Token packs (not randomized, just X of each token) should be at *least* something they send to stores for prereleases, if not actually include with every box. If each box had 2x copies of every token in the set in a bonus pack or two, it feels like this would just be beneficial. It would cost very little (since no randomization, you can have a single sheet for printing them, and have lots of copies per sheet etc). Like, this is a very solvable issue from the logistics and cost aspect, and would be a very minor way for them to garner some goodwill for almost doing nothing at all. Feels like a win win win win.
There's like 40 unique tokens in this set. You're asking for 80 more cards in a prerelease pack. That's almost doubling the amount of cards. I don't think it's reasonable or cost effective for wizards to do this
@@jerbear88win I think you're missing the part where WotC taking this route has full control over this sort of things when doing this. So they can make the number of tokens appropriate for whatever method they choose. Not to mention doing double sided tokens, which they already do (and are doing for this set). If a set has 40 tokens, then they don't do 2x, print them double sided, and that's gonna be 20 cards. You literally have to be trying to be uncharitable in understanding the point I'm making to think there's some logistical issue. There's a clear and obvious option that's reasonable for this set's specific issues, and WotC also has the power to make design choices with distribution methods in mind if there would be a logistical issue for them. Plus, bloomburrow is already printed without this kind of distribution method. So trying to say it wouldn't work for a set where it's impossible for them to add it now is silly. It could still be good praxis moving forward. And nowhere was I suggesting these be "per prerelease pack." Per box (as the 2x for most sets, but clearly not 2x for bloomburrow levels) or in packs sent to stores to facilitate prereleases (I never suggested a specific multipliers for these, but could easily do pack sizes like they do with basics already). So like, I felt like all of this stuff I just mentioned was pretty obvious and easily derived from my original comment, but hopefully this spells it out a lot better for you now for why this is overall a trivial issue to tackle, even in the extreme cases, and is mostly about making a logistical choice that has communication between printing and design to best reflect the needs of the set. Which is already something they prioritize.
@@jerbear88win I mean it really just sounds like you aren't very familiar with the processes involved, and truth be told, explaining the ins and outs of the process of how MTG cards are made in a YT comment feels a bit tedious to type out. Plus you once again seem to be applying your own ideas to what I'm saying, and then finding fault with those ideas rather than the things I've actually suggested. I get that you want to have discourse on this, but if you're going to continue adding assumptions to what I'm saying that are just...not part of anything I've said, it's going to be hard to have any kind of conversation. Long story short, they have literally done the things I'm saying for specific individual sets, though not for all the set tokens, just for specific "token-like" things (the various prereleases with special rules like original Theros, or checklists for DFCs being two of the bigger examples). They also do similar things with basic lands - hopefully you know what land packs are. There's a reason a lot of people are suggesting these kinds of things... because they have done exactly this sort of thing MANY TIMES before for specific instances, and in all honesty, it's somewhat surprising that they didn't already have a specific additional distribution in mind for this set, since typically they always do these things when they deviate from the norm. Basically, no the implications you think are here are not here, we're talking fractions of a cent additional cost "per pack," at most a cent or two "per box" (and that's being overly generous with the cost involved...good chance it wouldn't even be a whole cent additional per box). You might not realize this, but the cost per card just for printing is very very low. Like probably even lower than you're thinking. Even lower. Yeah, maybe about there.
@@tahlialysse I'm not surprised you didn't actually respond to any of my criticisms. The fact that you brought up original Theros as as an example is laughable. I understand that they may have printed token like cards (the hero cards in this example), but the sheer magnitude of different tokens you would need so that every player would have enough for their decks would cause logistical issues. I don't really understand how you're not seeing the difference here. This is just a numbers game and these numbers are very different. Also I never mentioned price in terms of how much more expensive prerelease kits are going to be. I just asked logistical questions in how players would get their tokens if they didn't go to a prerelease. It's funny how you blame me for misrepresenting your views, when you've just done that exact same thing to me. I made no implications of the price per pack. Finally, the fact that you and I have written so much about this topic (and we could probably write a lot more) means that this issue isn't simple for wizards. Could they probably figure out a way? Yes. Is it just as simple as you think? No
@@jerbear88win we've written a lot bc you don't seem to know much, and I've been trying to be kind and assuming you are actually interested in this. That has no bearing on the actual subject one way or another. I don't think you're very serious on this, or interesting in learning anything, so don't expect me to respond more unless something changes my interpretation of what's going on with you. You just seem to want to argue, and, eh...that seems pretty boring. Either make good points or at least interesting ones to pique my interest further.
Richard is so on point here. Close games where I win in the end are the absolute best, followed by close matches where I lose. Games where I queue up and just turn into a non-game are the worst, the ones where it's a non-game where I win obviously I prefer where it's a non-game where I lose, but both are just "well, that happened I guess? maybe I'll actually get to play the game meaningfully next match" To some degree this is going to come down to how you approach the ladder, if you're trying to grind up to mythic as fast as possible then that will change your priorities, but I'd argue that it's the influence of outside rewards influencing things - both the rewards for being mythic, and also the safety of not being able to fall out of mythic and getting to mess around with whatever once you're there.
Lol it's funny to listen to Seth talk about trying to get the Monty Python Secret Lair early when it has been sold out for like 7 hours before the podcast aired.
@@davidhower7095 my buddy was about 35 mins late for the drop and got pretty much the last of the stock. If you werent there pretty much right at noon you were cooked.....kinda beat
This was a really good podcast episode. It had a bit of everything and was very light-hearted. The ending wrapped it up very nicely as well. Not to mention I almost spit my coffee out multiple times throughout it. Definitely giving it a re-listen or two.
I think it just means that the rules team actually listens to player feedback...it stands in STRONG contrast to competitive play design deciding to leave Nadu and Grief in modern and legacy despite all the evidence and especially the data proving it was the wrong decision.
Richard is mostly right about skill. The best games of magic are those insanely grindy matches full of back and forths untl one player manages to squeeze out a win. That said, the best ranks on arena to be in are Bronze and Mythic. At bronze, because your opponents are bad, you can play literally whatever you want and still progress through the rank quickly. At Mythic, you can't drop back down to diamond, so unless you are trying to get as high a rank as possible, you can start playing whatever you want.
