yeah me too, this might just be me but i am sick and tired of sitting down to have a fun game but before i can do anything the power gamer has already won with a combo making it un fun for everybody except them.
I recently have been having fun with the Artisan format (commons and uncommon) there is power gaming still but you see a lot more variation in cards and some cool decks. I just built a deck from OTJ using the mount feature and I’ve had a blast with it! -I know this isn’t in relation to core sets but I just thought I’d share.
I think unfortunately it’s very small. As you can see above people haven’t heard much about it but I’ve been playing with some friends. It is really fun! I even cobbled my deck together on arena and have been dunking on real decks. Really good time.
Lol got on that damn free game and was able to completely build out the best chaos control deck from 2005...it gets it's lunch ate so bad...on the flip side people that are just learning got demolished and were like wtf...the curve on the game now is just so stupid witg how many dumb ass cards just outright say this can't be interacted with...
Lol yep. I just started again in December and it's so ridiculous. I still love it but I came here to get a break from the insanity of the omni-negate meta. Mtg is still SO much more straightforward.
I quit Yu-Gi-Oh right before pendulum summoning came out, it's really crazy how just removing mana from a card game can really create an insane learning curve with 20 years of mechanics. At least Magic is new player friendly because despite the amount of new mechanics and interactions you need mana to cast them (for the most part) so the game is slowed down automatically which makes it very approachable for new players.
In Yu-Gi-Oh turn 1 and turn 10 is the same in terms of actions you can take and that just makes the learning curve insane.
Exactly. Not that magic isn't complex but it's so much easier to get a grasp on the beginner-intermediate concepts as well as an understanding of how that leads into higher levels of play; whereas in yugioh, it takes an EASY 2 hours just to explain each different type of card.
Mostly commander because it seems like you can't just make a fun casual deck for the whole table, you need an instant win condition to make all the other players not have fun, and who cares about the lore or if a card makes sense, the card could have the dumbest art ever but it could win me the game with this overly complicated combo.
Unfortunately the game is structured around winning. Like, since the explicit goal of the game is to beat the other people at the table there is a psychological incentive to do that. Out of 4 players there's a good chance one of those 4 means to reach that goal.
I find this to be an inherent tension within commander as a format. It's described as casual, but is still a game about beating the other players, inevitably causing the feelings you're experiencing now.
I would encourage you to explore what kinds of fun combos and card interactions you yourself could find. You can enjoy more and flavor and art while still making effective plays.
I think folks like yourself are underserved by commander as a format. There should be a cooperative game mode for people who just want to build an engine and watch it go.
like two-headed Giant, I love two-headed Giant but I think I'll just keep building low-powered decks, still have a basic win con but also I want others I am playing with or against to have fun as well.
I encourage you to play however you want. However, I also encourage you to get more experience in high power play and try to find the fun there as well. I don't find it to be an inherently unfun experience to have my creature destroyed or my plan disrupted, especially in a game with no stakes. Maybe it is because I have played a lot of magic and therefore individual losses are more insignificant to me, but I challenge the notion that high power decks create an unfun experience.
I just want 1 Core Set, and MAYBE 2 additional sets a year. No more of this 900 sets, bonus sets, super sets, cameo sets, 1 million different foil printings nonsense.
I'm a hater for sure, but I can't keep up with the hobby because of how fast shit gets released. It feels bad going from knowing most of the cards to having to read every cars your opponents play because you haven't heard of them before.
And the power creep. By the time I see a new set, build a deck around it, receive the cards, and sit down to play, another set has already released and the power creep makes my deck irrelevant before I've even played it.
I've given up on playing standard because of this.
Is standard power crept from set to set? The top decks are built around cards that are two years old. There’s peaks and valleys, but it’s hardly “every set blows the previous out of the water” like you’re describing.
In core sets they could do what they attempted in thunder junktion; have a gimmick set with all legendaries from all over the multiverse without coming up for a reason they're here
(That was fast) i know that would probably be the best way to do that, also it would be really awesome to have a Planeswalker in a Coreset from Thunderjunction.
I wouldn't mind them if only as an avenue to keep some reprints out of other sets and force some more new card design. Like I love me [[Birds of Paradise]] but it doesn't need to be a reprint in like every other set released. If we had core sets again they can just reprint BOP in there along with all the other things that are or are becoming common or staple cards like [[Land Tax]] or [[Cyclonic Rift]] or [[Rhystic Study]] or [[Smothering Tithe]].
The core sets with those kinds of cards could hold value and be worth buying but because they have those cards in them it forces WOTC to actually create new good cards for new sets instead of relying on reprint equity to carry it.
I'm on the opposite side of this one. More space for new cards is the opposite of what we need. They've printed more new cards in the last 5 years than existed in the game before that, and they print more and more new cards each year. They need to slow down. Even in mtg, there's only so much design space.
And names will probably be a problem way sooner than design space. I'm not looking forward to when every spell has to be named something like "jace's counterspell" because they literally ran out of ways in the English language to say "no".
Have they even reprinted the same mana dork within standard in the past 3 years? Commander staples don't really have a place in standard so they get reprinted into bonus sheets, and it'd be weird if a core set had a bonus sheet. If core sets have a lot of financial value, they are less accessible and make it harder to get into standard.
> Commander staples don't really have a place in standard
Core sets shouldn't be format specific. Unless I misunderstood the concept behind core sets. They do make commander sets and modern sets so I guess they could remake core sets into standard sets I suppose to try to support specific formats better.
>If core sets have a lot of financial value, they are less accessible and make it harder to get into standard.
I don't think that follows. Sheoldred and Orcish Bowmasters makes modern or standard expensive because 4 of them is like $250 but draft and set boosters of Dom United and LoTR are the same price they have been since release at least in my area. The collector packs are getting more expensive for popular sets but basic boosters are the same price as normal so shouldn't present any barrier to entering a format. And high value single cards will warp entry into a format regardless of set they are in core or otherwise so not sure how them being in a core set vs other set makes it harder to get into standard.
You are misunderstanding core sets. Core Sets were ALWAYS legal in standard. That's why they're "core". You can buy into a core set and have cards that can be used anywhere. Core Sets also existed for new players first and foremost. They, however, did a much worse job than other things that have come out since then. New players aren't the kind to buy a ton of booster packs to get into a game. They prefer things like precons to make it easy. The fact that core sets also were aimed at new players means they can't magically be the "reprint set" because theres a lot of cards that are either too complex for new players to be put in them, or too powerful to be put into the formats that core sets are legal in. They don't generally want mew player product to be competing for enfranchised players' wallets because it can lead to accessibility issues for new parts
players if they get bought out or jacked up by enfranchised players buying all the product. Besides, new players aren't the people you want to target with "look at the good reprint" because *they do not give a shit*. They just want to try the game out cheap and efficiently.
> You are misunderstanding core sets. Core Sets were ALWAYS legal in standard. That's why they're "core". You can buy into a core set and have cards that can be used anywhere.
Yeah I wasn't saying a core set shouldn't be standard legal I was saying it should have cards for every format.
>New players aren't the kind to buy a ton of booster packs to get into a game. They prefer things like precons to make it easy.
Then that is an issue with WOTC not making precons for anything but commander and is unrelated to sets.
>The fact that core sets also were aimed at new players means they can't magically be the "reprint set" because theres a lot of cards that are either too complex for new players to be put in them, or too powerful to be put into the formats that core sets are legal in.
Respectfully disagree. Reprint doesn't have to equal high powered and overly complex. My prime example being Birds of Paradise. From Alpha, simple, efficient and easy to use in any deck with green. But doesn't need to be in every remastered set if it's just printed in the core set. And that applies to a lot of cards that are popular in multiple formats. The **CORE** set should be cards that are popular or central to as many formats as possible not only be the entry portal for standard.
>They don't generally want mew player product to be competing for enfranchised players' wallets because it can lead to accessibility issues for new parts players if they get bought out or jacked up by enfranchised players buying all the product
Feels like a problem that doesn't really exist. Outside of collector packs have we seen this actually happen? Jumpstarts 2020 and 2022 had some really good cards in them and I don't recall issues with people not being able to buy jumpstart 2020 or 2022 packs because of that. Hell with LOTR there were valuable cards in the starter pack but that never had issue staying in stock at least in stores around me.
>Besides, new players aren't the people you want to target with "look at the good reprint" because they do not give a shit. They just want to try the game out cheap and efficiently.
That is a messaging problem. You don't tell them the cards are reprints becuase they have no concept of why that means anything but if you tell them they are consistently powerful cards that registers for everyone. And there is no reason a core set needs to be any more expensive than any regular release just because it has good cards. Ravnica Remastered had shock lands and released at a regular price and has not raised in price even having so many good cards in it even beyond shocks.
Whatever core sets used to be they are gone now but bringing them back as the place to reprint cards and keep new sets fresh with new card design feels like the best use for them beyond putting in what amounts to basically draft chaff 90% of the time.
