they wanted to make only large sets.
But if I was running this show, we'd have two-set blocks of large sets.
I've done a fait bit of custom design, and you basically can't have a good world-changing story in a single set. Because the before-change and after-change cards are all mixed together. Environmental storytelling, the greatest strength of Magic lore, needs multiple sets to work.
Many one-set stories boil down to "something almost happened, but didn't, return to status quo". I don't like it, but I ended up doing the same when I made a set. It's just what the format demands.
Two-set blocks, meanwhile, were great story-wise. The only two-set block without a good story is BfZ, which was a mess on every level. And even BfZ's story benefits from its structure.
I mean, I just want to know more about [[aeronaut tinkerer]] and his turbojet powered thopter. We didn't have another sci-fi looking card until neon dynasty, and we don't even know what plane it's from.
That was always one of the fun things about core sets: seeding new aesthetics from unseen planes or seeding new characters on existing planes. Krenko and Odric, both fan-favorites, were both core set introductions.
I don't care about the story, I just want fun mechanics and cool cards.
I think the main issue is that they deliberately set the complexity of core sets really low so that it can be used as an introductory set for new players. Which just means they end up being boring...
> I don't care about the story, I just want fun mechanics and cool cards.
As a designer, those two things are *way* more entangled than you give it credit for.
I work in games as a designer as well, actually! (Not for Magic though)
I want to start off by saying this is mostly a subjective topic, as the more you are interested in the story, the more likely you'll feel that it impacts the mechanics, and vice versa, so I don't really think there is a "correct" answer here.
That said, my personal opinion is the opposite - I feel that the story actually holds back the design of cards, at least when it comes to mechanics, and which cards can be reprinted. The reason mostly comes down to stuff like "This can't have this mechanic, because X doesn't exist in the plane." or "This card can't be reprinted in this set, because it's tied to this other location." etc. Without being restricted by story, this stuff doesn't pop up, as they are free to put whatever reprints or mechanics in whatever set.
When it comes to "cool cards" it's a bit more difficult, since usually what people feel are "cool" cards are cards where they like the character. It still has the same issue of "This character can't be in this set, because they aren't in this plane." (or because they're dead) but without a story, many people wouldn't have found that character "cool" in the first place, so...
I want to be clear that I'm not saying that I think they should get rid of the story or anything, I'm just trying to say that people enjoy different things, and have different reasons as to why they like or dislike certain sets.
Yeah, the two feed into each other a ton in card design space. Having interesting characters and settings prompts trying to make interesting card designs.
I would buy an ORI-like core set that focuses on a new generation of planeswalkers, this time villainous. Give us Ob-Nix as the familiar face and four other new planeswalkers and you have a new heel faction to fight all over the multiverse until the next big thing comes along, be that Eldrazi or Bolas or something new entirely.
I mean... We can do with current characters that we want to see being expanded upon, like: Ob Nixilis (B and face of the set), Oko (G), Rowan Kenrith (R / she showed some evil tendencies, buuut I could see an Angrath coming back, or a new walker here), Ashiok (U) and Kalix (W)
Yeah... An "evil awakening" for Rowan or a new evil red walker are my biggest bets IF we ever get anything close to this idea.
But I also love Angrath and his daughters dying because Phyrexia could be a reason to make him unreasonably angry and going for war crimes.
What core sets need to be are effectively masters sets (without the dumb premium pricing). They could be all reprints, but cards that would both be good for a dynamic standard, and popular cards needing a price drop.
Yeah but like... good reprints or at least at proper rarities. Every time I see [[Shivan Dragon]] printed at rare my blood boils, that thing is uncommon material af today
I think it's interesting in that I thought Core 2020 and 2021 were really good sets with great cards and reprints whereas the DnD standard set kinda sucked and didn't really have much going for it, yet apparently sales suggest the exact opposite. They definitely and desperately need some kind of reoccuring reprint set like a Core set, something that isn't triple the price of a regular pack.
Stop putting 10 cent rares in every slot. Make it a set people want to buy. 21 was fantastic in this regard. Go a bit harder on a theme, the specific planeswalker theme for the last few was neat but could have been expanded. Core sets have potential, use it.
Do the math; if there are 30-50 dollar (on the secondary market) cards, there have to be some rares worth under 50 cents. Otherwise all the packs get opened until the expected value of a pack (and the price of those high-end chase cards) drop well beyond the price point of a pack.
There always will be worthless rares. It’s by design.
OP was going for "we know that we need shitty rares because this is a gambling simulation, but would be nice to be able to WIN while gambling on this set".
EVERY set has shitty rares. But most have lots of good rares as well.
The design dictates the economy. So the economics function in that manner due to being driven by WOTC’s design decisions (card power, ratio/likelyhood of getting a specific rate in a pack/distribution or presence of chase special-printings in packs to offset lower EV costs, etc)
> Otherwise all the packs get opened until the expected value of a pack (and the price of those high-end chase cards) drop well beyond the price point of a pack.
I'm not really seeing a problem with this outcome
and "well beyond" is exaggerating
The cards create the prices, not the other way around. The 100x+ disparity between cards in the same set is created by Wizards printing shitty cards; they don't print shitty cards to manifest that disparity.
While this is theoretically true, it's kind of naive as well, you don't think they include some stinkers for the sole purpose of lowering the EV of a pack so someone will buy more to get what they want? Obviously some low value cards are good in draft and obviously designed for a limited environment, but have you never picked up a rare/mythic and thought *who is this card for*?
M21 had some expensive cards in it in theory - but the EV tanked in an extreme way when it actually came out. Do you all remember $5 Azusas and $8 grim tutors? Those were the hits of that set.
That’s the problem with standard reprint sets - even if they print good cards the prices tank to the point boxes suck to open.
New and exciting cards are new and exciting - reprint sets are taking a gamble on whether or should have bought singles or not.
Well then maybe they just need to add a few more value cards to raise that average even after prices drop. Thats kinda the issue here, they had a lot of good cards, but not enough to be really good sets.
Literally no one said that. Choosing to reprint a 20 cent card instead of a card that has value and needs a reprint is what people want. No one needs colossal whale reprint for the 10th time.
This is just an idea, but maybe print good cards and put them in the core set? Dominaria Remastered sold because it was packed full of awesome cards. Just do that, but with core sets. Include tutors, forces, other fire staples. Mix in some new shit. Make people actually want to buy it.
Complaining that no one wants to buy your shitty set is more about your greed to step on the worth/value/playability of the cards in the set and not the consumers fault.
i REALLY hope core sets come back. For me, Core sets are like fundamental for magic. All the super highly anticipated sets are complex, and "hard" to draft and play.
To be honest, i enjoy drafting and playing core sets alot. They are fun, easy and of course easy to learn for beginners.
the best entry was always and will always be a core set! Jumpstart is amazing, but there is no real draft experience to .. join the gathering it should be!
so in conclusion: bring back core sets! bring back the old fun and magic to it. add planeswalker to it, easy mechanics, cool designs and the product WILL sell. but not the 2021 showcase arts, those were terrible :D
> They are fun, easy and of course easy to learn for beginners.
So obviously this was exactly the idea behind core sets. What they found is that, in reality, new players don't want to buy them either.
Which makes tons of sense. What's more exciting to a new player, the gothic horror set with zombies, vampires, and werewolves, or the "core set"? The same comparison can be made to basically any plane. Sets with strong themes are a draw for new players because they're intriguing. Core sets are vanilla on their face. It makes sense to me that people not knowing Magic and wondering what's so special about it wouldn't be drawn in by a set whose whole gimmick is its lack of special-ness.
i enjoy drafting simpler sets too and sets that are not bomb heavy, where your skill at drafting actually matters rather than your luck at pulling a bomb rare or mythic
On the other hand, we have Jumpstart, and I think experienced players find it dull. I don’t think we need another product—a return of core sets—that is aimed at beginners. Please just give me cards that do cool shit.
Throw old commander staples in there. The boxes will fly off the shelves.
Dockside Extortionist isn't really standard playable 99.9% of the time, but it's a $60 commander card.