What disappointed me was that the Bloomburrow bundles didn't have a full set of the set's tokens. The Amonkhet/Hour of Devastation Bundles, well Fat Packs, had a full set of tokens.
There is A LOT of tokens so that's not possible I don't think. Too many offspring and copy type cards. We'd be talking 20-30 tokens in a bundle at that point.
This would have been the perfect set to do it. Or even sell a complete set for $5-7 range including all or just the offspring. They spent a lot to commission unique art for all the token so what use is it if it's hard to track down. Or increase the price for just this prerelease and include ALL the tokens from the set as an optional 'premium' version.
40:22 I'm guessing they are changing it to "second main phase" for the same reason that we now have so many "Only once per turn" clauses on cards these days. They want to open up design space to push stronger effects, without risking it going infinite. As long as it remains open ended it becomes hard to determine a new cards powerlevel, but if the mechanic has a inbuilt limitation then it becomes easier to continue expanding F.I.R.E design without needing to spend to much time in testing.
A shame they didn't learn how to properly make once per turns - current wording means it is per card, instead of per name or effect like most Yugioh effects (Yugioh has been doing OPTs for decades at this point)
@meisterschwert5565 Why should an effect be limited per effect instance? After all, the assumption has to be that in mtg, you actually expended ressources to get a second copy of a card in play. YGO doesn't deal with ressources in the same way, meaning of course other restrictions are necessary. Generally, MTG doesn't offer infinite mana every turn.
@lVideoWatcherl Because many of these abilities aren't mana abilities. Take something like Nadu - make it a hard twice and suddenly it's not as broken.
@@meisterschwert5565 It's not about abilities being mana abilities. Also, Nadu is a totally unique case, where everybody agrees that it should be a hard twice, and the issue is not at all with new instances of Nadu allowing for re-triggering, but with one instance of Nadu already allowing that hoard of triggers. If you managed to re-play a Nadu with a strict twice-per-turn limit as per current mtg rules, then the worst that could happen is that that player would get an additional two mana on the field while having to pay 3 to get a new copy of a legendary creature on the field. That's not at all broken. So once again, the issue isn't to limit abilities by counting their occurences vs. the sources triggering them. It is the fact that some abilities are just so over the top that they would need stricter limits, at least in the specific case you mentioned as an example.
@lVideoWatcherl And again, this is the exact use case for hard onces - being able to make powerful abilities that would be completely broken if they could be used a lot only be usable once.
The problem is Arena doesn't really do "skill based" match making, it mostly matches Decks and certain Cards against each other. Its also heavily skewed to maintain a 50/50 winrate. For example you run Bitter Triumph for removal, but you're seeing a lot of Mono Red and you can't afford to pay the 3 life, so you switch to Go For The Throat...and suddenly, just like that, you start seeing U/W Artifacts, or Cookies, appear out of nowhere. Its very frustrating because it makes the game feel rigged, it makes it feel even more like Rock Paper Scissors, than anything like a Skill Based game.
100%. I played mono red Lynx and started running into straight up no dual lands two-colored decks and mono colored decks with NO utility lands 😂. I don't know if it's my all basiscs manabase or the lynx itself but it feels sooooo frustrating.
I don't get why Bloomburrow Bundles didn't come with a complete set of the tokens. When Amonkhet came out (or Hour of Devastation, don't remember exactly which one), they included a complete set of the tokens for the set in fat packs at the time. As many unique tokens as Bloomburrow has it could really use having them be purchased in a similar way just to make sure people have the tokens.
@@TH3M4X48 maybe for bundles but not prerelease packs. I'm pretty sure this discussion was in reference to prerelease weekend and people opening up packs in general.
Dry-erase tokens! Absolutely killer in prerelease. For constructed, proxy tokens are super sweet. When I started playing Magic back in OG Ravnica, there were no officially printed tokens. They just didn't exist until Lorwyn; the final card slot was always an ad card or a Pro Tour profile card.
See, I would waaay rather face someone one step above me in skill than one step below me. Playing with people better than you makes you more observant and curious and creative, and you improve way more as a player in my opinion.
The easy fix for tokens is for Wizards to send the lgs a token bundle with all the tokens for the set with many copies of each one. Then when you finish building your deck for pre release and release you can go to the front deck and get the tokens you need. Then after the events the lgs can sell or hand out whatever tokens were not handed out.
On the offspring tokens: I used copy tokens and put it with it's parent. I'm also weird and look up the tokens beforehand and make sure I have something for each.
The post-combat main phase to 2nd/3rd main phase change opens up new design space, both to reward extra combat decks by giving powerful effects to specific amounts of extra combats (ie draw x cards at the beginning of your third main phase or something like that) and by preventing new infinite combos like neheb in future card design
I mean all they would have to do is include a large bundle of all the tokens with the prerelease packages they send to stores (not in the individual player kits but the shipment to the store itself). Then stores can hand them out as needed the same as they do with basic lands.
It seems to me like the best solution for the offspring tokens would be to do what they've done in the past for double-sided cards. Have token/reminder cards with a list of the offspring cards in the set, so players can put a checkmark next to the card that they're using the card to stand in for. That gives players a piece of cardboard that shows what the token is, and they can still refer to the original offspring card for specific rules text.
I think the mindset matters for whether you want to pub-stomp or have close games. People who just want to relax and unwind would probably prefer to stomp vs people who have a more competitive mindset would probably prefer close matches. Sometimes, they're the same person, but at different times.
This argument feels weird to me. If you want to relax, pub-stomping isn't a good option, personally i just feel bad with non-games like that. Edit: to clarify, this is in regard to playing against real people, if you wanna stomp an ai go for it.
Yeah WotC is being highly incompetent here. It's actually surprising in a way because this is the easiest and least controversial ban ever. Literally everyone wants Nadu gone and yet somehow WotC manages to screw it up.
Modern is actually still pretty good in my area. Mainly due to several of our grinders trying Nadu, sweeping the rest of us for a week and then switching decks. We do have a lot of tron but other than that its a pretty diverse meta with plenty of people trying new things. Everyone does agree Nadu needs a ban though. The elves player is playing Nadu because its that good. On the token topic, Im just tired of the art cards and ad inserts in packs. I want a token in every pack. Put the art cards in collector boosters or something. At my prerelease it was even harder to track with other tokens than usual. I do think putting like 3 blanks in the prerelease kits would have helped if they couldnt just put every offspring token in the kits. And yeah they should be in the bundles.
