Set-Specific Events

TheDude1

This kind of ties back to my other lobbying effort to make mastery dependent on available sets, but I thought it would be a good change of pace for events to limit the available decks played.  Right now we have both Nodes of Power and Revolt Against the Consulate as concurrent Legacy events.  Because they're considered Legacy, all decks are available for use, even though the rewards are specific to only one set (BFZ and AKH, respectively).

Would it be possible to have a few events where we're only allowed to use certain sets rather than the full Legacy availability?  We already do this to some degree with Standard, by allowing only the most recent sets plus Origins.  Would there be an option to just run Nodes of Power as current Standard + BFZ only, for example?

I'm not asking to completely eliminate events with full Legacy availability - just a change of pace once in a while.  It would also open up a lot more options and creativity, and allow some new players to experience events as they were (somewhat) originally constructed.  Plus, you may see more people buying the available sets rather than just relying on the 6 other Legacy sets they already have.  There's a rush to buy the featured planeswalker whenever the Hour of Devastation event is run - it would presumably be the same if you have featured sets as part of the event (BFZ/OGW is currently in the vault, but who's really buying it?).  It wouldn't even have to be the set that the event was from - you could run Nodes of Power as Standard + AKH/HOU, or Terror in the Shadows as Standard + AER/KLD.

Coupled with set-specific mastery, this could open up a TON more options and probably help mitigate the complaints that we run the same events over and over, since each event could be offered with a new card set to mix up the gameplay.  

joerginger

With the incredibly wonderful rewards in all the legacy events, they would most likely be even less worth the bother than they are already. They would have to change the rewards quite a bit to make the grinding hell of Nodes of Power a worthwhile endeavour.

TheDude1

I'm not sure how a PvP event like Nodes of Power would be any more or less grinding than the current setup, considering everyone would be in the same boat with the same deck limitations.  It would be no different than a Standard event in that regard, you've just been restricted to a different group of cards to choose from - effectively "Standard Plus".  It would put more emphasis on the deckbuilding experience than the current setup, where the same Legacy decks are run with regularity.

You could probably more directly argue that PvE events might need full Legacy, but the irony is that all of the current Legacy events were originally run as Standard-only at the time, so at some point they already came with set restrictions.  The devs would have to change a few secondary objectives (ie, you can't have Energize as an objective in the current Revolt Against the Consulate if you can't play AER/KLD) but they've already shown a willingness to do so if needed.

The rewards seem like a side question, and not one that the devs seem like they're going to adjust anytime soon.  If we're playing the same events with the same reward structure no matter what, why not at least implement some creativity into the event, and perhaps sell some more of the required sets in the process?

Put another way: if you weren't forced to run BFZ for Nodes of Power, would you buy any more cards from that set?  Or would you just run the known deck structures from other Legacy sets you already have?  And do you think this question becomes any more or less relevant as more sets are forced into Legacy due to rotation?

_Valiant_

Love the idea! I've been asking for set specific (used to be called block constructed) events forever.