Hey everyone, big news from Wizards today, the head designer for Magic the Gathering Mark Rosewater announced today that the core sets are back and there will be larger sets.
In his article, Mark Rosewater by reflecting on the successes and the challenges of the Two-Block Model, that was announced almost three years ago. Mark believes the successes of the Two-Block format include: visiting more worlds in the Magic the Gathering Multiverse. Better Draft Environments by having more Larger-Set-Alone Draft environments. Mark also believes that the storytelling is better as it’s more fast paced and more people are actually reading the lore! Now I got to say these are good things, as seeing more worlds mean more possibilities for the game, and better storytelling makes things even more interesting. Now one of the more questionable “successes” is the Planeswalker decks. I honestly don’t like them and it doesn’t really offer me anything good. Sure they are for new players but after a few casual games I am sure the new player want’s something with a little more of a power level.
Mark also points out some of the challenges including: small sets, rotation of standard, no core set, too much focus on the Gatewatch (well duh, I mean there’s too many versions of the Gatewatch now!) and besides nobody likes the Gatewatch.
Now for the big changes: The Fall, Winter, and Spring Sets Will All Be Large Sets That Are Drafted Alone, which means that there will be no more such thing as “small sets”. Rip small sets. The core sets are back! As the Summer set! Yes please! The set will mostly for new players, but there will be enough goodies for it to attract existing players. “The set will be roughly half new cards and half reprints, and all the cards will be Standard-legal.” Let’s hope for some good reprints. The presence of the Gatewatch will be reduced they will be reduced in three ways according to Mark:
”
- We’re significantly pulling back on how often the Gatewatch will appear as planeswalker cards. It will still happen when the story calls for it, but far less often. For example, for all of 2017 and 2018, only a handful of planeswalker cards will be Gatewatch members, and that’s including in Planeswalker Decks, where they’ll appear slightly more often.
- Our new plan is to continue to design flavorful story cards but only push them for Constructed when, through playtesting, we believe that they lead to a better Constructed environment.
- The Gatewatch are still going to be our protagonists, but every member will no longer show up in every block. We may even have some blocks where none of the Gatewatch appear, although even those blocks will still be relevant to the larger story. “
In addition the Masterpiece Series will appear less and less. All in all this seems like a great way of changing up the game, we get the core sets back, we get to see less of the Gatewatch, more larger sets! This is looking pretty good Mark. Let’s hope this works!
Here’s an illustration of how things will work:
Link to the article:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/metamorphosis-2-0-2017-06-12
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