On the topic of token scarcity, there is a Beadle & Grimm's Bloomburrow Token Set with some of the Offspring tokens already which feels very similar to having a secret lair for the tokens.
I agree with Richard on the state of Modern, but I also wasn't surprised that Wotc didn't do anything. As for Standard, I'm curious to see how much of a shake-up Standard gets or if the Kindred decks don't have enough power to compete.
Arena's rank doesn't solve it alone. You can climb the ladder with under 50% win rate eventually if you keep playing. And MMR or an equivalent is especially needed when you hit Mythic.
did Crim just say he doesn't want SBMM in MTG's ranked system, when that ranking system literally is a form of SBMM?? a ranked ladder (in any game) is putting people into skill brackets based on their performance and pairs them against other people within their current rank. if you perform well you get to rank up and if you suck you get ranked down. it's literally skill-based matchmaking. in Brawl (or whatever) there is no ranked mode, so the game (Arena) takes other values into consideration to facilitate a "balanced" match experience. and as proven by the study, if it is done well, it is much more beneficial to the player base than what people want to accept. the core piece here is this part though: *done well* not every SBMM is suitable for every game, and the one creating the SBMM has to find a system that works for their game.
People don’t mind no MMR when it’s in their favor, BUT it’s clear they hate its absence when they’re on the bad end. How many posts of plats showing they got matched w a mythic and being like “wtf?????”
I don't know how nobody is talking about the season of loss. That card is busted. I've got my playset, so you're allowed to talk about it now. It reminds me of a sideways meathook massacre
the token thing seems pretty easy to solve. Just print them into the prerelease kits. 1 or 2 of each. Also just send a bunch to the stores to hand out at the basic land station.
A good way to fix the token problem would be do print a common token on one side and a rarer token on the back. This would put more of the rarer tokens out there without making rabbit tokens any harder to get. Commander decks already do this.
The CoD thing with removing skill-based matchmaking was to try to see if they could increase microtransaction sales by players who got beat by better players who also had cosmetics so that the losing player would want to buy the cosmetics to be more like the winning player. They stated this in a report.
you guys are wayy too obsessed with a set's powerlevel. Bloomburrow is a cool Tribal set and its cool to see creatures like Mice and Rabbit's getting love
United States Submarine tradition is a sailor isn't allowed to watch movies underway until they are fully qualified in Submarine Warfare. Once they do, they are allowed to pick the movie for the next movie night. The year was 2003 & I picked "Monty Python & The Quest for the Holy Grail."
55:01 Crim is so wrong. Richard is on point. I want skill based matchmaking when I play magic arena or online. I don’t do it a lot and it is so different than playing commander with my friends. I watch Seth and Crim play magic all the time and they are soooo much better than me. I don’t want to play against them in a 60 card format because it would just be a hopeless fight for me. Yes there is RNG and I may get a win if they get landscrewed. When I play online formats I need to learn. And I cannot learn if I’m playing against people that just destroy me every turn. This was just so wild to hear, I’ve never heard Crim so off on something. I need to play against bad magic players because I’m a bad magic player and need to learn. I don’t play 60 card formats enough to get gud. Haven’t for a lonnnng time. 58:54 Seth is so right. If all I experienced in Magic was getting destroyed all the time I would never play magic.
Speculating on why they changed the wording for extra combats, it could be possible that they are trying to make a new card in an upcoming set that triggers on your third combat for an extra combats commander...this seems like something that would follow some of their recent commanders for different archetypes, and in order for a card to trigger on your third combat you'd need the rules change...
A ranked ladder *is* SBMM, which is funny that you're saying that you don't need SBMM because you have a ranked ladder. Its the same thing. Hidden MMR is just an additional SBMM parameter that they can use. They could also be using collection size for matchmaking. I believe that for a ranked ladder, SBMM is great for getting people into the rank where they have mostly close games which I consider the most fun. Its nice to outplay someone every once in a while, but I don't like blowout games where one person just never does anything and they other player just wins.
Skill based matchmaking is so important because both COD and MTG are trying to reward their players for improving their skill. COD is based on improving your aim, team coordination & timing. MTG is deck building, combat mechanics, spell mechanics, static effects etc. If someone is running Nadu against the (technically modern legal) starter decks it’s like smurfing on a bronze player in valorant or COD.
I agree to an extent. They need to have that skill based matchmaking mode but they equally need to have a non skill based matchmaking mode. Maybe not so much in COD idk I haven’t played it in a long time.
They should call the main phases pre, added and post. Pre indicating the main phase that occurs *before* any combat phases. Post indicating the main phase that occurs *after* all combat phases. Added indicating the main phases that were added to the turn based on a spell or ability. This would eliminate any confusion and simplify the templating. Comments?
Wandering Emperor is rotating out. That is why you didn't see any Seth. Brotherhood's End is going to be a 4 of staple in this format. Sheoldred is still in standard too (can we just ban this already? Still the best card in standard). I think the first few weeks will be aggro decks. Like ALL rotation sets aggro is good at first. Then the mid range decks adjust and out value them. Then the control decks rise up to beat the mid range decks. Repeat this cycle every few weeks.
@OctopiWalgreens The first mention he said Wanderin Emperor and made no reference to that style of card. The 2nd instance he did refer to style of card.
The only modern game that just shows you your elo, win percentage and other stats is Street Fighter. Every match you play is recorded and your fighter profile displays overall win percentage and win percentage per character and in which mode, ranked or casual matches. A system like this would be amazing for mtg imo.
What I'm curious about Bloomburrow Standard is how the creatures will slot into other decks based on their secondary types. Lizards have outlaws that commit crimes every turn. Mice have knights and warriors. Frogs have wizards. Is it worth building along those archetypes rather than the mice/frog/lizard types?
Bloomburrow is a weak set, but love it for draft, standard and commander. New tribes are welcomed change for commander. Hope they create and support more tribes in more sets like this.
CoD is a sport, MtG is an orthogame, they're completely different. This is why Chaos Orb was banned, it requires physical skill. A lot of people look at Chaos Orb and think it sucks, but I'll five for one you for three colorless all day long. I don't miss, I catch bystanders.
