andrew

Yeah I think he missed the mark as well and just leans on money spent instead of how the formats feel, how the design team is even doing, or how they could be better spending money.

Re: design itself, he kind of argues the opposite of what he wants too: they're spending more on competitive design but it's getting worse. Who knows if it would be even worse still had they stopped spending money on competitive design, but what they're doing clearly isn't working and he doesn't even acknowledge that.

I think to answer your question, they don't really have anything to say on how extra manpower is being used to promote or encourage competitive play. They definitely committed earlier this year to trying to revitalize competitive play but it's definitely not enough and they never talk about outreach to competitive players or anything like that.

Gotta love an announcement of an announcement 😜 Judging from TCGPkayer listings it looks like a lot of people think Fury is getting banned in Modern which I’d be totally in favor of.

I didn’t watch the Weekly MTG stream but they apparently went pretty in depth on thoughts which is kinda cool. Here’s a comprehensive summary from someone else FWIW:

overview on b&r philosophy

• next ban window dec 4
• non-rotation windows are for all non-standard formats. no plans to majorly change standard until rotation happens
  • exception reserved for felidar guardian ofc
• major philosophy for all formats is "fun, replayability, variety of decks"
• fun is the first priority, data points:
  • discussion with players/wotc
  • playtesting and watching results
  • asking different kinds of players
• when they discuss b&r, there is a meeting with format experts that look at what's fun and not fun, and also open threads about individual cards/items. they discuss in a group meeting about said cards, and ask in a larger discussion group about potential packages and ripple effects if particular cards get banned
• a lot of consideration given to when tournaments are happening when it comes to considering b&r - they want to avoid rug pulls, but there's a line. want to avoid making players scramble ahead of big changes
  • "maybe [scam] was close but not quite over it, it's a bit subjective"
  • (regarding pio changes upcoming) "we're trying to minimize impact", and this stream is also a way to help ease that change
• "we have considered [functional errata] at times, but it is a nuclear option"
• (regarding how much product sales factor into b&r)
  • "I would say very little, again our main goal with the format is that they're fun and replayable and you enjoy doing them"
  • "fun is paramount over what the booster pack de jour is; point to omnath, point to oko"
  • maximizing fun for the most amount of people (net fun e.g land destruction)

pioneer

• pioneer is the one most effected by standard releases, given there isn't additional supplements are printed into it. since there isn't a direct endpoint, these changes are going to be looking to care take the format.
• discussing monoG, possibly discover combo decks. discussed t3 kills
• mentioned that WOE didn't change much for pio, but LCI was a huge shift
• there will be pioneer ban(s)
• there will be pioneer unban(s)

modern

• with modern, preordain unban went well and they might be trying to find more opportunities for unban. given direct print sets + standard, the format has more oomph which is intentional. they have been actively tracking LTR cards and scam since PT barcelona, and wanted to wait and see what evolved after that (scam still dominant)
• discussing fury, undying effects, beans, OBM - lots of discussion on gatekeeping 1 toughness
• they hear "free splinter twin", but they consider it to be too much of a risk. "some people have fun with it, but more people don't"
• there will be modern ban(s)

legacy/vintage

• legacy/vintage bans look at community first and foremost. winrates are looked at, but what community is finding fun/unfun is very very important
• lots of discussion on legacy deck variety, and how formats stand out from each other
• seem to be enjoying vintage a lot, they bring up the fact that there aren't really enough players to explore the format fully
• keeping an eye on eternal weekend
• no changes for legacy
• no changes for vintage

historic

• we'll learn more about fetches next week (either mon/tue) from the arena team

misc

• sept 8 b&r shouldn't have happened - weird timelines/cadence, team didn't have enough time to think about it and not enough data (middle of season), wanted to see full picture before taking actions - didn't want to kneejerk react to barcelona. Blake specifically fucked this up (he keeps the calendar) and he says it was his fault that went out at all
• modern RCQ season has been most attended since starting RCQs
• (paper) standard play rates are at their highest since the pandemic
• they want to do these sorts of public talks (either on stream or at minimum an article) more frequently, especially during the large rotational b&r
• they discussed errata, restriction, and "pair banning" saheeli + felidar guardian back when they were in standard

Happy $tonk$ day!

This is awesome! Great work on this, super useful reference

Ah gotcha! That's too bad it's a temporary bonus, it felt so nice going through the first 20 levels and getting pack after pack.

Anyone know how this stacks up to the current MP? I don't play a ton but the free tier of the WOE mastery pass has been absolutely juiced up with packs this time, way more noticeably so compared to the last time I was playing. If this is the trend it's a super welcome bonus.

Couple thoughts after thinking about it a bit more:

• This smells a bit like a quieter way to just raise the price of boosters. Drafts will cost more now, which sucks. They say "Because that is six more boosters than Set Booster displays have right now, be aware the price of a Play Booster display box will be higher than that of a Set Booster display box." Most likely this coincides with a per-booster price increase too which probably (partly) drove this.

• Impact on draft seems way higher than they're leading on, even though they address this. An average of 3 cards from the List per draft has to increase variance. Granted it's now 50 cards instead of 300 in the List, and there is thought to tie it into the set, but that's still more variance. Relatedly, possibly opening 4 (!) rares but 3 fewer commons also has to change the game quite a bit too. 2-rare packs seem not crazy at least, and 3 fewer commons is substantial.

• I'm glad we're going back to just 1 type of booster pack though, I didn't like 2 different packs.

• I hope all cards from the List now make it to Arena! Could be a cool way to get more reprints there.

Differences from existing draft boosters: *

• The potential to open up to 4 rare or mythic rare cards
• -1 playable card
• -3 commons
• +1 non-foil wildcard
• +1 traditional foil wildcard
• 1-in-8 opportunity of getting a card from The List (The List didn't appear in draft boosters)
• ~1-in-3 opportunity of an art card (art cards didn't appear in draft boosters)

* Based on the default without a traditional foil card. Previously, draft boosters had a traditional foil approximately a 1/3 the time.

Wow was not expecting such a major change to card distribution! Here's an overview of the new booster contents:

Wow looks like we got a pair of (long overdue) major nerfs with Orcish Bowmasters and The One Ring:

🙌 Really cool! The mastery pass is so juiced up at the beginning, the 5k XP was enough for 3 packs and a mythic right away.

[entitled-rant]The sleeve is nice but it doesn't really scream 5th anniversary/special to me. Would've been cool to get something truly unique to show off variously.[/entitled-rant]

FYI the standings are on Melee for some reason: https://melee.gg/Hub/View/115

6ish unique decks in the top 8!