Wizards announced new efforts to promote Standard play that start next year. Some highlights:

  • Special promos for new weekly Standard events at LGSs
  • $75k Standard Open at MagicCon Chicago, which is “the first large, open field Standard tournament in quite some time”
  • Pro Tour Outlaws of Thunder Junction (second PT in 2024) will be Standard
  • @calvinball
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    159 months ago

    Until they do something to make standard more affordable I don’t think they’ll succeed in this revitalisation. Either you print new standard challenger decks every year that actually contain all the game pieces needed for a Tier standard deck, or people will continue to play non rotating formats where the decks are as expensive as standard but will last them a lot more years than standard decks

      • @calvinball
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        49 months ago

        You’re right about the premium treatments and the pricing. I don’t think the fact that 4 out of 10 tier decks are under 200 bucks will bring more people to standard though: if you’re on a budget you look at the standard metagame and see that you can sleeve up mono red aggro for under 100$. But at the same time you see that you’ll never be able to afford other tier decks like golgari or esper midrange, which are about 500$. If you don’t have access to the option of creating the tier deck you want, only the tier deck you can afford, it creates a feeling of being locked out of (part of) the format, and creates resentment toward those that càn afford a golgari midrange deck.

        • Tasthesose
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          49 months ago

          @calvinball @lovestha this is how it felt getting into magic in the late 90s working for two weeks pay to buy my first box - Ice Age - it was complete shit and I didn’t buy another box of magic for 20 years because of it. Talk about resentful - playing against people with amazing decks and I’m sitting on a box of hot dog water ice cubes. :)

          • @calvinball
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            49 months ago

            I’m glad you learned early not to buy boxes then :D

            • Tasthesose
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              29 months ago

              @calvinball it surely saved me oodles over time - I wasn’t tempted again successfully till the Lord of the Rings cards - the artists really did amazing jobs and I wanted to at least get this set while it’s around. :)

  • @heavy@sh.itjust.works
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    59 months ago

    I don’t have the most experienced perspective, and for several reasons I prefer standard to the wider formats, but I like the effort they’re putting forward. At the end of the day, I’d like it to be less cost intensive to get into competitive play, but I think that’s a non trivial problem.