So about the copy tokens, its been a thing Magic players have been dealing with for a decade+: cackling counterpart, rite of Replication, Dance of the Many,etc. We've been making token copies of regular cards forever. At least these Bloomburrow ones you can get an official version of.
The thing about SBMM that people dont like is the whiplash you get from being in a lobby where you feel like a good player and 4 matches later, you get switched to a lobby against people that feels like they're cheating. It rarely feels like you're paired against the 'same' people.
I will have to check my Bundle Box to see what tokens it has when I buy one, but the ones I remember getting out of Bundles are awful Double sided token cards instead of a token on front and the MTG card back on the back.
Changing to 2nd main phase is fine and probably good. Errata makes the game more complicated. Changes moving forward is good. Unnecessarily errata-ing cards is bad.
Prerelease could have a special pack of tokens and the promo card, then there would be no more issue and an added appeal to buy prerelease boxes after the main release. It’s not that hard, Wizards!
The worst rank in any game is hitting the rank where you're suppose to be. At that point you generally can't carry consistently in team games, aren't really learning anything since players are at your skill and are just stuck unless you actively are looking to improve outside of just playing (watching videos, reading articles, practicing in bot match, etc...). Having to put in extra work is where most people just stop moving up and start complaining about something.
Being a Jund player, seeing all this chaos, I feels like Wizards don't know what they are doing. For modern I would ban Ring and Nadu, but if you do that Energy Decks, Grief decks, will be a problem, doesn't help that Guide of Souls is a better DRC. But my guess if a card was banned Phlage. if it's that bad. PS, little disappointed with MH3 not having any Jund color cards in the set. When it has a commander deck.. Bloomborrow looks really cute and I am looking forward to making Squirrels
As someone who literally only plays COD and MTG as the two games I play with 99.9% of the time I spend playing game, Activision is the biggest problem. For instance, in ranked play whether it’s COD or MTG, then yes, it should be someone of a similar skill. However, in public matches (these are meant to be non competitive, only for leisure play) there should be absolutely no hidden system trying to put me in the most “optimal” match making. COD got big as a franchise when they didn’t do these things. Their “data” has always been skewed and they never 100% do it correctly. If you look at their actual graphs of the data, their stats make absolutely no sense.
I'm not sure why there is so much hype for Bloomborrow. The cards seem fine, they'll have more impact due to rotation and smaller card pool but as standard grows, I see many many of these cards fading away. WoTC in an attempt to force us away from "good stuff piles" by creating cards that only really work well with one another (as pointed out in this episode), get these short windows where they're fine and then the meta adjusts and all these aggro piles (in Bo3) will be non existent due to people playing removal and sweepers. After the initial burst, the meta will shift back to good stuff midrange and control to fight off aggro. Do you think Boros valiant Mice will still be relevant by next summer? I wholeheartedly don't. The kindred factions meta they're attempting to force us to play will fail, thus causing the set to fail as a whole (pointed out in a previous episode where something is said along the lines of if your kindred themes fail, the set fails as a whole).
On the topic of unique tokens: it's insane that we don't get a token in every pack! Opening an art card or ad card is just them ripping us off with unplayable trash.
Every new set and especially after set rotation, the easiest decks to build and pilot are aggro decks, because they are focused. But board wipes exists. Id even consider playing Final Showdown in standard when an opponent is popping off and negate all their ability
Seth being overexposed is just so they can balance out Crim being underexposed.
Token packs (not randomized, just X of each token) should be at *least* something they send to stores for prereleases, if not actually include with every box. If each box had 2x copies of every token in the set in a bonus pack or two, it feels like this would just be beneficial. It would cost very little (since no randomization, you can have a single sheet for printing them, and have lots of copies per sheet etc). Like, this is a very solvable issue from the logistics and cost aspect, and would be a very minor way for them to garner some goodwill for almost doing nothing at all. Feels like a win win win win.
There's like 40 unique tokens in this set. You're asking for 80 more cards in a prerelease pack. That's almost doubling the amount of cards. I don't think it's reasonable or cost effective for wizards to do this
@@jerbear88win I think you're missing the part where WotC taking this route has full control over this sort of things when doing this. So they can make the number of tokens appropriate for whatever method they choose. Not to mention doing double sided tokens, which they already do (and are doing for this set). If a set has 40 tokens, then they don't do 2x, print them double sided, and that's gonna be 20 cards.
You literally have to be trying to be uncharitable in understanding the point I'm making to think there's some logistical issue. There's a clear and obvious option that's reasonable for this set's specific issues, and WotC also has the power to make design choices with distribution methods in mind if there would be a logistical issue for them.
Plus, bloomburrow is already printed without this kind of distribution method. So trying to say it wouldn't work for a set where it's impossible for them to add it now is silly. It could still be good praxis moving forward.
And nowhere was I suggesting these be "per prerelease pack." Per box (as the 2x for most sets, but clearly not 2x for bloomburrow levels) or in packs sent to stores to facilitate prereleases (I never suggested a specific multipliers for these, but could easily do pack sizes like they do with basics already).
So like, I felt like all of this stuff I just mentioned was pretty obvious and easily derived from my original comment, but hopefully this spells it out a lot better for you now for why this is overall a trivial issue to tackle, even in the extreme cases, and is mostly about making a logistical choice that has communication between printing and design to best reflect the needs of the set. Which is already something they prioritize.
@@jerbear88win I mean it really just sounds like you aren't very familiar with the processes involved, and truth be told, explaining the ins and outs of the process of how MTG cards are made in a YT comment feels a bit tedious to type out. Plus you once again seem to be applying your own ideas to what I'm saying, and then finding fault with those ideas rather than the things I've actually suggested. I get that you want to have discourse on this, but if you're going to continue adding assumptions to what I'm saying that are just...not part of anything I've said, it's going to be hard to have any kind of conversation.
Long story short, they have literally done the things I'm saying for specific individual sets, though not for all the set tokens, just for specific "token-like" things (the various prereleases with special rules like original Theros, or checklists for DFCs being two of the bigger examples). They also do similar things with basic lands - hopefully you know what land packs are. There's a reason a lot of people are suggesting these kinds of things... because they have done exactly this sort of thing MANY TIMES before for specific instances, and in all honesty, it's somewhat surprising that they didn't already have a specific additional distribution in mind for this set, since typically they always do these things when they deviate from the norm.
