Eliminate Sets with Next Rotation (post-M20)

TheDude1

I want to post this suggestion now before there's any potential surprise.  I don't know whether there is any long-term roadmap for how this game should progress (veterans, please hold your comments).  But I am asking to pare down some of the bloat that exists with legacy sets by eliminating some of the earliest sets when the next rotation event occurs.

This likely isn't too popular an opinion, but I am starting to think Legacy is getting way too overbroad.  A lot of you likely fundamentally disagree with me, which is expected.  I just think the breadth has become far beyond what was ever intended for this structure, and it's only growing.  Right now there are 2500+ cards in a game where you can play 10 at a time, and once M20 rolls around some time early next year, there will be close to 3000.

It's not even just the gameplay that would benefit, though it would tighten up some of the legacy craziness.  Cleaning up old mechanics and the crazy interactions should help limit some of the bugs and memory leaks, and may even help by eliminating some of the bad Hibernium coding.  Keep the focus on generating new material rather than cross-checking old sets to ensure things don't break.  I'm not suggesting we eliminate old PWs or events - keep those as long as we'd like - but cards and mechanics should be trimmed.

I understand people enjoy their legacy decks, and especially understand that many of you paid for these cards.  But at what point do we say that they've reached their shelf life?  BFZ was introduced in early 2016, SOI in August 2016 and Eldritch Moon in October 2016.  Is 3.5-4 years "enough" time to have exhausted the benefits of those early purchases and retire them?  Most old players only play a handful of cards from those sets at this point; I'd venture that most new players generally don't play them at all.  Does anyone even really like void or landfall or investigate anymore?

I'm asking this now because I don't want this to suddenly come out of the blue as a pre-release FYI a week before it happens.  It should be communicated well in advance so no one is caught off-guard and we can prepare accordingly.  (I'll leave it to each player to decide what their "preparation" will be - restructuring decks, complaining on the forums, Not.Another.Dime., etc.)  Even better would be a glimpse into what the long-term framework would be, but that's likely asking too much.

Come on, devs.  Let's Marie Kondo this game.

Mburn7

This would have made a lot more sense before the Duel Decks event came out and before Oktagon started offering Legacy mythics for sale for real money.  Someone who just spend money on a Drowner of Hope is going to be very upset if the card is removed from the game in a couple months.  Someone who just spend 300 crystals on a Munda is also going to be fairly upset when every other ally in the game is removed.

Also, while I agree in concept that there are way too many cards in Legacy, I don't think permanently removing sets from the game is a good idea.  New events that restrict your legacy options to specific sets (as have been proposed many many many times here) are probably a better option both for player happiness and for long term sustainability (since the specific sets required can always be changed over time)

TheDude1

I completely agree that set-restricted events should be a thing, and that it would also help solve the bloat of legacy.  I know I've seen that proposal and have even advocated it myself.  I don't think it would be too hard to implement either.  But that relative ease of implementation also seems to be why it doesn't seem like it will happen, because you would have thought it had appeared by now.

A couple other thoughts:

• I also agree that the cash purchases would be disappointed, and that some cards wouldn't make as much sense anymore on their own, Munda being a perfect example.  But I don't think that issue is much different than rotation into Legacy if it's announced with plenty of advance notice.  Plus there are plenty of new cards don't make a lot of sense on their own either (Ooze Leader, for example).  On the other hand, by the time this proposal would occur - probably early 2020 considering the timing of paper releases - that's over a year since the Drowner of Hope bundle went on sale.  I can't remember the exact price ($4.99 USD?) but it seems like a relatively small cost for a year's worth of play, though YMMV.
• The non-gameplay aspect of the bloat is just as real.  MTGPQ is the largest app on my phone and only gets larger as more content is added.  Supporting excess content has real opportunity costs: it must add further headaches when playtesting/debugging with new material, which (in theory) could be used for more priority issues.
• We don't know if there is a high-level plan for dealing with Legacy in general other than to just keep adding new sets and shoving old ones to the background.  Even with some disagreement, perhaps this can generate the discussion to share that plan if it exists, or begin the process of creating one if it doesn't.

Laeuftbeidir

I don't like the idea to delete sets for good. It's content we all worked for! I still think set restrictive events would deliver a better solution, and add a lot of fun to the game! Also, standard became as problematic as legacy

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