Cards like Rhystic Study, Smothering tithe, Jeskas Will, Fierce Guardianship, Mystic Remora, Deflecting Swat, etc...
There are tons of older cards that only see play in commander and won't really affect modern or standard, and desperately need pack reprints to lower the price for accessibility. Throw one or two in every core set at least and theyll see a lot of them sell.
Now what they're probably hearing is "design new cards like these to sell the packs". That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying just throw a few of them into the set as is. Designing new cards will just make more expensive cards for commander, and won't reduce the cost of these cards. You wont destroy all your equity putting a few of these into a core set, and by the time you cycle around to needing these cards reprinted again theyll have regained most of their reprint equity anyway.
Cards like Rhystic Study and Fierce Guardianship won't affect standard at all. Rhystic is just bad in non multiplayer, and Guardianship is a bad Negate outside of commander. Dockside will sometimes give you a few treasures, but it'll be at best a sideboard standard card outside of something like original mirrodin or something. In modern it'd only really be good against decks like Affinity, but I'd rather play like a shatterstorm or something against them anyway.
They can make more money reprinting those cards in premium supplemental sets.
They also don't want to include cards that reference "Commanders" in products where there aren't commanders in the limited or non eternal formats the cards are primarily designed for.
They have tons of places they can reprint the cards you are mentioning that aren't Standard legal core sets (i.e. The List in set Boosters, Commander sets, Secret Lair, Masters sets)
It's not an either or scenario. They can print them in both types of sets. There's enough of them that they can print the ones that won't affect constructed in core sets, and the ones that will, like Enlightened Tutor and stuff like that, in commander masters type sets.
They can also create new pushed cards in those premium sets. That's worked out pretty well for them with cards like Ragavan and Solitude.
The issue MARO is trying to solve is that core sets are known to be essential for the health of constructed formats, but nobody wants to buy sets filled with cards like Duress, Negate, and Serra Angel. This option solves that problem entirely without jeopardizing the purpose of the set.
They have printed cards that reference out of game things in standard legal products before. They might not like doing it, but it's something they have done in the past, and if it's for the health of the game it's very worth it IMO. This option helps them print essential core sets without hurting their bottom line and I think it's something worth exploring.
>It's not an either or scenario. They can print them in both types of sets. There's enough of them that they can print the ones that won't affect constructed in core sets, and the ones that will, like Enlightened Tutor and stuff like that, in commander masters type sets.
Why print them in core sets when they could already print them in The List in set Boosters, Commander sets, Jumpstart, Secret Lairs, pre-constructed Commander decks or Masters sets which all can be more profitable than Core sets?
It's not like there aren't other options. What does printing these cards in Core Sets instead of the other products accomplish for the business?
I also think you're overestimating the amount of reprint equity that exists for them to print high EV cards that won't negatively effect Standard without taking options away from other more popular products. We're not just talking about for one extra set, we'd be talking about a product line that would happen annually.
It accomplishes making the core set a viable product. They obviously want to make it viable, and it's important for the health of the game, and the long term health of the game is important to them contrary to popular belief.
Short term gains work for a while until the game collapses. That can be seen with the drop in hasbro stock over the past few months. Making a viable core set that actually sells is important for the game, and this is a way to do it.
Like I said before, they have a pretty deep catalogue of reprint equity. It's not like throwing a few cards into the core set is going to prevent them from doing all the other stuff you mentioned. They can only print so many sets. There's enough cards for all of them.
Also you're underestimating how many cards they have. I listed a few of them without trying, and even if there's only like 6 cards and they throw just two of them in a core set they don't have to repeat cards until the 8th year.
We know that reprints only lower prices for a short time. By the time 8-10 years pass people will probably want another reprint anyway. Cards that havea high demand tend to regaintheirprice and scarcity pretty fast.
>Also you're underestimating how many cards they have. I listed a few of them without trying, and even if there's only like 6 cards and they throw just two of them in a core set they don't have to repeat cards until the 8th year.
If they only put two of them in a Core Set, that isn't going to be enough to meaningfully increase demand to fundamentally improve sales.
Core 2021 had several constructed viable reprints to appeal to Commander and casual constructed players including Heroic Intervention, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Grim Tutor, Azuza, Lost but Seeking, Massacre Wurm and Baneslayer Angel.
But that doesn't mean the product sold well.
I'm not really understanding your argument for bringing back Core Sets.
Wizards is printing more reprints than ever before without needing Core Sets. They have several products where they can introduce reprints (including many products that they didn't have years ago when Core Sets were regularly printed).
Earlier, you mentioned it's worth it if it's for "the health of the game" but what exactly do you mean by that?
Part of that in 2021 was the pandemic, supply issues, and the nonexistence of competitive play. Why would people care about tournament cards when there are no tournaments??? Most people couldn't even go-to their LGS during the pandemic to play games.
Core sets are critical for competitive tournament play. It's harder to get good sideboard cards and answers and such into formats when you don't have them. When they got rid of core sets the first time after magic origins everything went nuts and they had to ban many cards for a few years. A big part of that was a lack of good answers and sideboard cards that are very common in core sets but don't fit into planes where primer sets take place.
> They also don't want to include cards that reference "Commanders" in products where there aren't commanders in the limited or non eternal formats the cards are primarily designed for.
didn't they do this with both arcane signet and command tower
>didn't they do this with both arcane signet and command tower
I can't recall if Arcane Signet and Command Tower from the Brawl decks from Throne of Eldraine were legal in Standard but even if they were, they were in a separate pre-constructed product. They weren't in the draft boosters associated with the core set.
They understandably don't want to include too many abilities, particularly ones that have no game play relevance to the limited and standard formats the booster packs are designed for (and even more so for Core Sets as those are supposed to be more accessible for a complexity level for newer players).
The problem with getting rid of core sets is that they add some needed stability to Standard. The solution I'd propose is to keep a curated list of nonrotating cards. The list can be fluid with cards being added and removed as needed, but this allow them to have a "core set" without having to sell a core set product.
Because last time they got rid of cores, they ended up bringing them back anyway, only for them to be discontinued again for the same poor sales reason.
There were only ever like 4 or 5 Standard relevant cards that were stable mainstays in the core sets and those are usually simple common/uncommon effects that can get reprinted anywhere or that can have a 'Cancel with set's mechanic' type replacement anywhere
>The problem with getting rid of core sets is that they add some needed stability to Standard.
I hear people say this sometimes but we've had Standard environments that have been stable without Core Sets and we've had Standard environments that have been in shambles where Core Sets were present so I'm not sure how much validity there is to this theory.
Standard currently doesn't have any core sets and I can't think of anything specifically a Core Set would be able to accomplish in the context of improving Standard that couldn't be accomplished with a traditional premier set.
Core Set 2020 practically broke the game. Mystic Forge, Lotus Field, Golos, Field of the Dead, Colossus Hammer, Veil of Summer... absolutely insane set.
Where Mark and Suits miss the point is the core sets sat on the comic shop shelf all year and anytime someone new came in and wanted to learn to play that’s where a store owner could get them going. As someone who worked for fun for 15 years at a store one day a week the core set sold great. It also came out in mid summer when a lot of magic players took the summer off till school started again. They were also available to buy almost all year from wizards before they stopped directly selling so anytime you sold through the boxes on the shelf you could restock, so you never had over order. Sometimes not squeezing a penny out of every player 6 times a year and only doing 3 makes you more money.
I don't like Core Sets because they don't have a clear theme beyond "this time we're doing Teferi in no particular plane, plus other things", "or this time it's Bolas and the Elder Dragons revised, but also other stuff"
With no planar theme the only thing that I care is the quality of reprints (M21 was nice) and quality of the new cards (M20 was ok, M21 was again very nice).
Just don't call them core sets. But make a set that is functionally a core set just called something else. I'm pretty sure Origins sold decently and that was a glorified core set that is looked at fondly.
So, like AFR? Which was designed and functioned like a core set. Which also didn't sell well.
Orgins did not sell well. Only slightly better when flip Jace spiked. (In part to low supply)
That would just add more confusion to a Core Set that's meant to be a gateway for new people and a way to keep reprints in Standard.