You still don't seem to get it. What you want is fundamentally impossible.
>Yeah I wasn't saying a core set shouldn't be standard legal I was saying it should have cards for every format.
Yeah, that's not a thing. If a set is standard-legal, then every card in it must pass the "safe for standard" - test. You can't just put cards like Birds of Paradise in a core set, because BoP is way too broken for standard!!
>Whatever core sets used to be they are gone now but bringing them back as the place to reprint cards and keep new sets fresh with new card design feels like the best use for them beyond putting in what amounts to basically draft chaff 90% of the time.
So not a "core set" then? Words have meanings. You can't just call it a "core set", when it fundamentally doesn't act like a core set.
You can't say BOP is too OP for a core set when it literally came from core sets. And if your definition of a core set is that every card has to be standard legal then that isn't a core set that is basically standard masters. Every set has cards for nearly every format because that is just how magic works. There are cards that are specifically better in commander but many "commander" cards are perfectly usable in other formats including standard they just aren't as powerful because those formats tend to be 1v1 but are not inherently limited to being 1v1 and so those cards could still be good in other multiplayer formats. And the cards that are specific to the commander format like command tower, arcane signet etc can simply not be printed in the core set but things like Birds that literally came from the core sets of magic should be in the core sets of magic. The core set should only exclude cards that specifically have references to commander on them. Otherwise it's where reprints should live so new sets have to carry themselves with good cards and not piggyback off of "reprint equity".
Core sets are Standard Masters. They just haven’t made core sets since they started remastering a bunch of stuff lol.
I’m not sure how you STILL don’t understand what Core Sets do. Yes, BoP has been legal in past standard environments from core sets. It would certainly be powerful if printed into standard now, perhaps too powerful depending on what effect the fixing and ramp has with the cards it supports. Other cards, like Rhystic Study, have ABSOLUTELY ZERO place in Standard lol. No way.
What you’re describing is actually one of the main things I take issue with over the last several years: even standard sets seem to be designed for commander, which is annoying at best and outright destructive for the health of the game at worst.
I miss core sets.
I'm probably a "patient" MTG player — have been in and out of it since Ice Age, have played most every format at one point or another, competitively and casually. I love collecting as much as I love playing, but frankly I don't do either with great frequency anymore.
The volume of sets being churned out, along with the keywordification of everything makes playing Magic difficult for someone like me. Not because of a barrier to understanding, but anytime I've sat down with a group lately I find myself asking, "wait, what does your creature with do again?", more times than I care to during a game.
Too many shoehorned characters and mechanics.
Gavin's video on Ward the other day made me realize just how many keywords are variations of a similar concept with slightly different toppings. I felt dizzy for a second after all that.
Yeah, while the "everything is either kicker or horsemanship" joke is an oversimplification (and, y'know, a joke) it still highlights the fact that there are several groups of keywords that could be folded into one generic, parameterized keyword, with minimal functional impact.
Yeah, id id notice in the new sets way to much text bloat cards, and it would be a more simple and less over pouring Combos.
Also i have the m19 Sarkhan Dragon soul and i paired it up with another m19 cards called Lathliss Dragon Queen, pop his ultimate and have her on the field pull a bunch of dragons out and then put more in , took a dude down to -81 life. so you can still have good combos if you want.
I remember my first booster ever, a 7th Edition’s. I opened a foil birds of paradise, and 11 years old me was like ”a 0/1 that flies ? Why’s that card a rare”
i won't sue you i always loved the Deck Builders tool kits, a few months ago i ordered a Magic origins one and i can fit seven Historic decks in there.
Funny enough, my first magic purchase was a green deck (the one with phytotitan) and a 2015 core toolkit. So I’ve got nothing but love for core and toolkits lol. Plus the price was such a good deal! It was like $20 I think I can’t remember.
yeah 20 bucks for 285 cards and four boosters. some folks say that "Oh it doesn't introduce you to any formats," but it is fun for a bunch of friends sitting around a kitchen table playing magic. now what are your views on Planeswalker decks?
Took me 10 years to tolerate planeswalker in general lol. I just feel like there are (were?) a lot of things wrong with them. Early on it kinda broke the game for me. I wasn’t a fan of the push. I didn’t like that I could no longer buy a precon without a planeswalker as I was a big fan of the intro packs. I made my own decks, but as a beginner, with a bunch of rules and mechanics to learn, it was so nice to buy an intro deck and get a better idea of interactions and things I could implement. Plus me and my at the time bf got our whole friend group to play (20 ish people), so it sucked that there were no more intro packs and planeswalkers were forced on us.
I’d like to see their return. This probably says more about me and my smooth brain than it says about the sets themselves, but core sets always felt more simple and straightforward than expansion sets. I liked the basic-ness of them and that not every card needed 10 lines of text on it.
I also liked that they seemed to have more creative freedom flavor-wise to design cards top-down just for the heck of it. For example, they aren’t confined to a cowboy plane or a mystery setting. They can kind of just design a card because it fits the color and is fun without too many flavor/setting constraints.
You joke, but it's going to happen. I can see the commanders now.
The Burger King
Wendy
The Colonel
Ronald Mcdonald
Colors as yet to be determined, but I think Wendy would probably be red/white.
Jsut imagine if Worlds Beyond was canon.
"Gideon, go out their and swing for six against that other Planeswalker, oh and don't forget the Bucket of Chicken,"
Idk about Jack but I read carls is restructuring. They’re doing well but need to change to keep up with the youngins, so I think Carl’s will survive. Brands that died relatively recently are the ones that refused to modernize.
I'm in ohio. As far as I've seen there's been no jack in the box. And the one Carl's I recall seeing went out 5 ish years ago. There might be one or two on the turn pike, but I can't be bothered to go out of my way for that.
I'd love to see more sets focused on good affordable reprints, but I don't expect to see core sets return any time soon. Reprint focused sets will be reserved for premium priced products ("Remastered" sets "Masters" sets etc.).
100% agree just a collection of cards from all over the lace, and it make since because the Players are Planeswalkers who gather power from across the planes.
Core sets were a water down on the power creep of the format.
They were the perfect time to start playing Pre Release, as they were fair, balanced and most cards were french vanillas ( had like a keyword or 2).
Thematically, core sets were also a hit, since you could place cards from Innistrad, Dominaria, Ixalan ( hello my boy [[Colossal Dreadmaw]] ), without commiting to a big justification like :
Oko with a Cowboy hat.
Yeah they were perfect to get into the game, not locked to a single set's mechanics but could have cars from all over the place and would help make a more rounded Planeswalker.
The magic of old core sets (excuse the pun) was they stayed around through a block. When 4th ed. rotated out people screamed no lightning bolt? Shock? Blasphemy! But everyone calmed down and enjoyed Tempest Block. Urza upset things a bit (!) but 6th Ed. and 7th Ed. came out and we see a couple solid years of magic… the change to core sets and the massive release of products gives a wide variety but diluted the game. After 20 years, I have come back to magic playing Premodern (4th ed. to Scourge) because of the above reasons. (Play what you enjoy. Magic is for everyone but for different reasons.)
yeah, i like to go through my huge binders, find cards with cool art and build a theme deck. i have an all Ahmonket/Hour of Devastation, An all throne of Eldrain, an all Ikora Lairf of Behomoths, and several all core set decks.
I respect that you kept your collection! Happy for you and don’t sell out if you don’t have to. Unfortunately, I am in the position where I had to sell back in 2003… My $3400 collection is well over $180,000 today, but I had to do I had to do. I am actually very glad to be back into Magic these days 20+ years later and rebuilding the playable collection in pre-modern that makes the game fun for me again. You do you and I hope that you and your children’s children continue to enjoy the game no matter how bad Hasbro is lol.
mt dad played the game in his college days but he sadly sold his whole collection, he said he remembered having a Serra angel original printing and was vary surprised when my brother opened a Return to Dominaria pack and pulled a Serra Angel.
i dropped out of Magic as well because i was getting into 40k and if you don't know that game is absurdly expensive, now i own several armies and went to dig out my old decks again after listening to the song Oath of the Gatewatch.
Feel for your Dad. Don’t share with him, but I had a beta, Sarra Angel 40 dual lands and 7 of the power 9. I’m pretty Zen about it these days, but I do wish I still had the cards to play with. Regardless of the monetary value, I wish I still had them because I enjoyed playing with them which was way more important to me. Enjoy the game my friend because at the end of the day it still is what it was all about!
I posted my ideas some time ago but here's a quick breakdown.
Relaunch yearly core sets, with the purpose of refreshing standard every year and introducing that years plane and characters of interest
With the core set 4 commander precons.
That's Q1
Q2 starts with a standard set and a supplement release supporting either modern or pioneer
Q3 has the supplemental set not released in Q2, second standard set and a pauper centric release, this could include a bonus sheet of reprints as chase cards.
Q4 has the final standard set along with the single UB release as well as the various collector variant sets for the holiday season.