Basically, no the implications you think are here are not here, we're talking fractions of a cent additional cost "per pack," at most a cent or two "per box" (and that's being overly generous with the cost involved...good chance it wouldn't even be a whole cent additional per box). You might not realize this, but the cost per card just for printing is very very low. Like probably even lower than you're thinking. Even lower. Yeah, maybe about there.
@@tahlialysse I'm not surprised you didn't actually respond to any of my criticisms. The fact that you brought up original Theros as as an example is laughable. I understand that they may have printed token like cards (the hero cards in this example), but the sheer magnitude of different tokens you would need so that every player would have enough for their decks would cause logistical issues. I don't really understand how you're not seeing the difference here. This is just a numbers game and these numbers are very different.
Also I never mentioned price in terms of how much more expensive prerelease kits are going to be. I just asked logistical questions in how players would get their tokens if they didn't go to a prerelease. It's funny how you blame me for misrepresenting your views, when you've just done that exact same thing to me. I made no implications of the price per pack.
Finally, the fact that you and I have written so much about this topic (and we could probably write a lot more) means that this issue isn't simple for wizards. Could they probably figure out a way? Yes. Is it just as simple as you think? No
@@jerbear88win we've written a lot bc you don't seem to know much, and I've been trying to be kind and assuming you are actually interested in this. That has no bearing on the actual subject one way or another. I don't think you're very serious on this, or interesting in learning anything, so don't expect me to respond more unless something changes my interpretation of what's going on with you. You just seem to want to argue, and, eh...that seems pretty boring. Either make good points or at least interesting ones to pique my interest further.
Richard is so on point here. Close games where I win in the end are the absolute best, followed by close matches where I lose. Games where I queue up and just turn into a non-game are the worst, the ones where it's a non-game where I win obviously I prefer where it's a non-game where I lose, but both are just "well, that happened I guess? maybe I'll actually get to play the game meaningfully next match"
To some degree this is going to come down to how you approach the ladder, if you're trying to grind up to mythic as fast as possible then that will change your priorities, but I'd argue that it's the influence of outside rewards influencing things - both the rewards for being mythic, and also the safety of not being able to fall out of mythic and getting to mess around with whatever once you're there.
Agreed, many magic players I know (myself included) would prefer a close loss to a dominating victory
Lol it's funny to listen to Seth talk about trying to get the Monty Python Secret Lair early when it has been sold out for like 7 hours before the podcast aired.
What? It's all sold out already?
Crap
It sold out within the hour. Some people who got on line right as orders opened didn’t even get it.
@@davidhower7095 my buddy was about 35 mins late for the drop and got pretty much the last of the stock. If you werent there pretty much right at noon you were cooked.....kinda beat
Ive been bummed all day knowing i cant get them. Once Seth mentioned them I was reminded D:
This was a really good podcast episode. It had a bit of everything and was very light-hearted. The ending wrapped it up very nicely as well. Not to mention I almost spit my coffee out multiple times throughout it.
Definitely giving it a re-listen or two.
Richard is 💯 on skill level.
I want a 'good/close' game, but I still want to win most games 🤣
This is the clearest 'Saffron Olive' ive heard in a while. For ages I thought the name was 'Saffrahdah' all one big jumbled up word.
All love to Seth, but I also usually hear "Saffrahdahluf" 😂
Wotc: Neheb doesn't work anymore
Neheb Players: no change it back
Wotc: changes it back
-this is what glory looks like
I think it just means that the rules team actually listens to player feedback...it stands in STRONG contrast to competitive play design deciding to leave Nadu and Grief in modern and legacy despite all the evidence and especially the data proving it was the wrong decision.
Frogs are just as fun to play as they looked. Very happy about that
Richard has never been more real than when he calls out mmr anxiety :D
Richard is mostly right about skill. The best games of magic are those insanely grindy matches full of back and forths untl one player manages to squeeze out a win. That said, the best ranks on arena to be in are Bronze and Mythic. At bronze, because your opponents are bad, you can play literally whatever you want and still progress through the rank quickly. At Mythic, you can't drop back down to diamond, so unless you are trying to get as high a rank as possible, you can start playing whatever you want.
Just like Hearthstone best ranks are Bronze 10 and Dumpster Legend
Richard and Crim are missing out on having never seen the greatest comedy movie of all time.
What disappointed me was that the Bloomburrow bundles didn't have a full set of the set's tokens. The Amonkhet/Hour of Devastation Bundles, well Fat Packs, had a full set of tokens.
There is A LOT of tokens so that's not possible I don't think. Too many offspring and copy type cards. We'd be talking 20-30 tokens in a bundle at that point.
@@davidsantiago7808Amonkhet had 27 tokens. They printed them double sided. No reason they can't again
GREED
@@treeofthetrees9132 but thats would cost them an extra 0.56 cents per bundle box dude, imagine all the money they would lose!
This would have been the perfect set to do it. Or even sell a complete set for $5-7 range including all or just the offspring. They spent a lot to commission unique art for all the token so what use is it if it's hard to track down. Or increase the price for just this prerelease and include ALL the tokens from the set as an optional 'premium' version.
40:22 I'm guessing they are changing it to "second main phase" for the same reason that we now have so many "Only once per turn" clauses on cards these days.
They want to open up design space to push stronger effects, without risking it going infinite.
As long as it remains open ended it becomes hard to determine a new cards powerlevel, but if the mechanic has a inbuilt limitation then it becomes easier to continue expanding F.I.R.E design without needing to spend to much time in testing.
A shame they didn't learn how to properly make once per turns - current wording means it is per card, instead of per name or effect like most Yugioh effects (Yugioh has been doing OPTs for decades at this point)
@meisterschwert5565 Why should an effect be limited per effect instance? After all, the assumption has to be that in mtg, you actually expended ressources to get a second copy of a card in play. YGO doesn't deal with ressources in the same way, meaning of course other restrictions are necessary. Generally, MTG doesn't offer infinite mana every turn.
@lVideoWatcherl Because many of these abilities aren't mana abilities. Take something like Nadu - make it a hard twice and suddenly it's not as broken.