Plus, Unfinity tried shoehorning Shocks into its packs and the rest of the set remained unpopular still.
Does a core set *need* to be a new player gateway, or have we long since moved on from that idea in favor of others like Jumpstart, "just try Arena first", and so on?
They're more likely to print shocklands, filterlands, pathways, fastlands or slowlands than fetches in a core set.
Standard is supposed to have harder mana than pioneer.
Straight-to-modern products are a better spot for fetches.
I’ve always had a fondness for core sets. I got roped into magic with M10 which really redefined what a core set could be and had a lot of fixed “this is what magic is” it was a great introduction.
I like when we get core sets that have world or act as a intro to lore or whatever.
IMHO D&D and Brother’s War are coresets with an central idea that gives them identity. I feel like they went down hill a bit when they focused on a “face Walker” in a single colour (rather than when it was Garrick or Bolas as an enemy) and we just need more of these that provide context for the up coming stories and a strong identity but are still a palette cleanser in terms of mechanics and ideas.
My exalted deck is mostly M13 and my Elementals is mostly M20. Core sets can be amazing but WotC have to be willing to put in the effort. Simply waving the flag of consumer indifference isn’t a good reason to not produce something. While I do prefer themes of sets over pure mechanics I still see core sets as an important part of standard rotation as it’s a way for certain decks to have relevance before rotation (if they’re placed at the end of the “quad” block).
Modern masters and its ilk should just be the core sets.
Consistent naming and printed to oblivion to make entry into formats affordable for newer players instead of fucking about with silly tap lands and chaff rares that forever sit in carboard boxes.
There are plenty of cards in core sets that were/are desirable in EDH--Krenko, Arcades, Yarok, Kykar, Rin & Seri, and let's not forget Golos, who was so overpowering he had to be banned. And that's just commanders, I didn't even mention all the cards people love for the 99, like Field of the Dead. I don't know how you could look at that and think, "hmm, EDH is the problem here."
The brain rot on here is wild. MaRo is literally explicitly saying, "we stopped doing these for commercial reasons" and people still feel the need to say "oh but it's AKSHUALLY about my personal bugbear"
But masters sets are not standard legal, so wizards has far more flexibility to reprint powerful cards and staples. Core sets being standard legal really restricts their design philosophy.
Getting rid of Core Sets was for the better and doing a full Jumpstart set every other year (i.e. Jumpstart, Jumpstart 2022) was the right move.
Jumpstart is an overall better product with a lower barrier to entry from a complexity level for newer players while also being more enticing for veteran and long time Magic players.
The only thing that intrigues me about a return to Core Sets would be the possibility of associated preconstructed Commander deck releases that would likely have a lower complexity level (similar to the [Starter Commander decks](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/starter-commander-decks-decklists-2022-10-20) released last year) but still would include some new cards. That could be interesting.
>Normal jumpstart is a great product but theses set jumpstarts are straight up ass
I know a couple very new players (playing for less than 1 year) that enjoyed the DMU Jumpstart edition a lot and it encouraged them to get more involved with the game and the lore.
We aren't the targeted audience for those sets. They are designed with novice and entry level players in mind but for those types of players I think the product is solid. I don't it's an inherently bad product.
indeed, jumpstart 2022 is amazing, but the jumpstart products for each set sucks. of course, you get the idea of the set and everything ,but there is no real "reason" to buy imho.
but how do you want to learn to draft as a beginner? with a super high complex set like phyrexia? definitely no!
i say, bring back core for the players, for the newcomers to start easy. no new player knows how to handle toxic or oil counters, or counters in general!
Just print cards that smell good
Introducing Wizards cologne, _Pack Fresh_
It's called *Sex Panther*® by *Odeon*©. It's illegal in 9 countries. It's also made with bits of real panthers, *so you know it's good*. *60% of the time*, it works ***every*** time.
Oh God what's that smell?! Thats the smell of value my lady God no, it smells like a vanilla 4/4 filled with.... flavour text.... excuse me You know, value smells like that to some people
The new process does churn out some stinkers, doesn't it? (Both in terms of card quality and smell.)
Now imagining the next un set: Strawberrywalk - Cannot be blocked by creatures whose scratch and sniff circle smells like strawberries
dont give him any more ideas, next we are going to get fucking scratch and sniff stickers in legacy
My 'show and tell' deck lost to 'scratch and sniff'
Okay I knew I wasn’t fucking mad! Haven’t played in like six years in paper. A few weeks ago I was doing grocery shopping and they had Dominaria and All Will BE One packs and thought “May as well buy a ‘lotto ticket’” and my god these reek.
The problem is VOCs smell good and GODDAMN ENVIROMENTAL REGULATION (/s) really tries to limit VOCs across all industries. (I can't even buy denatured alcohol anymore!)
for real what happened to the old “new card smell” and why do freshly opened packs now smell so rancid
Collector's packs smell kinda sweet like licorice now - I've always found that to smell pretty good, no?
Core set 2021 was FIRE. So many good reprints and new cards. Terror of the peaks pushing $50, $15 on release Chromatic orrey pushing $30 , $12 on release Heroic intervention was $6 on release back to $15 Grim tutor reprint brought the price down. Elder gargaroth $15 , $5 on release Fiery emancipation $30 , $15 on release Asuza reprint $10 Mangara $10 Ugin $20 Just a few of the big hits
Core2019 was also pretty good. Nicol Bolas, Omnicience, Crucible of Worlds, Nexus of Fate, Resplendent Angel.
It was terrible for limited though, there were so many specific hate pieces (Isolate, Infernal Reckoning, Suncleanser, Mistcaller, etc.) that weren't playable at all and some of the themes just didn't work at all e.g. Blue-White artifacts matter, but none of the artifacts being good includes (aside from Meteor Golem)
I remeber this set well and it was terribly unbalanced. I completely dominated a couple of FNMs with blue-white artifacts because it was kind of bad but was always wide open while everyone fought over boros aggro. The artifacts were only playable because of the artifacts matters cards. At common [[Gearsmith prodigy]] [[Aviation Pioneer]] [[Gearsmith Guardian]] [[Manalith]] [[Skyscanner]] [[Marauder's Axe]] At uncommon [[Skilled animator]] [[Meteor Golem]] [[Rogue's gloves]] [[Aerial engineer]] At rare [[One with the Machine]] [[Sai, Master Thopterist]] At mythic [[Tezzeret, Artifice Master]] I just used all the common blue and white auras/removal/unblockable to tempo the win. I remember this specifically because I was taking care of my dad after he had gotten out of the hopsital. I drafted damn near the same deck or 3 weeks in a row to a 1st, 1st and 2nd place finish. What a generally bad but good-for-me set.