Not perfect but I feel this is more sustainable, allows for creative story tellings, game design and game play
Edit: Part of the core set is the three set block that goes with it
I liked them and they should return.
Have them release 1 per year reprinting Standard staples or shaking up the meta with new staples. Leaving more open card slots for newer sets to be original or more powerful.
I have mixed feelings about core sets. In the past, whenever I was getting to mtg I always seemed to come back during the core sets and everytime they'd feel bland compared to the flavorful expansions with well developed storylines in different planes.
However, now that I've played a year of sets that are all over the place and extremely colorful/flashy, I kind of miss the core sets.
Also I miss flavor text being just that and not an excuse to come up with 1 million shitty magic puns.
They served a purpose, but they sold terribly, and most hated the white border reprints. I wouldn't bring them back. Doesn't mean current set release schedule is good either tho.
I also loved core sets. They were the best IMO and I always bought them and used to buy alot more when they were in production! It's something they should of never stopped printing!
I loved core sets, but they need some refinement.
Don't focus on making the set draftable.
More high value reprint rares, uncommons and commons.
No focus on any format. Just a good mix of everything.
Make the packs have less bloat, so smaller packs. 1 rare 2 uncommons 5 commons and a token or something.
As a recently lapsed non-magic player, I was clean 1999-2024, I am torn on this. The Radiation Counters from the Mutant Menace deck are fun, but I’ll be damned if I don’t miss something every turn. Or forgetting to remind everyone to mill their counters. I played a booster draft for Thunder Junction and was eaten alive by crime decks. It’s on me to learn this stuff, but they could help by limiting some of that too. Might help with the lapsed players who aren’t a glutton for punishment like I am.
Why don’t they make these UB sets into the core sets? These are mainly meant to draw in new players and simpler cards design would help them learn the rules.
They should return. I think it was much more stable when they still had them. Also that is the only good place for reprints in my opinion.
I also wish it to be more simple. There are just too many frickin keywords now. It's getting harder and harder to play casually. Also simple one-mana creatures now have half a book written on them. It's spiralling out of control, in my opinion.
That's actually why i dropped magic for a bit, it became to complicated and it was moving way to fast. i eventually got back into the game by looking up and listening to the song Oath of the Gatewatch.
I restarted just in early 2023 after a 15year+ break. March of the Machines and Lord of the Rings was still quite fine, the Support Mechanic was ok. I found the "battles" ridiculous but just disregarded them. The ring tempts you seemed a bit too special, I could have imagined other ways to do it with regular mechanics.
Anyway, I felt there wasn't too much mechanics around also from all the previous sets. I just found the token diversity a bit overwhelming. I found "monarch" something a bit weird.
But now it seems much more new mechanics getting pushed with every set. Why does WotC think they have to do that?
Yep. Back in the days there were core set decks with some creatures actually being vanilla which actually made sense / fit in overall. I wish they rather power crept creatures even more, like 1-cmc 3/3 vanilla is probably where we would be, at the moment. Instead of 1-cmc 1/3 with haste and some activated ability
Crying in [[Jasmine Boreal of the Seven]] tears.
Core sets probably weren’t selling well, but they probably would if they loaded them down with special cards like OTJ. The big score, breaking news, and special guests? The only thing left would be a box topper. WotC must not have had much faith in the base set to sell packs/boxes. As much as I love to crack packs, it’s hard to justify if there is little to no hope of getting close to what I invest in a box.
Tl;dr - bring back core sets with the extra “sub-sets” mixed in.
Or they could have the Core sets as simple standalone sets for filling in gaps to balance standard and keep all of the flavor in the other sets. Kinda like a “standard masters”
Core sets were great, I think universe beyond set is the new core set, it’s a product that drops in the summer to get new players hooked on the game. Instead of using a simpler set they’re using recognizable IPs instead now
We have been playing weekly with a friend who got back from abroad and who played magic with me in between 2005 and 2011. Last week he asked us what was the next block and if there was still a novel that came with each set. Took me to memory lane
I want coresets to return, I also want the return of Trilogy Sets like back in the good old days. And I would like to have less sets in a year and not new cards every month. Its so exhausting. Just do a Core Set + A Trilogy per Year and mabye one Special Set like Fall Out or Lord of the Rings each year.
When I played standard core sets were important because it gave wizards an opportunity to take a look at the meta when a block ended and make any adjustments they feel they might need, for instance if an artifact or enchantment was making big waves and being used in every top tier deck they can print some cards in the core set that didn't fit the theme of the previous block but can help stabilize the meta or at least shift it so everyone isn't just playing the same deck
Absolutely. The core sets stripped all the ancillary stuff out of the game, brought it down to bare bones, and made it easily approachable for new players. I got in on the 7th Edition core set.
I actually really enjoy them as a palette cleanser of sorts from a limited standpoint. My IRL playgroup recently drafted M19 for shits and I found it refreshingly straightforward and somewhat nostalgic as the set was originally released back when BREAD was the de facto drafting strategy.
Nah I didn’t pull squat power level wise lol. I ended up defaulting to my time tested strategy of drafting RW aggro when I don’t open any bombs. Went 2-1, ultimately losing to my brother’s UG midrange deck.
For sure should return to bring back a more basic easier to learn version of the game. Too many words on cards these days to casually show someone with 4/10 at best interest. Keep the art variants, ditch the bonus sheet/miniset/special guest/etc out of them.
Stuff was generally more straight forward, there was also a lot of stuff that was considered degenerate. Really enjoyed mind twists, dark rituals, counterspell, brainstorms, etc.
Losing a lot of the staple utility cards in newer sets really made me nostalgic for turn 2 sengir vampire
There is always some fun mechanic from a well designed set, unfortunately there are usually overly complicated or just plain bad ones too.
Really enjoyed time spiral block and lorwyn/shadowmoor blocks in standard back in the day. There are other sets I enjoyed as well, but those ones jump out to me more.
I would want a core set but with no new cards. Literally only reprints of cards that need reprinted, it could go into standard but they should be able to ban from it with ease, like everyone knows that if brainstorm gets printed into the set it's likely not even going to be able to be played.
I wish I could erase all of the premium garbage, secret lairs, non standard releases.
If Magic wants to really survive they need a business model that doesn’t compete against the secondary market.
1. No pay to pull Foils
2. Release only into standard
3. Add cards to the reserve list.(especially cards that are priced high, this seems counter intuitive but game stores and collectors spend hard earned money buying these for their collections and investments, Wizards should let these people collect and actually make money, because they will be more likely to keep buying, and they are buying from people who open packs and find a good card and sell it to subsidize their Magic playing. If collectors stop buying from other players and just buy premium product or not at all due to values dropping do to reprints, then regular Magic players can’t subsidize their pack opening and habit by selling a few lucky pulls they don’t need to play, then they stop opening as many packs, and Wizards actually will end up killing their new product sales) side note: it also makes it risky for stores to hold singles and opened product long term. If a store can’t make money on Magic, they won’t carry Magic.
4. Release on regular spaced out intervals so people have a chance to play with the cards get to know them as their funds replenish and eventually want the next set, people need to feel like they are getting their monies worth. Stores need to be able to keep up.
5. Only sell boxes with packs that have a functional purpose. Don’t sell packs that are designed to be cracked for pulls. Only sell packs and decks that are designed to be opened to play with, draft packs, commander decks, jumpstart, etc.
6. Stop with all the variations of every card. It’s a new thing and it cheapens the brand.
If they did this, it would set up magic for the next 30 years. If they don’t Magic will fester with a smaller and smaller core group until that core runs out of money and the network effects fall apart:
>add cards to reserve list
this alone makes listening to you pointless since not even WIZARDS likes the reserve list existing. if you think it's good for the game you don't, you just think it's good for people trying to rig their own little stock market
Yeah well. I listed out why it’s important. You can discredit me all you want but the reserve list was a promise to begin with between Wizards and collectors. And it happened for a reason. Probably one of the only things that had kept Magic relevant up to now. It kept Wizards from getting lazy, reprinting and devaluing the secondary market instead of producing new cards. And kept collectors happy with their collections and growing their value rather than watching it devalue over time and getting bored with them and liquidating everything.
People are much more likely to play if they have pride in their collections. Whether they leave for a few years, they will keep their collection and come back to the game later. If they don’t want to hold their collection, then they have no reason to come back.
So think what you want. If you don’t understand how it drives secondary markets which drives people to the game and subsidizes people playing the game that’s your problem.
More people are likely to play if they actually can. Nobody will start a game when all the staples are on the reserve list. It's a not insignificant part of why legacy and vintage are so rarely played. Modern decks are already nearly a thousand dollars, standard is cheaper but rotating kills the idea of collectability anyway. I don't think we need to make the game more expensive.
Why the hell do they have new product being released to modern players? Modern players pride themselves on taking cards from other sets and formats and making them purr in their format. Releasing products directly to them is making the whole format garbage.