@@meisterschwert5565 It's not about abilities being mana abilities. Also, Nadu is a totally unique case, where everybody agrees that it should be a hard twice, and the issue is not at all with new instances of Nadu allowing for re-triggering, but with one instance of Nadu already allowing that hoard of triggers. If you managed to re-play a Nadu with a strict twice-per-turn limit as per current mtg rules, then the worst that could happen is that that player would get an additional two mana on the field while having to pay 3 to get a new copy of a legendary creature on the field. That's not at all broken.
So once again, the issue isn't to limit abilities by counting their occurences vs. the sources triggering them. It is the fact that some abilities are just so over the top that they would need stricter limits, at least in the specific case you mentioned as an example.
@lVideoWatcherl And again, this is the exact use case for hard onces - being able to make powerful abilities that would be completely broken if they could be used a lot only be usable once.
The problem is Arena doesn't really do "skill based" match making, it mostly matches Decks and certain Cards against each other. Its also heavily skewed to maintain a 50/50 winrate. For example you run Bitter Triumph for removal, but you're seeing a lot of Mono Red and you can't afford to pay the 3 life, so you switch to Go For The Throat...and suddenly, just like that, you start seeing U/W Artifacts, or Cookies, appear out of nowhere. Its very frustrating because it makes the game feel rigged, it makes it feel even more like Rock Paper Scissors, than anything like a Skill Based game.
100%. I played mono red Lynx and started running into straight up no dual lands two-colored decks and mono colored decks with NO utility lands 😂. I don't know if it's my all basiscs manabase or the lynx itself but it feels sooooo frustrating.
I don't get why Bloomburrow Bundles didn't come with a complete set of the tokens. When Amonkhet came out (or Hour of Devastation, don't remember exactly which one), they included a complete set of the tokens for the set in fat packs at the time. As many unique tokens as Bloomburrow has it could really use having them be purchased in a similar way just to make sure people have the tokens.
I literally had this same thought when I cracked my bundle. I was unfortunately unsurprised they didn't do it again.
There's around 40 unique tokens in this set. It's a lot to include all of that in a pack
@@jerbear88win they’re actually very comparable there is about ~20 offspring cards and the same goes for embalm
@@TH3M4X48 maybe for bundles but not prerelease packs. I'm pretty sure this discussion was in reference to prerelease weekend and people opening up packs in general.
Dry-erase tokens! Absolutely killer in prerelease.
For constructed, proxy tokens are super sweet.
When I started playing Magic back in OG Ravnica, there were no officially printed tokens. They just didn't exist until Lorwyn; the final card slot was always an ad card or a Pro Tour profile card.
Fingers 🤞 for Seth to get & wear a frog 🐸 hat for podcast.
That is how it always is at rotation aggro is always king until the format gets solved
Lol
Thanks for the content Saffron, Richard and Crim😊
Fabled Passage is only slightly below the slowlands imo, but with a lot of fetch synergy. I feel like it’ll see a lot of play.
See, I would waaay rather face someone one step above me in skill than one step below me. Playing with people better than you makes you more observant and curious and creative, and you improve way more as a player in my opinion.
The easy fix for tokens is for Wizards to send the lgs a token bundle with all the tokens for the set with many copies of each one. Then when you finish building your deck for pre release and release you can go to the front deck and get the tokens you need. Then after the events the lgs can sell or hand out whatever tokens were not handed out.
On the offspring tokens:
I used copy tokens and put it with it's parent. I'm also weird and look up the tokens beforehand and make sure I have something for each.
Watching Richard’s face while Crim and Seth talk about “great cards” is all the content I need hahaha
The post-combat main phase to 2nd/3rd main phase change opens up new design space, both to reward extra combat decks by giving powerful effects to specific amounts of extra combats (ie draw x cards at the beginning of your third main phase or something like that) and by preventing new infinite combos like neheb in future card design
I mean all they would have to do is include a large bundle of all the tokens with the prerelease packages they send to stores (not in the individual player kits but the shipment to the store itself). Then stores can hand them out as needed the same as they do with basic lands.
I recently rewatched Holy Grail for the first time in like 15 years of so and it holds up. Still hilarious.
It seems to me like the best solution for the offspring tokens would be to do what they've done in the past for double-sided cards. Have token/reminder cards with a list of the offspring cards in the set, so players can put a checkmark next to the card that they're using the card to stand in for. That gives players a piece of cardboard that shows what the token is, and they can still refer to the original offspring card for specific rules text.
I think the mindset matters for whether you want to pub-stomp or have close games. People who just want to relax and unwind would probably prefer to stomp vs people who have a more competitive mindset would probably prefer close matches. Sometimes, they're the same person, but at different times.
This argument feels weird to me. If you want to relax, pub-stomping isn't a good option, personally i just feel bad with non-games like that.
Edit: to clarify, this is in regard to playing against real people, if you wanna stomp an ai go for it.
50:07 I think the best way to solve the token problem is to send tokens to the LGS.
41:41 for the postcombat main phase rewording to second main phase it’s probably just a) shorter, b) easier for onboarding newer players.
@49:55 Richard is right about the bundles. It is the reason I have all the embalm tokens.
No audio? :^(
Edit: Seems like I was too early for audio haha
Yeah WotC is being highly incompetent here. It's actually surprising in a way because this is the easiest and least controversial ban ever. Literally everyone wants Nadu gone and yet somehow WotC manages to screw it up.
Really feels like this is Wizards being like "You wanted a scheduled BNR, you got it. Now live with it."
Modern is actually still pretty good in my area. Mainly due to several of our grinders trying Nadu, sweeping the rest of us for a week and then switching decks. We do have a lot of tron but other than that its a pretty diverse meta with plenty of people trying new things. Everyone does agree Nadu needs a ban though. The elves player is playing Nadu because its that good.
On the token topic, Im just tired of the art cards and ad inserts in packs. I want a token in every pack. Put the art cards in collector boosters or something. At my prerelease it was even harder to track with other tokens than usual. I do think putting like 3 blanks in the prerelease kits would have helped if they couldnt just put every offspring token in the kits. And yeah they should be in the bundles.
On the topic of token scarcity, there is a Beadle & Grimm's Bloomburrow Token Set with some of the Offspring tokens already which feels very similar to having a secret lair for the tokens.