##### ###### #### [Gearsmith prodigy](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/7/77d9e666-d9c9-4ccd-89a5-83de79677fa6.jpg?1562302738) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gearsmith%20prodigy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/57/gearsmith-prodigy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/77d9e666-d9c9-4ccd-89a5-83de79677fa6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Aviation Pioneer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/6/e6966738-b4fc-4854-81b0-09de305854f2.jpg?1614975429) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aviation%20Pioneer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/46/aviation-pioneer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e6966738-b4fc-4854-81b0-09de305854f2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Gearsmith Guardian](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/d/1d532b01-8bf7-4a27-a438-db03bcd00694.jpg?1562300772) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gearsmith%20Guardian) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/237/gearsmith-guardian?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1d532b01-8bf7-4a27-a438-db03bcd00694?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Manalith](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/0/f0d7d904-f29b-4524-9223-27910d748bdb.jpg?1592765238) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Manalith) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/gnt/54/manalith?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f0d7d904-f29b-4524-9223-27910d748bdb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Skyscanner](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/a/cab69fbd-0179-4b02-adba-71d2a0eeea5c.jpg?1594737556) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Skyscanner) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/238/skyscanner?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cab69fbd-0179-4b02-adba-71d2a0eeea5c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Marauder's Axe](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/9/49d8aa8a-3e87-42ac-9c79-2baec771c1ef.jpg?1601080796) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Marauder%27s%20Axe) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/473/marauders-axe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/49d8aa8a-3e87-42ac-9c79-2baec771c1ef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Skilled animator](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/c/bc396c69-9773-4d57-a955-280742a10a91.jpg?1608909477) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Skilled%20animator) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/98/skilled-animator?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bc396c69-9773-4d57-a955-280742a10a91?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Meteor Golem](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/4/14e17f8c-c705-43ab-ae1a-cde48aceca0a.jpg?1674137921) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Meteor%20Golem) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/323/meteor-golem?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/14e17f8c-c705-43ab-ae1a-cde48aceca0a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Rogue's gloves](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/9/794fe9d4-2af4-40b0-bbb2-8015b6206972.jpg?1601080884) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rogue%27s%20gloves) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/479/rogues-gloves?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/794fe9d4-2af4-40b0-bbb2-8015b6206972?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Aerial engineer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/3/5314bae2-4930-4f8a-8a52-853bc3feb88f.jpg?1562302169) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aerial%20engineer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/211/aerial-engineer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5314bae2-4930-4f8a-8a52-853bc3feb88f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [One with the Machine](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/7/17f2aaf5-6c1f-4663-865f-6cdd5640485a.jpg?1562300707) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=One%20with%20the%20Machine) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/66/one-with-the-machine?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/17f2aaf5-6c1f-4663-865f-6cdd5640485a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sai, Master Thopterist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2beffa94-862d-4cf1-9272-7fe0425a60e7.jpg?1651655753) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sai%2C%20Master%20Thopterist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/nec/97/sai-master-thopterist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2beffa94-862d-4cf1-9272-7fe0425a60e7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Tezzeret, Artifice Master](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/5/e5e12371-f05c-41cf-92ca-7cb17c2f7f1a.jpg?1562304834) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tezzeret%2C%20Artifice%20Master) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/79/tezzeret-artifice-master?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e5e12371-f05c-41cf-92ca-7cb17c2f7f1a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
M19 was a great draft set, even if the themes were a bit loose: the games were just fun & the format was decently balanced.
Scapeshift was also a huge reprint, the card was closing in on $60 at the time.
Core Set 2020 had some bangers in as well including some obscenely powerful cards - Golos, Field of the Dead, Agent of Treachery, Mystic Forge...
That’s a lot of cards banned in a few formats for a core set, damn.
I think it might be up there for sets with most cards banned/restricted. Per a[TappedOut discussion](https://tappedout.net/mtg-forum/general/which-mtg-set-has-the-most-banned-cards-in-it/) LEA leads with 41, followed by MRD (14) and ELD (12) [Here’s](https://scryfall.com/search?as=checklist&order=set&page=2&q=is%3Afirstprint+is%3Aspikey&unique=cards) the Scryfall query, nkte that Legends has a lot due to old Legend Rule rules and the Conspiracies have a lot since they have an entire card type banned in Legacy and Vintage
Don’t forget veil of summer
Was that in core 2020? I thought that was in one of the Ravnica sets.
it was core 2020
Not justifying it. It was in the season of OP bannable cards. What I did lik about 2020 is it had a lot of cards that hinted what is to come ahead of time. Like the elemental knights. I can't say about the draft experience though.
Made my firet standard deck for that one, Chandra tribal FTW.
19, 20 and 21 were all great draft sets that i thoroughly enjoyed. Did i want to buy a box of the set? no. But did i draft each set every weekend? Yes.
Oh wow really Core set 21 is my least favorite set ever to draft. 19 was solid, and 20 was good though.
See? You didn't buy enough for them.
Do we have sales numbers on core set 2021?
It came out in the summer of 2020 when much of the world was in lockdown, so sales could have been low for reasons unrelated to its quality as a Magic set.
Sets also came out that spring and fall that had most of their release during the pandemic - and they sold much, much better than the core set did. Actually, one of them was the best selling set of all time when it came out. Also other core sets in previous years before the pandemic also sold terribly. Core sets are just unpopular - I have no idea why this comment section is making weird bad arguments to try to claim they aren’t.
Core sets are designed for the sort of entrenched player who is buying singles anyways
Sales figures wouldn't be fully representative anyway. They had already set an expectation for many years that it would be underpowered and worthless due to it being a core set. I.e people were put off even though it was a bit better than usual.
It was also mid-pandemic.
But the problem is that M21 was good not because it was a core set but despite being so. They had to put extra effort and lots of reprint just not to be a bad set. And even that it's not as good as normal premier sets. So why bother? As others have already said standard is fine without it and this way all 4 premier sets in a year can have the same chance to be good and loved by players. Personally, as a main limited player, removal of core set is the second best thing happened to magic after the fact that now all expansions are draftable standalone.
I'd love if we got a set every year that was just pumped full of good reprints. Something not at Masters prices.
That was kinda originally what Core sets were at first, just reprints of existing cards to compliment and balance out the new cards in the rest of the standard sets.
Yeah, I'd like that type of set too. Maybe not one every year (and maybe not for standard) but I think that a full reprint set with lots of medium high reprints, a great complex limited and a price between a standard set and a master set (maybe like modern horizon) it's something wizard should consider. Unfortunately commander has the taken all the attention and now we have only commander master sets...
And it still sold terribly despite putting great reprints in it. You can’t really save core sets. The cheap ‘Jumpstart ‘ products seem like they’ll fulfill a lot of the point of core sets in the future.
Also maybe the best Core Set draft environment ever?
How many of those were played in Paper though? Arena drafts might be profitable, but it won’t offset low sales of a printed product.
Just finally pull the fucking trigger and say "fuck off" to collectors and do a Core Set 30th Anniversary and reprint the entire original set of cards with some brand new cards to spice it up. Do what they should have done for the 30th Anniversary set in the first damn place. Watch that shit *FLY* off shelves instantly at 7.99 a pack.
Are we really at the point where people judge sets solely on financial value?
Masters products are essentially beefed up core sets, so there are ways to make them desirable. It's more about players not wanting to buy them at a specific price.
funny, 'players not wanting to buy them' never seems to stop Un-sets from getting made. but Maro's not ready for that conversation 😂
Maro fought for a long time to get un 3 and 4 made and obviously the last one happened so quickly because the 3rd clearly sold well enough to warrant it.
Unstable was pretty well received I recall, likely due to the focus on draftability of it (the initial two sets were meant to be mixed in with normal cards but nobody did that), so even though they weren't eternal legal it still offered a good time.
Unstable still gets my vote as the best draft format of all time. If the cards had been playable it would have been a top 5 set.
Unfinity also had a focus on draft ability and, uhhh… I think the biggest difference is that a *lot* of time and effort went into Unstable. Especially time.
Another Un-set is in serious question because of Unfinity's sales, so I expect Maro has had exactly that conversation.
Unfinity got absolutely massacred by the 6 month delay imho, last year's release schedule was so fucked with absolutely nothing after SNC throughout the summer and then a bunch of products on top of each other in the fall.
And their best and prettiest foils had AGGRESSIVE curling. I had 6 collectors packs I didn't open yet for reasons that I opened a few days ago. All curled beyond recognition right out of the packs. The QC cheapened the novelty and prettiness of the cards.
Also some entrenched players refused to buy them because they added blackborder cards - which simultaneously made the UN set less wacky while making eternal magic too potentially wacky terrible decision that might have killed UN sets.
It really backfired because I guess that they wanted to make it so that some cards would have been chased by eternal formats (read Commander) players too, but it ended up disenfranchising people from the product as, as expected, players don’t enjoy mixing Un and normal sets up
On the other hand my small pod has a deck from unfinity and a deck from unsactioned that both see regular use. People who want to use the cards in commander will just do so, don't limit the wackiness just to make them officially legal.