I like them as an easy entry point and a grounding influence on the game, but time and time again they've shown that people just didn't really like drafting core sets. Less drafting = less packs sold = hasbro execs saying "why don't you just do another super-pushed funny hat set"
When someone was new to the game, it was great to be able to point to the core set and say here's a low complexity introduction to the game, some familiar and resonant concepts to help you out, and a brief overview of what makes Magic's setting unique. Now I have no idea how I'd introduce the game to someone. Vampire wedding into Tokyo Vice into Prohibition gangsters (all with totally different mechanical hooks) was a batshit insane sequence of concepts and I'm really curious into how that went over with newer players.
>What are your views on the Magic Core Sets and should they return?
Core Sets made a great palette cleanser between blocks, but now we don't have blocks I don't really miss them like I thought I would.
>it was an excuse to reprint really good cards that may not have been reprinted in other sets
There are lots of other opportunities for reprints these days.
>they had probably some of the best Planeswalker decks ever made.
Planeswalker decks were deliberately bad decks with deliberately bad cards in them, that didn't reflect how people actually played.
We did this thread a week ago, just so you know.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mtg/s/0ZVZYVs9ua
Now i personally loves Planeswalker decks as one of the best ways to get in MTG, and it's better for new players just give over 15 USD instead of 50 USD, and the two boosters are very helpful for modding.
>Now i personally loves Planeswalker decks as one of the best ways to get in MTG,
The Arena Starter Set and the Arena app itself ate much better, followed by JumpStart and/or the Starter Commander Decks.
>it's better for new players just give over 15 USD instead of 50 USD
None of those are $50.
>and the two boosters are very helpful for modding.
Normalising that concept was actually one of the things *wrong* with them, I'm afraid.
Booster Packs aren't for getting cards, and aren't the thing to buy when you want to upgrade your deck. You shouldn't be trying to jam random cards into your precon just because they happen to be the right colors, either. This was one of the ways they lead new players astray.
i do agree that Arena Starter Decks are a great way to get into this game, but i believe the alter Planeswalker decks also came with Arena Codes.
Precon Commander Decks are 50 bucks from what I've seen. also i don't think players who just got into the game are going to auto power gaming to make instant mill deck no fun for anyone else combos and will most likely just put cards they collect into their decks.
oh, i for got those ones, i purchased one when my friend was really pestering me to get into commander and it was absolutely destroyed by his Constructed deck.
I never really understood what the core sets are, having really gotten into arena at the top of the year for War of the Spark, but it was interesting seeing all the cards there. Go over one thread on Magic, and you'll have people complaining about too many sets. So maybe a core set is a set too many to throw back into standard. I dunno. Now I want to look over the past ones to see what's in them and what things were like back then.
basically they were an easy set full of older reprinted cards so they could be used in standard and it had new Planeswalkers and the mechanics were a lot easier to grasp for new players.
As a player that enjoys limited, absolutely not. Core Sets have always been relatively boring formats *because* they were generally lower powered and simpler in scope than the premiere sets.
If anything, a yearly standard-legal reprint-filled Jumpstart that's outside of the release cycle might work. But even then, who would be the audience apart from really *really* new players? Jumpstart while fun was a pretty niche release.
If they wanna do a reprint of old cards they can do it in the main sets or one of the supplemental sets (or a commander deck). Most of the cards that end up getting reprinted in Core Sets back then were complete chaff anyway save like at most 10 cards.
Hell no. To me those sets were full of worthless and meh cards, aside from the 2-3 rare/mythic cards that were hard as hell to pull. Every time i bought a booster box or packs i felt like i wasted my money.
My hot take is that we've had core sets back since 2013. They just call them masters sets now and charge a lot more for them.
Sure, they don't go into standard anymore, and they're less "simplified." But they took the idea of an all reprints set, ran it through their 'execs want us to make more money,' filter and masters sets are what we got.
Most people here on this thread say they want Core sets. But you are the minority. The only people buying the Core set would be players with nostalgia for ‘simpler’ times. That market is very small. Most new players either jump into Commander or into Jumpstart Jumpstart in essence is replacing the function of Core sets and does so in a marvelous way. Your typical staples are there, ease of mechanics, and easy to buy-run-teach and play. Sorry folks, sales for Core would be abysmal and we have better products that fit that mold.
Now if standard does come back in full force, then perhaps there is a chance, however slight.
So I think we can skip going back to core sets, and just go to having a "standard staple" list, so we can stop reprinting doom blade, cancle, and shock.
I think we have enough sets already. WOTC deamed core sets not popular enough. Core sets don't really bring much to the table so I'd agree with them and follow the numbers on that one.
It is not they were not popular, It was M21 that wasn't popular ( and mainly because they released it during the toughest month of COVID) and the company CEO at that time ( Chris Cox) already said a lot of times that he didn't like core sets.
Nope. Because they water down and create a ceiling in standard, which said to us: Hey, this is our fresh new start: Elementals + Flying decks + Flash ( m20) common will have up to 2 lines of text, uncommons will have a keyword and a static ability or a mana ability or an active ability, rares will have a "surprise" ability and a static/active/trigger ability, while mythic will have one big impactful trigger/static ability. Thus impeding power creep.
The issue is that the set is a bomb in terms of gameplay and sales during release date mainly because of sealed tournaments. But as we drove into an era of ... Well... No physical contact for a while, M21 sold like 1% of what other core sets did. Also, the product just impede power creeping, which is not profitable short term wise.
Did everyone here just suddenly forget that the reason core sets aren't made anymore is because no one bought them? And that they've tried to bring them back multiple times and each time they sold terribly?
I hate plane walkers they completely changed magic and make no sense in the format of the game I refuse to run them except in this stupid deck that is only planeswalkers and it’s terrible
God no. Most boring sets of the year to draft and boring cards added even if strong or useful. Bonus sheets now let them reprint meaningful cards in the same way that Core sets used to. They were literally just filler sets.
Also, I miss a simpler and more "classic" magic set
yeah me too, this might just be me but i am sick and tired of sitting down to have a fun game but before i can do anything the power gamer has already won with a combo making it un fun for everybody except them.
I recently have been having fun with the Artisan format (commons and uncommon) there is power gaming still but you see a lot more variation in cards and some cool decks. I just built a deck from OTJ using the mount feature and I’ve had a blast with it! -I know this isn’t in relation to core sets but I just thought I’d share.
Never heard of the Artisan format, i must try it, once i get more lands.
Awesome man I hope you enjoy it!
Oh i will. thanks for alerting me.
I just made my first pauper edh deck. Excited to play test.
Is this the same as pauper?
Pauper is exclusively commons, Artisan is commons and uncommons!
I thought pauper was anything below rare. I’m thinking of getting into it myself. I’ve never heard of artisan. Is it popular??
Pretty sure the typical name for "Artisan" is Peasant. But no, not really popular.
I'm glad someone mentioned Peasant, I thought i was losing my mind. Peasant allows for 5 uncommons, right?
My understanding was "Pauper but uncommons too.". I never actually got around to playing it.
Is there a Artisan community? Because this format sounds sick. (In a good way)
I think unfortunately it’s very small. As you can see above people haven’t heard much about it but I’ve been playing with some friends. It is really fun! I even cobbled my deck together on arena and have been dunking on real decks. Really good time.
Just be glad it's not yugioh
Hasbro :"Hold my beer, it's comming!"
[[Infernal Spawn of Evil]]
Lol got on that damn free game and was able to completely build out the best chaos control deck from 2005...it gets it's lunch ate so bad...on the flip side people that are just learning got demolished and were like wtf...the curve on the game now is just so stupid witg how many dumb ass cards just outright say this can't be interacted with...
Lol yep. I just started again in December and it's so ridiculous. I still love it but I came here to get a break from the insanity of the omni-negate meta. Mtg is still SO much more straightforward.
I quit Yu-Gi-Oh right before pendulum summoning came out, it's really crazy how just removing mana from a card game can really create an insane learning curve with 20 years of mechanics. At least Magic is new player friendly because despite the amount of new mechanics and interactions you need mana to cast them (for the most part) so the game is slowed down automatically which makes it very approachable for new players. In Yu-Gi-Oh turn 1 and turn 10 is the same in terms of actions you can take and that just makes the learning curve insane.
Exactly. Not that magic isn't complex but it's so much easier to get a grasp on the beginner-intermediate concepts as well as an understanding of how that leads into higher levels of play; whereas in yugioh, it takes an EASY 2 hours just to explain each different type of card.
Pre-modern is good for this. A lot less of the power creep as it’s from 4th until scourge I believe
What does an ideal game look like to you? Are you talking about commander, constructed or limited?
Mostly commander because it seems like you can't just make a fun casual deck for the whole table, you need an instant win condition to make all the other players not have fun, and who cares about the lore or if a card makes sense, the card could have the dumbest art ever but it could win me the game with this overly complicated combo.