"I think it comes out tomorrow...I think it will sell pretty well" *sells out hours earlier*
I do prefer the podcasts where Seth doesn't talk like he is on release from the local asylum 🤣
All token producing card should have the corresponding token in the pact
I agree with Richard on the state of Modern, but I also wasn't surprised that Wotc didn't do anything.
As for Standard, I'm curious to see how much of a shake-up Standard gets or if the Kindred decks don't have enough power to compete.
Arena's rank doesn't solve it alone. You can climb the ladder with under 50% win rate eventually if you keep playing. And MMR or an equivalent is especially needed when you hit Mythic.
Thankfully you can't get to mythic with 50% or lower.
You need to win more than you lose since 50% meant you lose as much as you gain.
@@midnalight6419you can lose on the rank floor.
Your overall win rate can be lower. You only need to win several back to back, which can happen from luck of the draw over skill.
did Crim just say he doesn't want SBMM in MTG's ranked system, when that ranking system literally is a form of SBMM??
a ranked ladder (in any game) is putting people into skill brackets based on their performance and pairs them against other people within their current rank. if you perform well you get to rank up and if you suck you get ranked down. it's literally skill-based matchmaking.
in Brawl (or whatever) there is no ranked mode, so the game (Arena) takes other values into consideration to facilitate a "balanced" match experience. and as proven by the study, if it is done well, it is much more beneficial to the player base than what people want to accept.
the core piece here is this part though: *done well*
not every SBMM is suitable for every game, and the one creating the SBMM has to find a system that works for their game.
Seth: "We might go outside" S-level threat
WotC: Na-please-du
People don’t mind no MMR when it’s in their favor, BUT it’s clear they hate its absence when they’re on the bad end. How many posts of plats showing they got matched w a mythic and being like “wtf?????”
OTJ is the standard set of the year. There I said it. Everyone thinks it, no one will say it.
I don't know how nobody is talking about the season of loss. That card is busted. I've got my playset, so you're allowed to talk about it now. It reminds me of a sideways meathook massacre
More like invoke despair at home
i think gix's command is gonna beat it out in standard because it's way better than season of loss versus boros convoke, but it is a sweet card
@gretchling5012 maybe 🤔
The absurd thing is that they'll listen to the Neheb commander players and walk back something unpopular but let Nadu & Grief reign supreme.
the token thing seems pretty easy to solve. Just print them into the prerelease kits. 1 or 2 of each. Also just send a bunch to the stores to hand out at the basic land station.
A good way to fix the token problem would be do print a common token on one side and a rarer token on the back. This would put more of the rarer tokens out there without making rabbit tokens any harder to get. Commander decks already do this.
The CoD thing with removing skill-based matchmaking was to try to see if they could increase microtransaction sales by players who got beat by better players who also had cosmetics so that the losing player would want to buy the cosmetics to be more like the winning player. They stated this in a report.
you guys are wayy too obsessed with a set's powerlevel. Bloomburrow is a cool Tribal set and its cool to see creatures like Mice and Rabbit's getting love
Crim should be in time out right now for ruining last weeks clash
United States Submarine tradition is a sailor isn't allowed to watch movies underway until they are fully qualified in Submarine Warfare.
Once they do, they are allowed to pick the movie for the next movie night.
The year was 2003 & I picked "Monty Python & The Quest for the Holy Grail."
Damn seth a Halo player and a ween fan. He is a secret bro!
55:01 Crim is so wrong. Richard is on point. I want skill based matchmaking when I play magic arena or online. I don’t do it a lot and it is so different than playing commander with my friends. I watch Seth and Crim play magic all the time and they are soooo much better than me. I don’t want to play against them in a 60 card format because it would just be a hopeless fight for me. Yes there is RNG and I may get a win if they get landscrewed. When I play online formats I need to learn. And I cannot learn if I’m playing against people that just destroy me every turn. This was just so wild to hear, I’ve never heard Crim so off on something. I need to play against bad magic players because I’m a bad magic player and need to learn. I don’t play 60 card formats enough to get gud. Haven’t for a lonnnng time. 58:54 Seth is so right. If all I experienced in Magic was getting destroyed all the time I would never play magic.
Speculating on why they changed the wording for extra combats, it could be possible that they are trying to make a new card in an upcoming set that triggers on your third combat for an extra combats commander...this seems like something that would follow some of their recent commanders for different archetypes, and in order for a card to trigger on your third combat you'd need the rules change...
A ranked ladder *is* SBMM, which is funny that you're saying that you don't need SBMM because you have a ranked ladder. Its the same thing. Hidden MMR is just an additional SBMM parameter that they can use. They could also be using collection size for matchmaking. I believe that for a ranked ladder, SBMM is great for getting people into the rank where they have mostly close games which I consider the most fun. Its nice to outplay someone every once in a while, but I don't like blowout games where one person just never does anything and they other player just wins.
Richard you should try pauper
Skill based matchmaking is so important because both COD and MTG are trying to reward their players for improving their skill.
COD is based on improving your aim, team coordination & timing. MTG is deck building, combat mechanics, spell mechanics, static effects etc.
If someone is running Nadu against the (technically modern legal) starter decks it’s like smurfing on a bronze player in valorant or COD.
I agree to an extent. They need to have that skill based matchmaking mode but they equally need to have a non skill based matchmaking mode.
Maybe not so much in COD idk I haven’t played it in a long time.
They should call the main phases pre, added and post. Pre indicating the main phase that occurs *before* any combat phases. Post indicating the main phase that occurs *after* all combat phases. Added indicating the main phases that were added to the turn based on a spell or ability. This would eliminate any confusion and simplify the templating. Comments?
Wandering Emperor is rotating out. That is why you didn't see any Seth.
Brotherhood's End is going to be a 4 of staple in this format. Sheoldred is still in standard too (can we just ban this already? Still the best card in standard).
I think the first few weeks will be aggro decks. Like ALL rotation sets aggro is good at first. Then the mid range decks adjust and out value them. Then the control decks rise up to beat the mid range decks.
Repeat this cycle every few weeks.
He didn’t mean literal Wandering Emperor. He was using it as an example of staple cards that can go into many decks.
@OctopiWalgreens The first mention he said Wanderin Emperor and made no reference to that style of card. The 2nd instance he did refer to style of card.
