Standard is going to kill this game.

voodoo_gremlin

Laeuftbeidir said:

@voodoo_gremlin
Your post totally fits to the proposal some weeks ago, and for which I'm making pub shamelessly right now - link in my signature

I don't have a problem with paying players having an advantage. Apart from Baral, the advantages are always somehow balanced by the ai not playing perfectly.. Also, the people that pay make this game free for us.

I think the players who are most skilled in deck building and improvising will set themselves up from the rest, shaking the elite group a bit - some will fall, some will rise, and that also affects paying players. Diversity is a good thing I'd say

I was not aware of that.

I'll make another suggestion, to your point, and hope I'm not copying. 

Give players the choice, at all mastery levels, when they start the event whether they'd like to play the event with a standard or legacy(?) deck. 

Dsagent

I actually am liking standard. It feels nice to craft decks that are new for once. 

madwren

wereotter said:

Sorry, but you're wrong here. The standard rotation evens out power for people who started at the launch of the app with people who started last month.

I might agree, to a point, if Origins was no longer legal. 

I've read a number of newer/lower-tier players bemoaning the fact they can't afford to get cards to meet the new objectives, while those who sat on packs or dropped a lot of money now have shiny rares and mythics to use in accruing more packs to hoard.

Don't get me wrong, I think Standard was necessary and it's certainly an intriguing challenge, but it doesn't level the playing field as much as one thinks until we either cycle out Origins, or KLD/AER block--and even then, it depends on how much that initial pack-seeding advantage provides in AKH.

wereotter

madwren said:

wereotter said:

Sorry, but you're wrong here. The standard rotation evens out power for people who started at the launch of the app with people who started last month.

I might agree, to a point, if Origins was no longer legal. 

I've read a number of newer/lower-tier players bemoaning the fact they can't afford to get cards to meet the new objectives, while those who sat on packs or dropped a lot of money now have shiny rares and mythics to use in accruing more packs to hoard.

Don't get me wrong, I think Standard was necessary and it's certainly an intriguing challenge, but it doesn't level the playing field as much as one thinks until we either cycle out Origins, or KLD/AER block--and even then, it depends on how much that initial pack-seeding advantage provides in AKH.

True. It's not 100% even and it never will be, but I can at lease speak for myself coming into the game at Eldritch Moon, I've always felt behind by not having the right cards from Zendikar and not getting Olivia. It won't ever be completely fair, but at least now there isn't a newer player penalty so much as there used to be, and Origins cards are always accessible.

Origins, on that note, will probably always stay because otherwise we'd have to rely on devs to update the starter decks for all the planeswalkers every few months, and I do t think they want to be bothered to do that.

Corn_Noodles

I'm all for a Standard-type environment, but I'd like to see Origins removed as well. Does that mean they have to add some staple cards to the first set of each block? Yes, but those cards should take less than 5 minutes each for design.

toastie

I have spend no money on AKH, and am tearing up events. It's not just for the whales. Also there are many playable-good cards at common / uncommon (thanks, cycling).

babar3355

I tend to agree with Toastie.  The people that are really suffering are those that didn't save any crystals for the release.  After spending way too many on Trials and buying AJ2... I was only able to spend 1200 on packs yesterday.  That yielded me 1 mythic (Bantu) and some good rares and probably most of the commons and uncommons.  It has been plenty to have competitive decks in the current event. (Although having MWC and a few other good KLD block cards helps)

DumasAG

I'm loving standard. Yes, it's a pain at the moment because I haven't opened many packs, but over time the standard environment will make things fresher in tournaments. Don't forget, there are plenty of places for you to still play your Olivia. 

The only thing I'm annoyed about is that they didn't give us a new free deck slot per PW for standard vs. non-standard.

wereotter

DumasAG said:

I'm loving standard. Yes, it's a pain at the moment because I haven't opened many packs, but over time the standard environment will make things fresher in tournaments. Don't forget, there are plenty of places for you to still play your Olivia. 

The only thing I'm annoyed about is that they didn't give us a new free deck slot per PW for standard vs. non-standard.

Not having the deck slot is an annoyance, but I feel like one we should have foreseen considering how deck slots were added before standard was announced. I didn't go into this update with any expectation they'd give us a free deck slot to accommodate it.

However, I do feel like the lack of a safe environment to test out standard built decks is disappointing. I've tried doing it in training grounds only to still face off against a now incredibly broken Olivia into Battle Pig on every other match, but now I don't have nearly the toolkit to answer her as I used to have.

EDHdad

I'm not expecting a free deck slot, but I would pay some amount of Crystals / Runes / Cash / Purple Things to add a "Standard Only" deck slot to my walkers.  And I would like some way to test Standard decks against other Standard decks.

With this event, it's not too bad, because you can miss objectives and even lose some games and still get max progression. 

Onus

Standard is fine, but why does cycling freeze the game?

I've had the game freeze 3 times on me while trying to cycle with new perspectives and drake haven on the board. How can you compete in events when trying to hit the objectives freeze the game.

Ohboy

babar3355 said:

I tend to agree with Toastie.  The people that are really suffering are those that didn't save any crystals for the release.  After spending way too many on Trials and buying AJ2... I was only able to spend 1200 on packs yesterday.  That yielded me 1 mythic (Bantu) and some good rares and probably most of the commons and uncommons.  It has been plenty to have competitive decks in the current event. (Although having MWC and a few other good KLD block cards helps)

I had really bad packs this time round and got zero mythics. My event decks were 80% AKH, and I still ended up in top 5 after clearing my nodes. 

Isn't this what people have been wanting to see? Less reliance on the mythic level? At least for now, standard is an excellent format. 