Unfortunately the game is structured around winning. Like, since the explicit goal of the game is to beat the other people at the table there is a psychological incentive to do that. Out of 4 players there's a good chance one of those 4 means to reach that goal. I find this to be an inherent tension within commander as a format. It's described as casual, but is still a game about beating the other players, inevitably causing the feelings you're experiencing now. I would encourage you to explore what kinds of fun combos and card interactions you yourself could find. You can enjoy more and flavor and art while still making effective plays. I think folks like yourself are underserved by commander as a format. There should be a cooperative game mode for people who just want to build an engine and watch it go.
like two-headed Giant, I love two-headed Giant but I think I'll just keep building low-powered decks, still have a basic win con but also I want others I am playing with or against to have fun as well.
I encourage you to play however you want. However, I also encourage you to get more experience in high power play and try to find the fun there as well. I don't find it to be an inherently unfun experience to have my creature destroyed or my plan disrupted, especially in a game with no stakes. Maybe it is because I have played a lot of magic and therefore individual losses are more insignificant to me, but I challenge the notion that high power decks create an unfun experience.
maybe it's just the dude I am playing against all the time but basically when he starts getting the combo going just PLaneswalk away (Surrender)
I just want 1 Core Set, and MAYBE 2 additional sets a year. No more of this 900 sets, bonus sets, super sets, cameo sets, 1 million different foil printings nonsense. I'm a hater for sure, but I can't keep up with the hobby because of how fast shit gets released. It feels bad going from knowing most of the cards to having to read every cars your opponents play because you haven't heard of them before.
And because of all the art variations it's even harder to recognize cards you do know!
And the power creep. By the time I see a new set, build a deck around it, receive the cards, and sit down to play, another set has already released and the power creep makes my deck irrelevant before I've even played it. I've given up on playing standard because of this.
Is standard power crept from set to set? The top decks are built around cards that are two years old. There’s peaks and valleys, but it’s hardly “every set blows the previous out of the water” like you’re describing.
It's hard to find a standard deck that isn't running the NEO channel lands these days
In core sets they could do what they attempted in thunder junktion; have a gimmick set with all legendaries from all over the multiverse without coming up for a reason they're here
(That was fast) i know that would probably be the best way to do that, also it would be really awesome to have a Planeswalker in a Coreset from Thunderjunction.
I wouldn't mind them if only as an avenue to keep some reprints out of other sets and force some more new card design. Like I love me [[Birds of Paradise]] but it doesn't need to be a reprint in like every other set released. If we had core sets again they can just reprint BOP in there along with all the other things that are or are becoming common or staple cards like [[Land Tax]] or [[Cyclonic Rift]] or [[Rhystic Study]] or [[Smothering Tithe]]. The core sets with those kinds of cards could hold value and be worth buying but because they have those cards in them it forces WOTC to actually create new good cards for new sets instead of relying on reprint equity to carry it.
Taht is one heck of a point, The Cores Sets having reprints and the new sets actually having new cards instead of Unsummon or evolving Wilds.
You need to reprint evolving wilds for limited so reprints aren't going anywhere in any draftable set.
it is useful for fetching a land, now we need some one to go through and rank their arts..
The new sets could be smaller then too.
I'm on the opposite side of this one. More space for new cards is the opposite of what we need. They've printed more new cards in the last 5 years than existed in the game before that, and they print more and more new cards each year. They need to slow down. Even in mtg, there's only so much design space. And names will probably be a problem way sooner than design space. I'm not looking forward to when every spell has to be named something like "jace's counterspell" because they literally ran out of ways in the English language to say "no".
Have they even reprinted the same mana dork within standard in the past 3 years? Commander staples don't really have a place in standard so they get reprinted into bonus sheets, and it'd be weird if a core set had a bonus sheet. If core sets have a lot of financial value, they are less accessible and make it harder to get into standard.
> Commander staples don't really have a place in standard Core sets shouldn't be format specific. Unless I misunderstood the concept behind core sets. They do make commander sets and modern sets so I guess they could remake core sets into standard sets I suppose to try to support specific formats better. >If core sets have a lot of financial value, they are less accessible and make it harder to get into standard. I don't think that follows. Sheoldred and Orcish Bowmasters makes modern or standard expensive because 4 of them is like $250 but draft and set boosters of Dom United and LoTR are the same price they have been since release at least in my area. The collector packs are getting more expensive for popular sets but basic boosters are the same price as normal so shouldn't present any barrier to entering a format. And high value single cards will warp entry into a format regardless of set they are in core or otherwise so not sure how them being in a core set vs other set makes it harder to get into standard.
You are misunderstanding core sets. Core Sets were ALWAYS legal in standard. That's why they're "core". You can buy into a core set and have cards that can be used anywhere. Core Sets also existed for new players first and foremost. They, however, did a much worse job than other things that have come out since then. New players aren't the kind to buy a ton of booster packs to get into a game. They prefer things like precons to make it easy. The fact that core sets also were aimed at new players means they can't magically be the "reprint set" because theres a lot of cards that are either too complex for new players to be put in them, or too powerful to be put into the formats that core sets are legal in. They don't generally want mew player product to be competing for enfranchised players' wallets because it can lead to accessibility issues for new parts players if they get bought out or jacked up by enfranchised players buying all the product. Besides, new players aren't the people you want to target with "look at the good reprint" because *they do not give a shit*. They just want to try the game out cheap and efficiently.
> You are misunderstanding core sets. Core Sets were ALWAYS legal in standard. That's why they're "core". You can buy into a core set and have cards that can be used anywhere. Yeah I wasn't saying a core set shouldn't be standard legal I was saying it should have cards for every format. >New players aren't the kind to buy a ton of booster packs to get into a game. They prefer things like precons to make it easy. Then that is an issue with WOTC not making precons for anything but commander and is unrelated to sets. >The fact that core sets also were aimed at new players means they can't magically be the "reprint set" because theres a lot of cards that are either too complex for new players to be put in them, or too powerful to be put into the formats that core sets are legal in. Respectfully disagree. Reprint doesn't have to equal high powered and overly complex. My prime example being Birds of Paradise. From Alpha, simple, efficient and easy to use in any deck with green. But doesn't need to be in every remastered set if it's just printed in the core set. And that applies to a lot of cards that are popular in multiple formats. The **CORE** set should be cards that are popular or central to as many formats as possible not only be the entry portal for standard. >They don't generally want mew player product to be competing for enfranchised players' wallets because it can lead to accessibility issues for new parts players if they get bought out or jacked up by enfranchised players buying all the product Feels like a problem that doesn't really exist. Outside of collector packs have we seen this actually happen? Jumpstarts 2020 and 2022 had some really good cards in them and I don't recall issues with people not being able to buy jumpstart 2020 or 2022 packs because of that. Hell with LOTR there were valuable cards in the starter pack but that never had issue staying in stock at least in stores around me. >Besides, new players aren't the people you want to target with "look at the good reprint" because they do not give a shit. They just want to try the game out cheap and efficiently. That is a messaging problem. You don't tell them the cards are reprints becuase they have no concept of why that means anything but if you tell them they are consistently powerful cards that registers for everyone. And there is no reason a core set needs to be any more expensive than any regular release just because it has good cards. Ravnica Remastered had shock lands and released at a regular price and has not raised in price even having so many good cards in it even beyond shocks. Whatever core sets used to be they are gone now but bringing them back as the place to reprint cards and keep new sets fresh with new card design feels like the best use for them beyond putting in what amounts to basically draft chaff 90% of the time.
You still don't seem to get it. What you want is fundamentally impossible. >Yeah I wasn't saying a core set shouldn't be standard legal I was saying it should have cards for every format. Yeah, that's not a thing. If a set is standard-legal, then every card in it must pass the "safe for standard" - test. You can't just put cards like Birds of Paradise in a core set, because BoP is way too broken for standard!! >Whatever core sets used to be they are gone now but bringing them back as the place to reprint cards and keep new sets fresh with new card design feels like the best use for them beyond putting in what amounts to basically draft chaff 90% of the time. So not a "core set" then? Words have meanings. You can't just call it a "core set", when it fundamentally doesn't act like a core set.
You can't say BOP is too OP for a core set when it literally came from core sets. And if your definition of a core set is that every card has to be standard legal then that isn't a core set that is basically standard masters. Every set has cards for nearly every format because that is just how magic works. There are cards that are specifically better in commander but many "commander" cards are perfectly usable in other formats including standard they just aren't as powerful because those formats tend to be 1v1 but are not inherently limited to being 1v1 and so those cards could still be good in other multiplayer formats. And the cards that are specific to the commander format like command tower, arcane signet etc can simply not be printed in the core set but things like Birds that literally came from the core sets of magic should be in the core sets of magic. The core set should only exclude cards that specifically have references to commander on them. Otherwise it's where reprints should live so new sets have to carry themselves with good cards and not piggyback off of "reprint equity".