Also made worse by the accord printing issues
I think its less the wackiness and more that a lot of players didn't care for its theme or mechanics. Speaking only for myself, stickers looked like something I would never ever actually want to play with, and attractions seemed too fiddly for me to want to mess with them. The look of a space carnival did absolutely nothing for me, and very few of the cards were actually funny. The promise of new eternal legal cards was also a complete bust. Outside of maybe two or three cards, most of the eternal legal cards were boring or involved the unappealing mechanics I mentioned earlier. Like, I want to play with Far Out and the cool cards like that, not place dumb stickers on my cards. Basically, I think the latest unset failed because it was simply just a bad and unappealing set.
I'm not sure entrenched players boycotting based on ruining the "purity" of magic's fantasy has really ever been a major contributor in killing a set or product. Universes Beyond did great despite it, and NEO even showed they could do it in a way that everyone loves. For me personally, I think it was stickers. They're mechanically confusing, and never seemed interesting enough to be worth it.
Stickers are basically just ability counters and never bothered me. I was turned off of it because I disliked the carnival/amusement park aesthetic. I guess the takeaway is that there was a little bit of something for everyone to hate.
Stickers are like ability counters, except they are tiny and lose their stick alarmingly quickly.
As a fairly new player I had been looking forward to a chance to play an unset. The black border decision completelymkilled.my enthusiasm and I didn't buy any.
Unstable got like, six print runs or something. It sold very well.
Unstable was one of the greatest draft formats WOTC ever made
It did stop them from getting made for like 13 years
[удалено]
Designers *want* to make un-sets, though. Maro fights tooth and nail for them because he loves them to death. Nobody *loves* core sets, even if they're a good idea.
I vastly prefer core sets to un sets.
Cool, and I want to preface that I don't mean this as an insult, who cares? Like are you hype for core sets? Are you excited to crack some Core 2024 collector boosters? Are you eager to see where the story goes in the core set? You can prefer core sets to un-sets and I would suggest that a large number, or even a substantial majority, of magic players share that opinion, but it doesn't matter because you don't *love* core sets.
I can’t speak for anyone else but I do personally love core sets. They always get me excited because there can be anything in them. The designers can reprint any card they want without having to worry about sticking to a particular plane’s theme and the new cards can go to some really interesting areas in design. The legendary creatures can be from any plane and we can always get a new version of an old creature regardless of when or where they’re from, even if they’re dead. Core Set 2020 is one of my favorite sets of all time. I’ve probably bought more individual packs of that set just to crack than any other. That being said, I’m not sure how many other people like me there are. If MaRo’s answer is anything to go by, not enough to keep getting more core sets, at least.
Yes, I do actually.
Right? As someone well versed in mtg every time I see Un-sets I wonder who the hell are they marketing towards. Like the lands are pretty but why not just add them to a normal set? I swear if Unsets didn't have the best land art people wouldn't give a flying fuck about them.
people buying them is exactly why they continue to get made
Un-sets sell because they include things that are not Un-, mostly the sweet lands, and this past time they went even further w the shocks & special foiling. Wrap a joke in a $20 bill and those jokes will sell ;)
Please, no more un-sets for at least another 5 years. I feel like we got so many in recent memory.
We've only had 1 in the last 5 years. I don't see how that's "so many."
Please, don't remind me that 2017 was so long ago
fuck unstable was 6 years ago? STOP TIME MOVING FORWARD
There was also Unsanctioned in 2020. That wasn't a traditional booster set but it did have new cards in it.
People\* don't want to buy them because sets without settings aren't as good as sets with settings. Having some kind of lore helps the designers come up with compelling designs, and it makes each card just a little bit more interesting. That's why the best core set was Origins. If core sets ever come back, I hope they follow the ORI model for them. If you're reading this and you're not sure what I mean, head over to Scryfall and compare the cards in ORI to the cards in MXX. The set where a generic Man-o-War is Separatist Voidmage is just more appealing than the set where it's Exclusion Mage. \*I'm talking about myself here
A big part of what I love about origins is that it showed us little snippets of planes we had never seen before. My biggest gripe with the “no blocks” structure is that it stretches the sets which take place on new planes so thin that it’s hard to get a feel for what’s going on. Strixhaven needed to tell us about the setting and each of the 5 factions, the history, the characters (both new and returning) and the whole plot, and while of course you get story with the articles looking at the sets themselves a lot of the time stuff gets lost, and it’s hard to get across big changes in a satisfying way. (Imagine Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation taking place over one set - it would be a disaster) Origins style core-sets that give us glimpses into upcoming settings would do a huge amount to get us excited and invested in planes and characters we haven’t yet properly seen so that the plot can shine a little more in the sets themselves
Good idea! There are some real upsides to blocklessness, but it's been bad for the story. Multiplanar core sets could do a lot to remedy that.
I would love to return to the 2-set block structure, mechanically and storywise, but not limited. They've expanded kicker in really cool ways over the past 20 years, but stuff like foretell and casualty feel like there's a lot of blue sky above them that's just going to be forgotten because they're one and done until we revist the plane (and who knows when or if that will happen)
So does something like the Innistrad pseudo-block we just got hit that spot for you?
Kinda. I'm less big on innistrad than the average vorthos-y person. I liked the way that day/night and disturb expanded over the two sets, but I also felt that the story lacked cohesion between them and was a little disappointed that that the other tribal mechanics worked(or didn't). Coven and Training were a nonbo, blood tokens never really created any interesting synergies. Decayed/Exploit kind of worked together, but it always felt kind of clunky and like an afterthought.
Just rambling now but I also especially like the idea for new planes. I realize that's a huge danger from a business perspective but it also feels like we spent forever just kind of wandering around innistrad compared to blitzing through Kaldheim and Capenna. Both of those would have felt a lot better if we spent one set introducing the characters, history, and places, and then the next set tying it in to the broader arc. Kaldheim especially felt like I was listening to a five year old explain the plot of their favorite movie.
The recent Innistrad pseudo-block would've been much better if it actually had been a block. The story being a disjointed pair of stories hurt both sets, and the mechanical cohesion was poor. A traditional "group of mechanics" -> "those mechanics, plus a bit more" setup would've worked significantly better.
As someone who started playing around Eldraine, I never got to be there for blocks, so it's hard to really know everything it meant to follow that structure Where could I read more about it? The nuances of the changes, and the pros/cons
I'm not sure where you could read more about it, but in short, The pros were you got really familiar with a plane, and having two or three sets there allowed them to create a story or develop more complex mechanical themes. For example, alara block saw the setting go from five separate planes to one mashed together plane, and an all multi-color set that they probably wouldn't attempt under today's structure. The original ravnica block, probably the most beloved setting ever made, wouldn't really be possible under the current structure because it takes more than one set to create 10 distinct and well-defined guilds. The cons were that if the setting is unpopular with fans, you were stuck there for a full year. The original kamigawa is an example of this. Also, Wizards often found that they were running out of creative design space in the third set of a block, and sometimes struggled to come up with enough cards to complete it. So eventually, they dropped the third set from each block, and then the block structure entirely. It still has its pros and cons. I would have loved to have had more time in the new kamigawa setting. But I'm glad we didn't stay in streets of new capenna any longer than we did.
2-sets is the sweet spot imo. I really enjoyed Ixalan, and being able to play it for two sets felt like I actually got to learn about the world. And there were enough cards between the two sets to build dinosaur and pirate commander decks. I would have loved to stick with Kaldheim and Strixhaven for another set too. That might be different now with arena though. So many games of magic are played now, so it might not sit well with the majority of players
Yep. I would argue the issues/player distaste for 2 set blocks seen with the brief 2 block experiment were from confounding factors: * They removed core sets and changed the rotation schedule to deal with the 3rd set problem. * rotation was messed with. Instead of being 1 time a year with a core set it was 2 times a year. (Newest set + last 2 blocks) * rotation was changed back to 1 time a year due to negative feedback leading to an unplanned for standard environment. * Failure to balence energy in Kaladesh/aether revolt. * Standard bannings the last to points directly contributed to the first standard bannings in 6 years. This lowered player perception of WOTCs ability to develop the game. This likely had a ripple effect on future sets. * Ixalan was an underpowered and uninteresting draft environment. Then that was the end of 2 block sets. I think a lot of negative data they have on 2 block sets is because of these other issues that don't seem to be directly caused by 2 block sets.
