Another Fucking MtG Thread

>from a purely financial/business standpoint did NWO help
without someone from wotc's marketing team you're never getting a ral answer to this. wotc does give the impression that new player acquisition's gone well in recent history, but I don't think anyone claims NWO is solely responsible for that.
>from a purely gameplay standpoint did NWO help
NWO had nothing to do with gameplay, except kind of limited, so, I guess?

>>49361814
So, the complexity shift on the common level hasn't changed high-level play? Haven't played in FNM in years. Just been messing around with basic decks.

>>49361906
Commons are rarely staples in Constructed at any level, really. NWO hasn't really changed that in any way, aside from, say, shifting some of the Constructed spot removal staples to uncommon.

>>49361906
why would it? rarity doesn't affect gameplay at all outside of limited, and lower complexity cards make a boardstate easier to read, but don't necessarily lead to less complex gameplay.

>>49361906
>complexity shift
The most complex mechanic in Standard right now is +1/+1 counters. Standard has been shit ever since they reprinted the fetches, and even then I was still a big fan of the THS-KTK Standard format. Bring back Banding.

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>>49361999
my name's arlinn kord and I came here to tell you you're wrong, stupid, and mad.

>>49361698
joke on them i started playing on Mirrodin as a 8 year old or some shit like that and i had no trouble using and understanding complex mechanics on cards and shit.Common had 2 or 3 abilities? fine for my 8 year old.
Allright, rare stuff that were purely a wall of text of a single tricky ability were a bit hard to understand, example http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=75788&part=Thought+Dissector.

the real problem were abilities that were mysteriously hard to explain such as regeneration and protection from X.Where am i supposed to learn how they work? they are complicated.
new basic lands without text created an entire generation of young magic players who had no idea what " mana pool" is and what is the difference between mana and lands.
i had one kid with a red deck playing old mountains ( that still add the text on it) and he started the turn by using his mountain to fetch for another mountain which fetched for another mountain from his library... ending up with 24 tapped mountains on turn 1, then he fireballed me for 23 the second turn.

>>49361999
>>49362031
Not to mention:
>Madness
>Delirum
>DFCs (which for newer players are more complex then they look with needing checklist cards)
>Soon, vehicles
>Meld

>>49361698
Wow that graph is complete horseshit.

>>49364935
I agree. Basic MtG wasn't like this simple game of checkers.

>>49361698
>From a purely financial/business standpoint, did NWO help?
We lack the data to say with certainty, due to WotC keeping that shit on lockdown, but the game has supposedly only seen better and better years since NWO became a thing, so i think it is fair to say that it was involved in WotC's finances improving, yes.

>From a purely gameplay standpoint, did NWO help?
No. At best, it did nothing (as it was intended, if you accept WotC's statements at face-value). At worst, it contributed to the phenomenon of cards for limited make the vast majority of most sets uninteresting chaff. While true that most sets were mostly chaff anyway, sometimes the chaff was interesting in the older days (as someone who started in Ice Age, I'm comfortable saying this). Now, it is just miserably boring chaff basically all of the time. I don't know that NWO is to blame for the chaff being shit, but I suspect it is involved. How, why, and to what degree, are hard to say without information from inside of WotC.

>>49364077
>>DFCs (which are about as wonky as banding and phasing)

>For those that are worried that this is boring, I ask you to simply try the following experiment. Make two decks of just vanilla creatures and common sorceries. (This is very similar to a beginner product we made long ago named Portal.) Find a player of a similar skill level to your own and play the decks against each other. What you will find is that these games are actually quite interesting. It's easy to get caught up in all the complexity of Magic that you forget how much fun the base of the game is—and not just fun, skillful.

Was he right?

>>49361698
Even if the player base did grow it most probably has more to do with nerd shit becoming socially acceptable as Gen X parents and teachers are less likely not only to let other kids bully you for your hobby preferences but also less likely to bully you themselves than baby boomers.

NWO did do something good from a financial perspective. Now every Standard deck absolutely needs to run 4x copies of multiple Mythic Rares because they are by far the best cards in every set.
Opening a specific MR takes 110 boosters off of WotC's stock, which means 440 boosters per player need to be sold to someone just so that every Spike has the best deck for their FNM delusions of PT grandeur. And now there's no problematic $0.25-0.99 cards like Doom Blade, Lightning Bolt, Oblivion Ring or Mana Leak at Common/Uncommon devaluating those precious Mythic Rares with their opressive power levels.

>>49366566
>Was he right?
Have you tried it? It's surprisingly enjoyable. Not in a deep and complex way, but enjoyable regardless.