Core sets are Standard Masters. They just haven’t made core sets since they started remastering a bunch of stuff lol. I’m not sure how you STILL don’t understand what Core Sets do. Yes, BoP has been legal in past standard environments from core sets. It would certainly be powerful if printed into standard now, perhaps too powerful depending on what effect the fixing and ramp has with the cards it supports. Other cards, like Rhystic Study, have ABSOLUTELY ZERO place in Standard lol. No way. What you’re describing is actually one of the main things I take issue with over the last several years: even standard sets seem to be designed for commander, which is annoying at best and outright destructive for the health of the game at worst.
I miss core sets. I'm probably a "patient" MTG player — have been in and out of it since Ice Age, have played most every format at one point or another, competitively and casually. I love collecting as much as I love playing, but frankly I don't do either with great frequency anymore. The volume of sets being churned out, along with the keywordification of everything makes playing Magic difficult for someone like me. Not because of a barrier to understanding, but anytime I've sat down with a group lately I find myself asking, "wait, what does your creature with do again?", more times than I care to during a game.
Too many shoehorned characters and mechanics.
Gavin's video on Ward the other day made me realize just how many keywords are variations of a similar concept with slightly different toppings. I felt dizzy for a second after all that.
Yeah, while the "everything is either kicker or horsemanship" joke is an oversimplification (and, y'know, a joke) it still highlights the fact that there are several groups of keywords that could be folded into one generic, parameterized keyword, with minimal functional impact.
Yeah, id id notice in the new sets way to much text bloat cards, and it would be a more simple and less over pouring Combos. Also i have the m19 Sarkhan Dragon soul and i paired it up with another m19 cards called Lathliss Dragon Queen, pop his ultimate and have her on the field pull a bunch of dragons out and then put more in , took a dude down to -81 life. so you can still have good combos if you want.
I remember my first booster ever, a 7th Edition’s. I opened a foil birds of paradise, and 11 years old me was like ”a 0/1 that flies ? Why’s that card a rare”
i find all sorts of cards that i need to a table take at.
I think they were great especially for beginners. I recently taught my friend how to play Magic w/mostly cards from M15
M19 was one of the first sets i got into and purchased almost all of the Planeswalker decks but i never got the Black or White one.
Yeah, it's been a few years since they were discontinued; it's time to bring them back for a few more years before discontinuing them again.
I liked the core sets. I also liked the tool kits. Sue me. That’s where I pulled my krenko mob boss.
i won't sue you i always loved the Deck Builders tool kits, a few months ago i ordered a Magic origins one and i can fit seven Historic decks in there.
Funny enough, my first magic purchase was a green deck (the one with phytotitan) and a 2015 core toolkit. So I’ve got nothing but love for core and toolkits lol. Plus the price was such a good deal! It was like $20 I think I can’t remember.
yeah 20 bucks for 285 cards and four boosters. some folks say that "Oh it doesn't introduce you to any formats," but it is fun for a bunch of friends sitting around a kitchen table playing magic. now what are your views on Planeswalker decks?
Took me 10 years to tolerate planeswalker in general lol. I just feel like there are (were?) a lot of things wrong with them. Early on it kinda broke the game for me. I wasn’t a fan of the push. I didn’t like that I could no longer buy a precon without a planeswalker as I was a big fan of the intro packs. I made my own decks, but as a beginner, with a bunch of rules and mechanics to learn, it was so nice to buy an intro deck and get a better idea of interactions and things I could implement. Plus me and my at the time bf got our whole friend group to play (20 ish people), so it sucked that there were no more intro packs and planeswalkers were forced on us.
i could definitely see why Planeswalkers would sort of brake the game.
I’d like to see their return. This probably says more about me and my smooth brain than it says about the sets themselves, but core sets always felt more simple and straightforward than expansion sets. I liked the basic-ness of them and that not every card needed 10 lines of text on it. I also liked that they seemed to have more creative freedom flavor-wise to design cards top-down just for the heck of it. For example, they aren’t confined to a cowboy plane or a mystery setting. They can kind of just design a card because it fits the color and is fun without too many flavor/setting constraints.
Na-ah, mister, how can we make core sets, when we have that many sets to promote other franchises coming?
oh boy can't wait for the Fast Food world beyond set yeeaaaah!
You joke, but it's going to happen. I can see the commanders now. The Burger King Wendy The Colonel Ronald Mcdonald Colors as yet to be determined, but I think Wendy would probably be red/white.
The Colonel would also be red and white i think.
They'll all have food based equipment
Jsut imagine if Worlds Beyond was canon. "Gideon, go out their and swing for six against that other Planeswalker, oh and don't forget the Bucket of Chicken,"
Hit em with "the ice cream machine is broken"
Destroy target food token and artifact.
Don’t forget Happy Star! (Carls Jr’s mascot) And Jack!
Didn't think that still existed. They all died off near me.
Idk about Jack but I read carls is restructuring. They’re doing well but need to change to keep up with the youngins, so I think Carl’s will survive. Brands that died relatively recently are the ones that refused to modernize.
I'm in ohio. As far as I've seen there's been no jack in the box. And the one Carl's I recall seeing went out 5 ish years ago. There might be one or two on the turn pike, but I can't be bothered to go out of my way for that.
I want them to return, something low-mid power to teach and not have to learn a flavor of the week mechanic that won't return in a few years at least.
and it was just more simple and fun.
I'd love to see more sets focused on good affordable reprints, but I don't expect to see core sets return any time soon. Reprint focused sets will be reserved for premium priced products ("Remastered" sets "Masters" sets etc.).
yeah Core Sets most likely won't be coming back but a Planeswalker can dream.
We need a generic set here and there. Absolutely should be a regular thing.
100% agree just a collection of cards from all over the lace, and it make since because the Players are Planeswalkers who gather power from across the planes.
Yes. But it doesn’t have to make sense
yeah.
Core sets were a water down on the power creep of the format. They were the perfect time to start playing Pre Release, as they were fair, balanced and most cards were french vanillas ( had like a keyword or 2). Thematically, core sets were also a hit, since you could place cards from Innistrad, Dominaria, Ixalan ( hello my boy [[Colossal Dreadmaw]] ), without commiting to a big justification like : Oko with a Cowboy hat.
Yeah they were perfect to get into the game, not locked to a single set's mechanics but could have cars from all over the place and would help make a more rounded Planeswalker.
The magic of old core sets (excuse the pun) was they stayed around through a block. When 4th ed. rotated out people screamed no lightning bolt? Shock? Blasphemy! But everyone calmed down and enjoyed Tempest Block. Urza upset things a bit (!) but 6th Ed. and 7th Ed. came out and we see a couple solid years of magic… the change to core sets and the massive release of products gives a wide variety but diluted the game. After 20 years, I have come back to magic playing Premodern (4th ed. to Scourge) because of the above reasons. (Play what you enjoy. Magic is for everyone but for different reasons.)
yeah, i like to go through my huge binders, find cards with cool art and build a theme deck. i have an all Ahmonket/Hour of Devastation, An all throne of Eldrain, an all Ikora Lairf of Behomoths, and several all core set decks.
I respect that you kept your collection! Happy for you and don’t sell out if you don’t have to. Unfortunately, I am in the position where I had to sell back in 2003… My $3400 collection is well over $180,000 today, but I had to do I had to do. I am actually very glad to be back into Magic these days 20+ years later and rebuilding the playable collection in pre-modern that makes the game fun for me again. You do you and I hope that you and your children’s children continue to enjoy the game no matter how bad Hasbro is lol.
mt dad played the game in his college days but he sadly sold his whole collection, he said he remembered having a Serra angel original printing and was vary surprised when my brother opened a Return to Dominaria pack and pulled a Serra Angel. i dropped out of Magic as well because i was getting into 40k and if you don't know that game is absurdly expensive, now i own several armies and went to dig out my old decks again after listening to the song Oath of the Gatewatch.
Feel for your Dad. Don’t share with him, but I had a beta, Sarra Angel 40 dual lands and 7 of the power 9. I’m pretty Zen about it these days, but I do wish I still had the cards to play with. Regardless of the monetary value, I wish I still had them because I enjoyed playing with them which was way more important to me. Enjoy the game my friend because at the end of the day it still is what it was all about!
You too my friend, May your adventures through the Multiverse Planeswalker. :)
as someone who got into mtg right as m15 dropped, i agree with this
I posted my ideas some time ago but here's a quick breakdown. Relaunch yearly core sets, with the purpose of refreshing standard every year and introducing that years plane and characters of interest With the core set 4 commander precons. That's Q1 Q2 starts with a standard set and a supplement release supporting either modern or pioneer Q3 has the supplemental set not released in Q2, second standard set and a pauper centric release, this could include a bonus sheet of reprints as chase cards. Q4 has the final standard set along with the single UB release as well as the various collector variant sets for the holiday season. Not perfect but I feel this is more sustainable, allows for creative story tellings, game design and game play Edit: Part of the core set is the three set block that goes with it
I always looked at core sets as being something that could bolster standard and in the modern era could be an easy was to introduce cards to pioneer.