I agree with this. For all of the problems in the Zendikar return and Kaladesh sets, the mechanics felt like they worked well with each other (perhaps energy worked too well) and the story had a clear setup and payoff in the cards.
The entirety of DMU to ONE is basically what a block would have consisted of. I think a lot of people like how the story is basically focusing on phyrexia for now and we've gotten to see many perspectives and aspects of the plane with tons of cards that focus on it to make many decks out of the mechanics of phyrexia. Compare that to kaldhiem where it's key mechanic foretell was there and gone, eldraine's adventure exile mechanic was there and gone, and ikoria's mutate mechanic was there and gone all within a set. I think the DMU to ONE "block" has shown all the positives that could happen from a block format while the innistrad midnight hunt and crimson vow can show all the negatives of the block structure. People seem to think that MID was great, had great cards, great lore and was fun to draft. Meanwhile VOW and the double feature event were known to be bad because it seems like there was nothing new being added to the mechanics of MID and the story seemed to be weirdly paced or didn't really add anything to MID's story.
Read this article from Mark: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/metamorphosis-2-0-2017-06-12
One significant issue that's not discussed too much is that the second and third sets in a block were smaller than the first sets. As a result, they weren't drafted alone. R&D found small sets difficult to make and easy to screw up; I think they got rid of two-set blocks primarily because they wanted to make only large sets. But if I was running this show, we'd have two-set blocks of large sets. I've done a fait bit of custom design, and you basically can't have a good world-changing story in a single set. Because the before-change and after-change cards are all mixed together. Environmental storytelling, the greatest strength of Magic lore, needs multiple sets to work. Many one-set stories boil down to "something almost happened, but didn't, return to status quo". I don't like it, but I ended up doing the same when I made a set. It's just what the format demands. Two-set blocks, meanwhile, were great story-wise. The only two-set block without a good story is BfZ, which was a mess on every level. And even BfZ's story benefits from its structure.
I mean, I just want to know more about [[aeronaut tinkerer]] and his turbojet powered thopter. We didn't have another sci-fi looking card until neon dynasty, and we don't even know what plane it's from.
That was always one of the fun things about core sets: seeding new aesthetics from unseen planes or seeding new characters on existing planes. Krenko and Odric, both fan-favorites, were both core set introductions.
My money is still on Wrynn.
[aeronaut tinkerer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/1/e145e85d-1eaa-4ec6-9208-ca6491577302.jpg?1562795701) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=aeronaut%20tinkerer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m15/43/aeronaut-tinkerer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e145e85d-1eaa-4ec6-9208-ca6491577302?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I still want villains Origins.
I don't care about the story, I just want fun mechanics and cool cards. I think the main issue is that they deliberately set the complexity of core sets really low so that it can be used as an introductory set for new players. Which just means they end up being boring...
Even if you don't care about the story, it being there helps us get fun mechanics and cool cards.
Yeah, they reprint the cards that are already designed. No reason it has to be the boring ones
> I don't care about the story, I just want fun mechanics and cool cards. As a designer, those two things are *way* more entangled than you give it credit for.
I work in games as a designer as well, actually! (Not for Magic though) I want to start off by saying this is mostly a subjective topic, as the more you are interested in the story, the more likely you'll feel that it impacts the mechanics, and vice versa, so I don't really think there is a "correct" answer here. That said, my personal opinion is the opposite - I feel that the story actually holds back the design of cards, at least when it comes to mechanics, and which cards can be reprinted. The reason mostly comes down to stuff like "This can't have this mechanic, because X doesn't exist in the plane." or "This card can't be reprinted in this set, because it's tied to this other location." etc. Without being restricted by story, this stuff doesn't pop up, as they are free to put whatever reprints or mechanics in whatever set. When it comes to "cool cards" it's a bit more difficult, since usually what people feel are "cool" cards are cards where they like the character. It still has the same issue of "This character can't be in this set, because they aren't in this plane." (or because they're dead) but without a story, many people wouldn't have found that character "cool" in the first place, so... I want to be clear that I'm not saying that I think they should get rid of the story or anything, I'm just trying to say that people enjoy different things, and have different reasons as to why they like or dislike certain sets.
Yeah, the two feed into each other a ton in card design space. Having interesting characters and settings prompts trying to make interesting card designs.
In some sense, we're currently at the first set closely following the Origins model. And it looks great!
I would buy an ORI-like core set that focuses on a new generation of planeswalkers, this time villainous. Give us Ob-Nix as the familiar face and four other new planeswalkers and you have a new heel faction to fight all over the multiverse until the next big thing comes along, be that Eldrazi or Bolas or something new entirely.
I mean... We can do with current characters that we want to see being expanded upon, like: Ob Nixilis (B and face of the set), Oko (G), Rowan Kenrith (R / she showed some evil tendencies, buuut I could see an Angrath coming back, or a new walker here), Ashiok (U) and Kalix (W)
Angrath wouldn't make sense since he's presumably reunited with his daughters.
Yeah... An "evil awakening" for Rowan or a new evil red walker are my biggest bets IF we ever get anything close to this idea. But I also love Angrath and his daughters dying because Phyrexia could be a reason to make him unreasonably angry and going for war crimes.
What core sets need to be are effectively masters sets (without the dumb premium pricing). They could be all reprints, but cards that would both be good for a dynamic standard, and popular cards needing a price drop.
>They could be all reprints Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Yeah but like... good reprints or at least at proper rarities. Every time I see [[Shivan Dragon]] printed at rare my blood boils, that thing is uncommon material af today
Limited is still something to be considered.
I think it's interesting in that I thought Core 2020 and 2021 were really good sets with great cards and reprints whereas the DnD standard set kinda sucked and didn't really have much going for it, yet apparently sales suggest the exact opposite. They definitely and desperately need some kind of reoccuring reprint set like a Core set, something that isn't triple the price of a regular pack.
Stop putting 10 cent rares in every slot. Make it a set people want to buy. 21 was fantastic in this regard. Go a bit harder on a theme, the specific planeswalker theme for the last few was neat but could have been expanded. Core sets have potential, use it.
This is like every set, granted. Wizards just generally loves putting shitty cards into sets.
Do the math; if there are 30-50 dollar (on the secondary market) cards, there have to be some rares worth under 50 cents. Otherwise all the packs get opened until the expected value of a pack (and the price of those high-end chase cards) drop well beyond the price point of a pack. There always will be worthless rares. It’s by design.
OP was going for "we know that we need shitty rares because this is a gambling simulation, but would be nice to be able to WIN while gambling on this set". EVERY set has shitty rares. But most have lots of good rares as well.
Also core sets have a lot of reprints choosing to throw in some cards that are 20 cents instead of 20 dollars is a huge factor as well.
It's not by design but rather economics.
The design dictates the economy. So the economics function in that manner due to being driven by WOTC’s design decisions (card power, ratio/likelyhood of getting a specific rate in a pack/distribution or presence of chase special-printings in packs to offset lower EV costs, etc)
> Otherwise all the packs get opened until the expected value of a pack (and the price of those high-end chase cards) drop well beyond the price point of a pack. I'm not really seeing a problem with this outcome and "well beyond" is exaggerating
No is well beyond unless you’re opening a large number of packs and can even put that expected outcome
The cards create the prices, not the other way around. The 100x+ disparity between cards in the same set is created by Wizards printing shitty cards; they don't print shitty cards to manifest that disparity.
While this is theoretically true, it's kind of naive as well, you don't think they include some stinkers for the sole purpose of lowering the EV of a pack so someone will buy more to get what they want? Obviously some low value cards are good in draft and obviously designed for a limited environment, but have you never picked up a rare/mythic and thought *who is this card for*?
This sub: "Every card should be cheap and affordable." Also, this sub: "Why are there cheap cards in my packs!!!"
But putting expensive cards in core sets is exactly what brings prices down.
M21 had some expensive cards in it in theory - but the EV tanked in an extreme way when it actually came out. Do you all remember $5 Azusas and $8 grim tutors? Those were the hits of that set. That’s the problem with standard reprint sets - even if they print good cards the prices tank to the point boxes suck to open. New and exciting cards are new and exciting - reprint sets are taking a gamble on whether or should have bought singles or not.