Mainloop25

I have to agree with the pro-Standard format guys. I'm very happy that my fledgling AKH decks aren't completely trampled by Decimator and crew, just because I want to try and get more points. 

Captsquee

Food for thought. If you have played actual MTG competitively you know cards cycle out of certain tournamen's eventually. Great idea, actually wonderful when you consider the little guy. I would also like to see a pvp where it can all be used. I started in February haven't spent a dime. Quit playing tabletop because im not paying for cards I don't get after terrorizing my local shops Friday night magic tournament or the occasional regional one. I'm not the best by any means and have taken some nasty beatings. A massive portion of people in this game copy and paste a deck. It's great to have cards and then you have the same deck as everyone else. A unique well thought out deck of Commons will win more than a deck you recognize after seeing a couple cards come into play. I don't have the endless card libraries some do but I had a 77% win/loss in QB and 7 max level planeswalkers. I'm not exactly worried about the so called Whales when they have more mythics in a deck than I do in entirety. Taking out the aspect of an instant or how seeing untapped mana mad3 you a little nervous removes a lot of stress. Also the fact the AI makes terrible choices consistently. Not complaining about those passed up extra turns. I was sad about not being able to use drown yard temple but I made due. New cards mean  NEW if you can't get by without using the same old combos you aren't going to survive anyway. The look you have when this out of nowhere win condition you didn't see coming plays out is priceless. It's not like seeing you are using lilliana 2 and I'm totally baffled that they are using zombies. My main point though, the damn game is barely playable at this point guys. Everything is jacked up pretty good. It doesn't matter you can't use certain cards when you can't even finish a match lol. If your main advantage is your ability to pay that's fine. I'm not crying getting beat with what I have. Best example, it is so fun when I use ob nixlis against a baral deck and that loop went off. So satisfying to watch someone's hard earned dollars totally backfire while I sit back and watch it do all the work for me. **** happens don't cry, grind it out or pony up the $. Adaptability and experience will win more games than anything else

mouser

The more I've played since "Standard" was introduced the more I think the devs are simply out of touch with their own game and player base.  A huge % of the player base simply wants to play a match 3 game, and add new better cards to their decks when their acquire them.

They don't want to rebuild decks every time they use a PW in a standard or modern event. At a minimum every PW should have been given a modern and standard deck slot.  That still wouldn't solve all the flaws, but at least it would make it easier for players to deal with "Standard".

[Deleted User]

Steeme said:

Hey guys, since the power level has now been brought down to earth, why do you assume you need Mythics to survive?

They certainly help, but they're not mandatory.

In addition, Standard is only for the PVP duels, which is only a subset of the content.

On this note, I would absolutely love to see a Pauper mode or something to at least limit the number of mythics ("legendary creatures") you come up against.

The biggest difference here from the paper card game is playing with a deck of 10 cards instead of 60. Not only is that mythic almost guaranteed to come out, it'll probably come back on the board later even if you deal with it once.

gillkonam

I'm ok with PvP being Standard, but PvE is silly to be standard. These are opponents who have vastly enhanced decks full of cards we can't have yet, with life totals far exceeding our own, and with abilities that are often the equivalent to high octane spellls. I'm sure there are some of us that are perfectly fine with that, that think that's a challenge. They may soon be feeling that in a pretty empty game because I think it's a finger in the face. There is a difference between leveling the playing field between players, and suddenly shunting everything people had going for them. This game is supposed to be challenging, but its a phone game, not a job. It's supposed to be fun and competitive, not work. It's not to much to ask to have the cards you do have actually work as printed too. It's also not to much to ask why Platinum Tier players have basic boosters as progression prizes. If the people that play the game are happy to be treated like chumps and bleed like sieves, then that's fine, but this is a division moment.  I spent money on this game. I've enjoyed this game. Now it feels very passe, and very, very shoddily run from the customer relations, to the horrible coding, to the dare I say it, generally poisonous atmosphere of people snipping at others who have legitimate demonstrable complaints.

Phase

Agreed that this is a phone game and not a job- I am bummed about the ridiculous time investment to complete a PvP event now. I have to grind out 12+ matches a night for two nights in a row now. What if there are concurrent events going? Where is the time? It comes to having to choose now. We are receiving less product per match played and it is getting really obvious.

Otherwise, standard is not going to kill anything. It works great for the paper game and keeps deckbuilding fresh and somewhat limits complexity that would make it harder and harder to make cool new cards. 

[Deleted User]

gillkonam said:

I'm ok with PvP being Standard, but PvE is silly to be standard. These are opponents who have vastly enhanced decks full of cards we can't have yet, with life totals far exceeding our own, and with abilities that are often the equivalent to high octane spellls. I'm sure there are some of us that are perfectly fine with that, that think that's a challenge. They may soon be feeling that in a pretty empty game because I think it's a finger in the face. There is a difference between leveling the playing field between players, and suddenly shunting everything people had going for them. This game is supposed to be challenging, but its a phone game, not a job. It's supposed to be fun and competitive, not work. It's not to much to ask to have the cards you do have actually work as printed too. It's also not to much to ask why Platinum Tier players have basic boosters as progression prizes. If the people that play the game are happy to be treated like chumps and bleed like sieves, then that's fine, but this is a division moment.  I spent money on this game. I've enjoyed this game. Now it feels very passe, and very, very shoddily run from the customer relations, to the horrible coding, to the dare I say it, generally poisonous atmosphere of people snipping at others who have legitimate demonstrable complaints.

I agree it's not meant to be a job but it sure is a huge grind for very little reward. It's very clear that you're working against the grain if you don't treat the game like a slot machine.

And on that note: there is currently an £80 microtransaction "on offer" in the vault. I balked at the sight of it.

ifsandbuts

So how's this whole standard thing going?