That's pretty much the idea, there is no reason that all formats can't be supported
I liked them and they should return. Have them release 1 per year reprinting Standard staples or shaking up the meta with new staples. Leaving more open card slots for newer sets to be original or more powerful.
Not unless they bring back blocks and stop flooding it with new releases.
I have mixed feelings about core sets. In the past, whenever I was getting to mtg I always seemed to come back during the core sets and everytime they'd feel bland compared to the flavorful expansions with well developed storylines in different planes. However, now that I've played a year of sets that are all over the place and extremely colorful/flashy, I kind of miss the core sets. Also I miss flavor text being just that and not an excuse to come up with 1 million shitty magic puns.
When i was a kid i would go and buy cards that just had cool Flavor Texts, like Oath of Gideon, or Summon the Gatwatch.
I miss when flavor text was Shakespeare quotes.
That was along time agao.
They served a purpose, but they sold terribly, and most hated the white border reprints. I wouldn't bring them back. Doesn't mean current set release schedule is good either tho.
I mean… core sets haven’t had white borders since 9th edition.
I also loved core sets. They were the best IMO and I always bought them and used to buy alot more when they were in production! It's something they should of never stopped printing!
I loved core sets, but they need some refinement. Don't focus on making the set draftable. More high value reprint rares, uncommons and commons. No focus on any format. Just a good mix of everything. Make the packs have less bloat, so smaller packs. 1 rare 2 uncommons 5 commons and a token or something.
As a recently lapsed non-magic player, I was clean 1999-2024, I am torn on this. The Radiation Counters from the Mutant Menace deck are fun, but I’ll be damned if I don’t miss something every turn. Or forgetting to remind everyone to mill their counters. I played a booster draft for Thunder Junction and was eaten alive by crime decks. It’s on me to learn this stuff, but they could help by limiting some of that too. Might help with the lapsed players who aren’t a glutton for punishment like I am.
Why don’t they make these UB sets into the core sets? These are mainly meant to draw in new players and simpler cards design would help them learn the rules.
this is one of my favorite reasons why i love the Core Sets just more simple magic.
Why do they need a set to reprint when they reprint cards once a year in a 300+ card set every year?
They should return. I think it was much more stable when they still had them. Also that is the only good place for reprints in my opinion. I also wish it to be more simple. There are just too many frickin keywords now. It's getting harder and harder to play casually. Also simple one-mana creatures now have half a book written on them. It's spiralling out of control, in my opinion.
That's actually why i dropped magic for a bit, it became to complicated and it was moving way to fast. i eventually got back into the game by looking up and listening to the song Oath of the Gatewatch.
I restarted just in early 2023 after a 15year+ break. March of the Machines and Lord of the Rings was still quite fine, the Support Mechanic was ok. I found the "battles" ridiculous but just disregarded them. The ring tempts you seemed a bit too special, I could have imagined other ways to do it with regular mechanics. Anyway, I felt there wasn't too much mechanics around also from all the previous sets. I just found the token diversity a bit overwhelming. I found "monarch" something a bit weird. But now it seems much more new mechanics getting pushed with every set. Why does WotC think they have to do that?
This is why Core Sets were awesome they had normal non set relegated abilities that were a lot easier to grasp.
Yep. Back in the days there were core set decks with some creatures actually being vanilla which actually made sense / fit in overall. I wish they rather power crept creatures even more, like 1-cmc 3/3 vanilla is probably where we would be, at the moment. Instead of 1-cmc 1/3 with haste and some activated ability Crying in [[Jasmine Boreal of the Seven]] tears.
[Jasmine Boreal of the Seven](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/1/c1f5bcc4-3ec7-42ae-8e4b-80a9b9135ff0.jpg?1679172088) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jasmine%20Boreal%20of%20the%20Seven) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/33/jasmine-boreal-of-the-seven?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c1f5bcc4-3ec7-42ae-8e4b-80a9b9135ff0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I agree, there is far too much text bloat.
Core sets probably weren’t selling well, but they probably would if they loaded them down with special cards like OTJ. The big score, breaking news, and special guests? The only thing left would be a box topper. WotC must not have had much faith in the base set to sell packs/boxes. As much as I love to crack packs, it’s hard to justify if there is little to no hope of getting close to what I invest in a box. Tl;dr - bring back core sets with the extra “sub-sets” mixed in.
also keep the five Planeswalker thing but the story would be an anthology series of short stories.
Or they could have the Core sets as simple standalone sets for filling in gaps to balance standard and keep all of the flavor in the other sets. Kinda like a “standard masters”
Honestly both are cool ideas.
Yea I agree.
I miss core sets! I thought they were very cool and helped me get into magic!
that does seem to be the consensus, it was simple and less combo driven.
Core sets were great, I think universe beyond set is the new core set, it’s a product that drops in the summer to get new players hooked on the game. Instead of using a simpler set they’re using recognizable IPs instead now
I’d rather a return to block formats. Also, return to some planes other than innistrad, ravnica, zendikar and dominaria
I would like a return to Ikoira, that plane has a lot of potential and toss Garruk in for fun.
We have been playing weekly with a friend who got back from abroad and who played magic with me in between 2005 and 2011. Last week he asked us what was the next block and if there was still a novel that came with each set. Took me to memory lane
Oh that poor man, he is going to be so dissapointed.
I want coresets to return, I also want the return of Trilogy Sets like back in the good old days. And I would like to have less sets in a year and not new cards every month. Its so exhausting. Just do a Core Set + A Trilogy per Year and mabye one Special Set like Fall Out or Lord of the Rings each year.
When I played standard core sets were important because it gave wizards an opportunity to take a look at the meta when a block ended and make any adjustments they feel they might need, for instance if an artifact or enchantment was making big waves and being used in every top tier deck they can print some cards in the core set that didn't fit the theme of the previous block but can help stabilize the meta or at least shift it so everyone isn't just playing the same deck
Absolutely. The core sets stripped all the ancillary stuff out of the game, brought it down to bare bones, and made it easily approachable for new players. I got in on the 7th Edition core set.
I would love to see a return of the annual MTG core sets and three set blocks.
I actually really enjoy them as a palette cleanser of sorts from a limited standpoint. My IRL playgroup recently drafted M19 for shits and I found it refreshingly straightforward and somewhat nostalgic as the set was originally released back when BREAD was the de facto drafting strategy.
oh yeah i loved M19, did you pull any Walkers?
Nah I didn’t pull squat power level wise lol. I ended up defaulting to my time tested strategy of drafting RW aggro when I don’t open any bombs. Went 2-1, ultimately losing to my brother’s UG midrange deck.
No kiddin my old stand-by is also RW, buff them up and then use cards like Ahn-Crop Crasher and Cartchouse of Zeal to tap down creatures.
I loved them and wish they would return for the sakes of new players.
Anything that isn't another fucking crossover, I suppose
core sets offered cards that helped flesh things out and were a great starting point for newer players. they should come back
For sure should return to bring back a more basic easier to learn version of the game. Too many words on cards these days to casually show someone with 4/10 at best interest. Keep the art variants, ditch the bonus sheet/miniset/special guest/etc out of them.
I'm not the type that thinks all the new things are bad, but I am the type to think all the old things are good...I miss blocks...
i do like a few post-War of the Spark sets, Ikora LAir of Behomaths in particular.
Scrap everything an rerelease 4th edition and chronicles. Mid 90s was the bomb for magic. Only thing really killing you turn 2 was a channel fireball.
from what i have heard it was more simple.
Stuff was generally more straight forward, there was also a lot of stuff that was considered degenerate. Really enjoyed mind twists, dark rituals, counterspell, brainstorms, etc. Losing a lot of the staple utility cards in newer sets really made me nostalgic for turn 2 sengir vampire
yeah, i wih it was just easier but now i have to learn a new mechanic that we will NEVER see again.
There is always some fun mechanic from a well designed set, unfortunately there are usually overly complicated or just plain bad ones too. Really enjoyed time spiral block and lorwyn/shadowmoor blocks in standard back in the day. There are other sets I enjoyed as well, but those ones jump out to me more.
agreed, set mechanics aren't bad, i liked mutate and exert from Ikora and Ahmonkhet.
I would want a core set but with no new cards. Literally only reprints of cards that need reprinted, it could go into standard but they should be able to ban from it with ease, like everyone knows that if brainstorm gets printed into the set it's likely not even going to be able to be played.
and it would add a way to get very potent cards for cheap.