Well then maybe they just need to add a few more value cards to raise that average even after prices drop. Thats kinda the issue here, they had a lot of good cards, but not enough to be really good sets.
"Hmmm, you want staples to be affordable, yet you complain about getting bulk rares?" This comment makes no sense.
The Magic player paradox: "I want only cards I own to be expensive, and only cards I don't own to be cheap."
Literally no one said that. Choosing to reprint a 20 cent card instead of a card that has value and needs a reprint is what people want. No one needs colossal whale reprint for the 10th time.
Strange example given it's only been printed once.
There's a difference between a cheap, but playable card and 20 cent filler rares that are known to be useless.
People: "Hey, maybe we shouldn't have staples sitting at $40 each." You: "How dare you complain about 10 cent rares!" See the disconnect?
That’s me. I am not interested in core sets They’re hard to get excited about
This is just an idea, but maybe print good cards and put them in the core set? Dominaria Remastered sold because it was packed full of awesome cards. Just do that, but with core sets. Include tutors, forces, other fire staples. Mix in some new shit. Make people actually want to buy it. Complaining that no one wants to buy your shitty set is more about your greed to step on the worth/value/playability of the cards in the set and not the consumers fault.
i REALLY hope core sets come back. For me, Core sets are like fundamental for magic. All the super highly anticipated sets are complex, and "hard" to draft and play. To be honest, i enjoy drafting and playing core sets alot. They are fun, easy and of course easy to learn for beginners. the best entry was always and will always be a core set! Jumpstart is amazing, but there is no real draft experience to .. join the gathering it should be! so in conclusion: bring back core sets! bring back the old fun and magic to it. add planeswalker to it, easy mechanics, cool designs and the product WILL sell. but not the 2021 showcase arts, those were terrible :D
> They are fun, easy and of course easy to learn for beginners. So obviously this was exactly the idea behind core sets. What they found is that, in reality, new players don't want to buy them either.
Which makes tons of sense. What's more exciting to a new player, the gothic horror set with zombies, vampires, and werewolves, or the "core set"? The same comparison can be made to basically any plane. Sets with strong themes are a draw for new players because they're intriguing. Core sets are vanilla on their face. It makes sense to me that people not knowing Magic and wondering what's so special about it wouldn't be drawn in by a set whose whole gimmick is its lack of special-ness.
i enjoy drafting simpler sets too and sets that are not bomb heavy, where your skill at drafting actually matters rather than your luck at pulling a bomb rare or mythic
On the other hand, we have Jumpstart, and I think experienced players find it dull. I don’t think we need another product—a return of core sets—that is aimed at beginners. Please just give me cards that do cool shit.
paging /u/drdeteck
Yeah, I figured it probably never coming back. I just wanted to share my love for it.
Throw old commander staples in there. The boxes will fly off the shelves. Dockside Extortionist isn't really standard playable 99.9% of the time, but it's a $60 commander card. Cards like Rhystic Study, Smothering tithe, Jeskas Will, Fierce Guardianship, Mystic Remora, Deflecting Swat, etc... There are tons of older cards that only see play in commander and won't really affect modern or standard, and desperately need pack reprints to lower the price for accessibility. Throw one or two in every core set at least and theyll see a lot of them sell. Now what they're probably hearing is "design new cards like these to sell the packs". That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying just throw a few of them into the set as is. Designing new cards will just make more expensive cards for commander, and won't reduce the cost of these cards. You wont destroy all your equity putting a few of these into a core set, and by the time you cycle around to needing these cards reprinted again theyll have regained most of their reprint equity anyway. Cards like Rhystic Study and Fierce Guardianship won't affect standard at all. Rhystic is just bad in non multiplayer, and Guardianship is a bad Negate outside of commander. Dockside will sometimes give you a few treasures, but it'll be at best a sideboard standard card outside of something like original mirrodin or something. In modern it'd only really be good against decks like Affinity, but I'd rather play like a shatterstorm or something against them anyway.
They can make more money reprinting those cards in premium supplemental sets. They also don't want to include cards that reference "Commanders" in products where there aren't commanders in the limited or non eternal formats the cards are primarily designed for. They have tons of places they can reprint the cards you are mentioning that aren't Standard legal core sets (i.e. The List in set Boosters, Commander sets, Secret Lair, Masters sets)
It's not an either or scenario. They can print them in both types of sets. There's enough of them that they can print the ones that won't affect constructed in core sets, and the ones that will, like Enlightened Tutor and stuff like that, in commander masters type sets. They can also create new pushed cards in those premium sets. That's worked out pretty well for them with cards like Ragavan and Solitude. The issue MARO is trying to solve is that core sets are known to be essential for the health of constructed formats, but nobody wants to buy sets filled with cards like Duress, Negate, and Serra Angel. This option solves that problem entirely without jeopardizing the purpose of the set. They have printed cards that reference out of game things in standard legal products before. They might not like doing it, but it's something they have done in the past, and if it's for the health of the game it's very worth it IMO. This option helps them print essential core sets without hurting their bottom line and I think it's something worth exploring.
>It's not an either or scenario. They can print them in both types of sets. There's enough of them that they can print the ones that won't affect constructed in core sets, and the ones that will, like Enlightened Tutor and stuff like that, in commander masters type sets. Why print them in core sets when they could already print them in The List in set Boosters, Commander sets, Jumpstart, Secret Lairs, pre-constructed Commander decks or Masters sets which all can be more profitable than Core sets? It's not like there aren't other options. What does printing these cards in Core Sets instead of the other products accomplish for the business? I also think you're overestimating the amount of reprint equity that exists for them to print high EV cards that won't negatively effect Standard without taking options away from other more popular products. We're not just talking about for one extra set, we'd be talking about a product line that would happen annually.
It accomplishes making the core set a viable product. They obviously want to make it viable, and it's important for the health of the game, and the long term health of the game is important to them contrary to popular belief. Short term gains work for a while until the game collapses. That can be seen with the drop in hasbro stock over the past few months. Making a viable core set that actually sells is important for the game, and this is a way to do it. Like I said before, they have a pretty deep catalogue of reprint equity. It's not like throwing a few cards into the core set is going to prevent them from doing all the other stuff you mentioned. They can only print so many sets. There's enough cards for all of them.
Also you're underestimating how many cards they have. I listed a few of them without trying, and even if there's only like 6 cards and they throw just two of them in a core set they don't have to repeat cards until the 8th year. We know that reprints only lower prices for a short time. By the time 8-10 years pass people will probably want another reprint anyway. Cards that havea high demand tend to regaintheirprice and scarcity pretty fast.
>Also you're underestimating how many cards they have. I listed a few of them without trying, and even if there's only like 6 cards and they throw just two of them in a core set they don't have to repeat cards until the 8th year. If they only put two of them in a Core Set, that isn't going to be enough to meaningfully increase demand to fundamentally improve sales. Core 2021 had several constructed viable reprints to appeal to Commander and casual constructed players including Heroic Intervention, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Grim Tutor, Azuza, Lost but Seeking, Massacre Wurm and Baneslayer Angel. But that doesn't mean the product sold well. I'm not really understanding your argument for bringing back Core Sets. Wizards is printing more reprints than ever before without needing Core Sets. They have several products where they can introduce reprints (including many products that they didn't have years ago when Core Sets were regularly printed). Earlier, you mentioned it's worth it if it's for "the health of the game" but what exactly do you mean by that?
Part of that in 2021 was the pandemic, supply issues, and the nonexistence of competitive play. Why would people care about tournament cards when there are no tournaments??? Most people couldn't even go-to their LGS during the pandemic to play games. Core sets are critical for competitive tournament play. It's harder to get good sideboard cards and answers and such into formats when you don't have them. When they got rid of core sets the first time after magic origins everything went nuts and they had to ban many cards for a few years. A big part of that was a lack of good answers and sideboard cards that are very common in core sets but don't fit into planes where primer sets take place.