The only modern game that just shows you your elo, win percentage and other stats is Street Fighter. Every match you play is recorded and your fighter profile displays overall win percentage and win percentage per character and in which mode, ranked or casual matches. A system like this would be amazing for mtg imo.
What I'm curious about Bloomburrow Standard is how the creatures will slot into other decks based on their secondary types. Lizards have outlaws that commit crimes every turn. Mice have knights and warriors. Frogs have wizards. Is it worth building along those archetypes rather than the mice/frog/lizard types?
Most likely not, except maybe Lizards/Outlaws and Mice/Soldiers (we still have most soldier cards in the format)
Richard should unironically play Standard. It's easily the best constructed format in Magic right now.
Unique tokens provide another reason for people to buy packs. We'll probably see serialized tokens eventually.
People forget that fabled passage was reprinted, mana is fine.
Bloomburrow is a weak set, but love it for draft, standard and commander. New tribes are welcomed change for commander. Hope they create and support more tribes in more sets like this.
“It’s not their turn!”
That’s how I feel playing any fps
CoD is a sport, MtG is an orthogame, they're completely different. This is why Chaos Orb was banned, it requires physical skill. A lot of people look at Chaos Orb and think it sucks, but I'll five for one you for three colorless all day long. I don't miss, I catch bystanders.
39:00 dang no kneee-heb from seth. My favorite pronunciation. Think meeeshra for reference
It's second only to the flourish of "Bloodtithe *Harvester*" for me.
Frogs was the most fun archetype imo tho so durdly. I literally drew my deck on prerelease night
I wonder if valley floodcaller may end up in some control deck variants to flash in high noon, temporary lockdown and starfall invocation
What is happening with Modern now has been simmering under the surface since LoTR came out. Nadu was just that last straw.
Amononkhet and hour of devastation were the only 2 that had the token packs
50:03 it’s not a great solution but that should definitely at least be helpful to get them all in a bundle
So about the copy tokens, its been a thing Magic players have been dealing with for a decade+: cackling counterpart, rite of Replication, Dance of the Many,etc. We've been making token copies of regular cards forever. At least these Bloomburrow ones you can get an official version of.
I think for they should include one of each token in the bundles.
The thing about SBMM that people dont like is the whiplash you get from being in a lobby where you feel like a good player and 4 matches later, you get switched to a lobby against people that feels like they're cheating. It rarely feels like you're paired against the 'same' people.
How could Nadu’s performance at the pro tour not warrant an emergency ban
I think 'the late game' is why Lizards have to run LJF and/or Hellspur Posse Boss if it's going to be a real deck in Best of 3 standard.
I will have to check my Bundle Box to see what tokens it has when I buy one, but the ones I remember getting out of Bundles are awful Double sided token cards instead of a token on front and the MTG card back on the back.
Changing to 2nd main phase is fine and probably good. Errata makes the game more complicated. Changes moving forward is good. Unnecessarily errata-ing cards is bad.
Im still wondering if they will ever get to fish mail 😅
Prerelease could have a special pack of tokens and the promo card, then there would be no more issue and an added appeal to buy prerelease boxes after the main release. It’s not that hard, Wizards!
I do think “ second main phase” is way clearer for new players
Blew my girls mind. Call that a cognitive load.
The worst rank in any game is hitting the rank where you're suppose to be. At that point you generally can't carry consistently in team games, aren't really learning anything since players are at your skill and are just stuck unless you actively are looking to improve outside of just playing (watching videos, reading articles, practicing in bot match, etc...). Having to put in extra work is where most people just stop moving up and start complaining about something.
Of course the Monty Python secret lair is already sold out...
Really? I was hoping to wait literally one more day for my next paycheck. Bummer.
If you have cards that are unplayable in a competitive format and unplayable in commander, build a cube it's the perfect place for pet cards.
Token cards are becoming more and more important. LCS need to have these provided like they do basics
Being a Jund player, seeing all this chaos, I feels like Wizards don't know what they are doing. For modern I would ban Ring and Nadu, but if you do that Energy Decks, Grief decks, will be a problem, doesn't help that Guide of Souls is a better DRC. But my guess if a card was banned Phlage. if it's that bad.
PS, little disappointed with MH3 not having any Jund color cards in the set. When it has a commander deck.. Bloomborrow looks really cute and I am looking forward to making Squirrels
wear down could work well in the go wide bunnies deck to destroy the enchantment
As someone who literally only plays COD and MTG as the two games I play with 99.9% of the time I spend playing game, Activision is the biggest problem. For instance, in ranked play whether it’s COD or MTG, then yes, it should be someone of a similar skill. However, in public matches (these are meant to be non competitive, only for leisure play) there should be absolutely no hidden system trying to put me in the most “optimal” match making. COD got big as a franchise when they didn’t do these things. Their “data” has always been skewed and they never 100% do it correctly. If you look at their actual graphs of the data, their stats make absolutely no sense.
Moist critical used the word weenie hut Jr, and I'm curious how many games crim and Charlie have played.
Back in Battlebond they figured that partnered creatures should go in the same booster. Why can’t they do that with the offspring creatures?
I'm not sure why there is so much hype for Bloomborrow. The cards seem fine, they'll have more impact due to rotation and smaller card pool but as standard grows, I see many many of these cards fading away.
WoTC in an attempt to force us away from "good stuff piles" by creating cards that only really work well with one another (as pointed out in this episode), get these short windows where they're fine and then the meta adjusts and all these aggro piles (in Bo3) will be non existent due to people playing removal and sweepers. After the initial burst, the meta will shift back to good stuff midrange and control to fight off aggro.
Do you think Boros valiant Mice will still be relevant by next summer? I wholeheartedly don't. The kindred factions meta they're attempting to force us to play will fail, thus causing the set to fail as a whole (pointed out in a previous episode where something is said along the lines of if your kindred themes fail, the set fails as a whole).
On the topic of unique tokens: it's insane that we don't get a token in every pack! Opening an art card or ad card is just them ripping us off with unplayable trash.
Every new set and especially after set rotation, the easiest decks to build and pilot are aggro decks, because they are focused. But board wipes exists. Id even consider playing Final Showdown in standard when an opponent is popping off and negate all their ability