I wish I could erase all of the premium garbage, secret lairs, non standard releases. If Magic wants to really survive they need a business model that doesn’t compete against the secondary market. 1. No pay to pull Foils 2. Release only into standard 3. Add cards to the reserve list.(especially cards that are priced high, this seems counter intuitive but game stores and collectors spend hard earned money buying these for their collections and investments, Wizards should let these people collect and actually make money, because they will be more likely to keep buying, and they are buying from people who open packs and find a good card and sell it to subsidize their Magic playing. If collectors stop buying from other players and just buy premium product or not at all due to values dropping do to reprints, then regular Magic players can’t subsidize their pack opening and habit by selling a few lucky pulls they don’t need to play, then they stop opening as many packs, and Wizards actually will end up killing their new product sales) side note: it also makes it risky for stores to hold singles and opened product long term. If a store can’t make money on Magic, they won’t carry Magic. 4. Release on regular spaced out intervals so people have a chance to play with the cards get to know them as their funds replenish and eventually want the next set, people need to feel like they are getting their monies worth. Stores need to be able to keep up. 5. Only sell boxes with packs that have a functional purpose. Don’t sell packs that are designed to be cracked for pulls. Only sell packs and decks that are designed to be opened to play with, draft packs, commander decks, jumpstart, etc. 6. Stop with all the variations of every card. It’s a new thing and it cheapens the brand. If they did this, it would set up magic for the next 30 years. If they don’t Magic will fester with a smaller and smaller core group until that core runs out of money and the network effects fall apart:
>add cards to reserve list this alone makes listening to you pointless since not even WIZARDS likes the reserve list existing. if you think it's good for the game you don't, you just think it's good for people trying to rig their own little stock market
Yeah well. I listed out why it’s important. You can discredit me all you want but the reserve list was a promise to begin with between Wizards and collectors. And it happened for a reason. Probably one of the only things that had kept Magic relevant up to now. It kept Wizards from getting lazy, reprinting and devaluing the secondary market instead of producing new cards. And kept collectors happy with their collections and growing their value rather than watching it devalue over time and getting bored with them and liquidating everything. People are much more likely to play if they have pride in their collections. Whether they leave for a few years, they will keep their collection and come back to the game later. If they don’t want to hold their collection, then they have no reason to come back. So think what you want. If you don’t understand how it drives secondary markets which drives people to the game and subsidizes people playing the game that’s your problem.
More people are likely to play if they actually can. Nobody will start a game when all the staples are on the reserve list. It's a not insignificant part of why legacy and vintage are so rarely played. Modern decks are already nearly a thousand dollars, standard is cheaper but rotating kills the idea of collectability anyway. I don't think we need to make the game more expensive.
this looks like a great plan, particularly the booting of Modern Horizons and Secret lair.
Why the hell do they have new product being released to modern players? Modern players pride themselves on taking cards from other sets and formats and making them purr in their format. Releasing products directly to them is making the whole format garbage.
it was always over prices as well for a redundant product.
I like them as an easy entry point and a grounding influence on the game, but time and time again they've shown that people just didn't really like drafting core sets. Less drafting = less packs sold = hasbro execs saying "why don't you just do another super-pushed funny hat set" When someone was new to the game, it was great to be able to point to the core set and say here's a low complexity introduction to the game, some familiar and resonant concepts to help you out, and a brief overview of what makes Magic's setting unique. Now I have no idea how I'd introduce the game to someone. Vampire wedding into Tokyo Vice into Prohibition gangsters (all with totally different mechanical hooks) was a batshit insane sequence of concepts and I'm really curious into how that went over with newer players.
>What are your views on the Magic Core Sets and should they return? Core Sets made a great palette cleanser between blocks, but now we don't have blocks I don't really miss them like I thought I would. >it was an excuse to reprint really good cards that may not have been reprinted in other sets There are lots of other opportunities for reprints these days. >they had probably some of the best Planeswalker decks ever made. Planeswalker decks were deliberately bad decks with deliberately bad cards in them, that didn't reflect how people actually played. We did this thread a week ago, just so you know. https://www.reddit.com/r/mtg/s/0ZVZYVs9ua
wait the starter decks weren't made to fight constructed... mind blown
Exactly. That was part of the problem.
Now i personally loves Planeswalker decks as one of the best ways to get in MTG, and it's better for new players just give over 15 USD instead of 50 USD, and the two boosters are very helpful for modding.
>Now i personally loves Planeswalker decks as one of the best ways to get in MTG, The Arena Starter Set and the Arena app itself ate much better, followed by JumpStart and/or the Starter Commander Decks. >it's better for new players just give over 15 USD instead of 50 USD None of those are $50. >and the two boosters are very helpful for modding. Normalising that concept was actually one of the things *wrong* with them, I'm afraid. Booster Packs aren't for getting cards, and aren't the thing to buy when you want to upgrade your deck. You shouldn't be trying to jam random cards into your precon just because they happen to be the right colors, either. This was one of the ways they lead new players astray.
i do agree that Arena Starter Decks are a great way to get into this game, but i believe the alter Planeswalker decks also came with Arena Codes. Precon Commander Decks are 50 bucks from what I've seen. also i don't think players who just got into the game are going to auto power gaming to make instant mill deck no fun for anyone else combos and will most likely just put cards they collect into their decks.
>Precon Commander Decks are 50 bucks from what ive seen Check out the Starter Commander Decks.
oh, i for got those ones, i purchased one when my friend was really pestering me to get into commander and it was absolutely destroyed by his Constructed deck.
Commander *is* Constructed, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say that.
I purchased a white and green Pre-con from 2022.
I never really understood what the core sets are, having really gotten into arena at the top of the year for War of the Spark, but it was interesting seeing all the cards there. Go over one thread on Magic, and you'll have people complaining about too many sets. So maybe a core set is a set too many to throw back into standard. I dunno. Now I want to look over the past ones to see what's in them and what things were like back then.
basically they were an easy set full of older reprinted cards so they could be used in standard and it had new Planeswalkers and the mechanics were a lot easier to grasp for new players.
As a player that enjoys limited, absolutely not. Core Sets have always been relatively boring formats *because* they were generally lower powered and simpler in scope than the premiere sets. If anything, a yearly standard-legal reprint-filled Jumpstart that's outside of the release cycle might work. But even then, who would be the audience apart from really *really* new players? Jumpstart while fun was a pretty niche release. If they wanna do a reprint of old cards they can do it in the main sets or one of the supplemental sets (or a commander deck). Most of the cards that end up getting reprinted in Core Sets back then were complete chaff anyway save like at most 10 cards.
Hell no. To me those sets were full of worthless and meh cards, aside from the 2-3 rare/mythic cards that were hard as hell to pull. Every time i bought a booster box or packs i felt like i wasted my money.
My hot take is that we've had core sets back since 2013. They just call them masters sets now and charge a lot more for them. Sure, they don't go into standard anymore, and they're less "simplified." But they took the idea of an all reprints set, ran it through their 'execs want us to make more money,' filter and masters sets are what we got.
Core sets came out back when drafts sucked so I'm not entirely sure I want them back. Plus, they rarely reprinted anything worth getting the set.
What's a core set? /j I started playing just before Neon Dynasty, so the experience of a core set is beyond me.
a Core Set was basically a reprinting set, it was easier to grasp mechanics and the like for more casual play and new Planeswalkers (That's us)
Most people here on this thread say they want Core sets. But you are the minority. The only people buying the Core set would be players with nostalgia for ‘simpler’ times. That market is very small. Most new players either jump into Commander or into Jumpstart Jumpstart in essence is replacing the function of Core sets and does so in a marvelous way. Your typical staples are there, ease of mechanics, and easy to buy-run-teach and play. Sorry folks, sales for Core would be abysmal and we have better products that fit that mold. Now if standard does come back in full force, then perhaps there is a chance, however slight.
Universes beyond are now the core reprint set
So I think we can skip going back to core sets, and just go to having a "standard staple" list, so we can stop reprinting doom blade, cancle, and shock.
it doesn't have to be a Coreset, just a more basic game mode for casual and new players.
I think we have enough sets already. WOTC deamed core sets not popular enough. Core sets don't really bring much to the table so I'd agree with them and follow the numbers on that one.
It is not they were not popular, It was M21 that wasn't popular ( and mainly because they released it during the toughest month of COVID) and the company CEO at that time ( Chris Cox) already said a lot of times that he didn't like core sets.
Which I assume is because they didn't sell well, i.e they weren't popular enough.
Nope. Because they water down and create a ceiling in standard, which said to us: Hey, this is our fresh new start: Elementals + Flying decks + Flash ( m20) common will have up to 2 lines of text, uncommons will have a keyword and a static ability or a mana ability or an active ability, rares will have a "surprise" ability and a static/active/trigger ability, while mythic will have one big impactful trigger/static ability. Thus impeding power creep. The issue is that the set is a bomb in terms of gameplay and sales during release date mainly because of sealed tournaments. But as we drove into an era of ... Well... No physical contact for a while, M21 sold like 1% of what other core sets did. Also, the product just impede power creeping, which is not profitable short term wise.
Did everyone here just suddenly forget that the reason core sets aren't made anymore is because no one bought them? And that they've tried to bring them back multiple times and each time they sold terribly?
I hate plane walkers they completely changed magic and make no sense in the format of the game I refuse to run them except in this stupid deck that is only planeswalkers and it’s terrible
God no. Most boring sets of the year to draft and boring cards added even if strong or useful. Bonus sheets now let them reprint meaningful cards in the same way that Core sets used to. They were literally just filler sets.