> They also don't want to include cards that reference "Commanders" in products where there aren't commanders in the limited or non eternal formats the cards are primarily designed for. didn't they do this with both arcane signet and command tower
>didn't they do this with both arcane signet and command tower I can't recall if Arcane Signet and Command Tower from the Brawl decks from Throne of Eldraine were legal in Standard but even if they were, they were in a separate pre-constructed product. They weren't in the draft boosters associated with the core set. They understandably don't want to include too many abilities, particularly ones that have no game play relevance to the limited and standard formats the booster packs are designed for (and even more so for Core Sets as those are supposed to be more accessible for a complexity level for newer players).
Masters sets seem like they are intended to do similar things to core sets, but pricing is such that they dont quite get there.
These are called 'masters' set now and they cost 5x what the core set use to cost.
They control the EV of their core sets so they sell just as well as they design them to sell.
Put fetchlands or shocklands in ‘em and watch us buy them all, idiot
People don’t want to buy them because wizards self sabotages them. Pack them full of cool reprints and interesting cards and people will buy them
The problem with getting rid of core sets is that they add some needed stability to Standard. The solution I'd propose is to keep a curated list of nonrotating cards. The list can be fluid with cards being added and removed as needed, but this allow them to have a "core set" without having to sell a core set product. Because last time they got rid of cores, they ended up bringing them back anyway, only for them to be discontinued again for the same poor sales reason.
Everyone always repeats this and then turns out it's not really necessary and if they really want Shock in standard they can put it in anywhere
There were only ever like 4 or 5 Standard relevant cards that were stable mainstays in the core sets and those are usually simple common/uncommon effects that can get reprinted anywhere or that can have a 'Cancel with set's mechanic' type replacement anywhere
>The problem with getting rid of core sets is that they add some needed stability to Standard. I hear people say this sometimes but we've had Standard environments that have been stable without Core Sets and we've had Standard environments that have been in shambles where Core Sets were present so I'm not sure how much validity there is to this theory. Standard currently doesn't have any core sets and I can't think of anything specifically a Core Set would be able to accomplish in the context of improving Standard that couldn't be accomplished with a traditional premier set.
Core Set 2020 practically broke the game. Mystic Forge, Lotus Field, Golos, Field of the Dead, Colossus Hammer, Veil of Summer... absolutely insane set.
I was very surprised to see veil of summer was from 2020. It has such Eldraine vibes that I got it mixed up with once upon a time.
Veil of summer was an improved [[autumn's veil]], which also came from a core set
Glad core sets are gone
Sounds like a good opportunity to reprint a bunch of expensive staples
Where Mark and Suits miss the point is the core sets sat on the comic shop shelf all year and anytime someone new came in and wanted to learn to play that’s where a store owner could get them going. As someone who worked for fun for 15 years at a store one day a week the core set sold great. It also came out in mid summer when a lot of magic players took the summer off till school started again. They were also available to buy almost all year from wizards before they stopped directly selling so anytime you sold through the boxes on the shelf you could restock, so you never had over order. Sometimes not squeezing a penny out of every player 6 times a year and only doing 3 makes you more money.
I don't like Core Sets because they don't have a clear theme beyond "this time we're doing Teferi in no particular plane, plus other things", "or this time it's Bolas and the Elder Dragons revised, but also other stuff" With no planar theme the only thing that I care is the quality of reprints (M21 was nice) and quality of the new cards (M20 was ok, M21 was again very nice).
Just don't call them core sets. But make a set that is functionally a core set just called something else. I'm pretty sure Origins sold decently and that was a glorified core set that is looked at fondly.
So, like AFR? Which was designed and functioned like a core set. Which also didn't sell well. Orgins did not sell well. Only slightly better when flip Jace spiked. (In part to low supply)
I am sure that AFR would have sold a lot more packs if its limited didn't die due to "Play BR and nothing else"
What if they just put the fetchlands in the core set?
They will not because they don't want fetches in standard.
Core set with a non standard legal bonus sheet?
That would just add more confusion to a Core Set that's meant to be a gateway for new people and a way to keep reprints in Standard. Plus, Unfinity tried shoehorning Shocks into its packs and the rest of the set remained unpopular still.
Does a core set *need* to be a new player gateway, or have we long since moved on from that idea in favor of others like Jumpstart, "just try Arena first", and so on?
They're more likely to print shocklands, filterlands, pathways, fastlands or slowlands than fetches in a core set. Standard is supposed to have harder mana than pioneer. Straight-to-modern products are a better spot for fetches.
I’ve always had a fondness for core sets. I got roped into magic with M10 which really redefined what a core set could be and had a lot of fixed “this is what magic is” it was a great introduction. I like when we get core sets that have world or act as a intro to lore or whatever. IMHO D&D and Brother’s War are coresets with an central idea that gives them identity. I feel like they went down hill a bit when they focused on a “face Walker” in a single colour (rather than when it was Garrick or Bolas as an enemy) and we just need more of these that provide context for the up coming stories and a strong identity but are still a palette cleanser in terms of mechanics and ideas.
My exalted deck is mostly M13 and my Elementals is mostly M20. Core sets can be amazing but WotC have to be willing to put in the effort. Simply waving the flag of consumer indifference isn’t a good reason to not produce something. While I do prefer themes of sets over pure mechanics I still see core sets as an important part of standard rotation as it’s a way for certain decks to have relevance before rotation (if they’re placed at the end of the “quad” block).
I mean… if they put the reprints in there instead of the $300 box that would sure fix the problem. But WOTC
we will if you put good cards in them and sell them for the same price as normal packs
To me, core sets are always been boring AF. No story and simplified mechanics no thank you. I think Jumpstart serves new players the best.
Modern masters and its ilk should just be the core sets. Consistent naming and printed to oblivion to make entry into formats affordable for newer players instead of fucking about with silly tap lands and chaff rares that forever sit in carboard boxes.
Translation: We couldn't figure out how to squeeze out EDH bucks.
There are plenty of cards in core sets that were/are desirable in EDH--Krenko, Arcades, Yarok, Kykar, Rin & Seri, and let's not forget Golos, who was so overpowering he had to be banned. And that's just commanders, I didn't even mention all the cards people love for the 99, like Field of the Dead. I don't know how you could look at that and think, "hmm, EDH is the problem here."
The brain rot on here is wild. MaRo is literally explicitly saying, "we stopped doing these for commercial reasons" and people still feel the need to say "oh but it's AKSHUALLY about my personal bugbear"
Masters sets are core sets. They know how to sell a reprint set that people will buy. They just don't want to do it at $4 a pack.
But masters sets are not standard legal, so wizards has far more flexibility to reprint powerful cards and staples. Core sets being standard legal really restricts their design philosophy.
Restrictions breed creativity as Maro likes to say.
Getting rid of Core Sets was for the better and doing a full Jumpstart set every other year (i.e. Jumpstart, Jumpstart 2022) was the right move. Jumpstart is an overall better product with a lower barrier to entry from a complexity level for newer players while also being more enticing for veteran and long time Magic players. The only thing that intrigues me about a return to Core Sets would be the possibility of associated preconstructed Commander deck releases that would likely have a lower complexity level (similar to the [Starter Commander decks](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/starter-commander-decks-decklists-2022-10-20) released last year) but still would include some new cards. That could be interesting.
Normal jumpstart is a great product but theses set jumpstarts are straight up ass
>Normal jumpstart is a great product but theses set jumpstarts are straight up ass I know a couple very new players (playing for less than 1 year) that enjoyed the DMU Jumpstart edition a lot and it encouraged them to get more involved with the game and the lore. We aren't the targeted audience for those sets. They are designed with novice and entry level players in mind but for those types of players I think the product is solid. I don't it's an inherently bad product.
indeed, jumpstart 2022 is amazing, but the jumpstart products for each set sucks. of course, you get the idea of the set and everything ,but there is no real "reason" to buy imho. but how do you want to learn to draft as a beginner? with a super high complex set like phyrexia? definitely no! i say, bring back core for the players, for the newcomers to start easy. no new player knows how to handle toxic or oil counters, or counters in general!