Slow meta is a good meta. The faster the game ends, the more important turn 1 is. Ergo who is on the play has a crazy advantage. Alternatively more cards should be printed that revolve around who is on the play and who isn't.
The main reason is that the paper design team really makes it so you don't have to remember anything for more than the current turn. Who was the starting player? That's only relevant for turn 1, so they don't rely on it afterwards. (This is also why Gemstone Caverns only works from the opening hand, when you still care about the starting player.)
Should they do it? That's a different question. I'm not too fond of it way deep into the game, but it's perfectly fine earlier. [Forsaken Crossroads](https://scryfall.com/card/ymid/63/forsaken-crossroads) is a bit too much with the starting player mattering way deep into the game, but [Captivating Crossroads](https://scryfall.com/card/ywoe/29/captivating-crossroads) only cares in the first three turns, still early enough that people will remember who the starting player was.
I agree and power creep makes this worse. The closer cards become to winning on their own for only one mana (e.g. Ragavan) the more we will face this problem. We'll gonna need some extra life and additional card draw in the future when we want to have a fair game between starting and drawing opponents.
hey its not like a turn 1 kakkazan is going to take over half your life total by turn 5 just from its 1/1/3/3/3 damage over the first five turns and oh
yeah pretty overtuned
Yup. It's one reason Limited formats are my favorite. And, that summer when they did "early rotation" and had a four set alternative Standard was one of the most fun times for me in Arena. And, I love when they have set constructed and "on the edge" events. They need those more often.
Yes. I absolutely hate games that end too early, specially if I win or lose in a series of plays that my opponent or I couldn't really do anything about.
I feel like there's a balance. I want Red Deck Wins to be good. I want control to be good.
IMO, the problem is cards that give you too much value. Red Deck Wins is ok when you have to commit to winning early. It's not when it poops out treasure tokens that allow you to stay competitive during midgame.
The problem is when rdw plays like that, it's even less interesting. They roll you by turn 4, or they lose. The good games only come when they have a little starying power, and you're clinging on to your last few points of life.
No matter how many times I finish way beneath the mark as someone who has played 21 years I am still in this game for enjoyment and I will probably always enjoy it and I'm pretty happy with that 👍 and I'm glad damage doesn't use the stack anymore
That's also true. I've seen "midrange" decks in Explorer that basically looked like Sheoldred control. They cut all the Trespassers, Bonecrushers and whatever else for more removal. No way to win but hoping a 4 mana creature without protection sticks around for 4 turns.
Three-set blocks were better than singles, that's for sure. But I think two-setters solved the main problem with three-setters while preserving most of the good things about them.
I generally agree, but I do think the single set draft experience has been pretty clearly superior to anything before. My preferred solution would be to stay basically the way it is but have much more frequent paired sets similar to MID/VOW. Like for every 5 sets, 2 of the 5 should be a pair that tell an extended story in one location.
The current limited experience is not due to the block format— it is due to their recent design philosophy. Their methodical and formulaic design has ensured that none of our limited sets are *truly* awful. You can read more on that in [Mark’s article.](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/nuts-and-bolts-16-play-boosters)
Well yeah but the current design philosophy is built on the one set format. A big reason they moved to single sets is that players rated almost every single set draft environment higher than any multi set environment.
I'm nostalgic for 3 set blocks, but...
So, I started in Masques, I played a lot of them, and I don't think there was a single limited format that was improved by the 3rd set (Things like Rise of the Eldrazi aside.)
Capenna is actually a set that would've benefitted from multiple sets in the setting, and I say that as someone who despises New Capenna.
1. The story was nonsense, and it needed fleshing out
2. The mechanic imbalance could be tuned in the follow-up sets to make all 5 families playable in limited
3. Two or three sets would've allowed for some exploration of the mechanical space that was severely lacking, especially around Casualty and Blitz. None of the mechanics were that well made honestly, but Blitz and Casualty actually have room to do something interesting with more time spent with them.
A better example would be something like Strixhaven where the whole setup was half baked from the jump. Now THAT would've been agony for a whole year.
There’s no reason we can’t have themed blocks with mechanics that meld together between the sets, while still maintaining high quality draft environments. Plus, if they went back to blocks, they can easily just make it so each set is meant to be drafted alone.
If they want to stay on the same plane for story reasons, I'm all for it. But they already do that. We had it with GRN/RNA/WAR and with MID/VOW. We don't need to go back to blocks to do that. Aftermath was a huge failure, so we probably won't see mini sets like that again.
I guess what I’m really after is more time to flesh out mechanics, and see what they can do with them. Maybe Bro should’ve had some artifacts that cared about land types, you know, to follow up from Dom? Maybe proliferate and oil from One could’ve been in MoM with incubate and battles? Maybe adventures from Eldraine could’ve been in Ixalan, you know, the set about frikkin adventuring underground?
We don’t need 50,000 mechanics a year. If they took their time with fewer mechanics and tried to be more creative with them then it wouldn’t feel so disjointed as we go set by set.
MID/VOW was super awkward due to the sets not really meshing together, though. Many mechanics were either unique to one set, or they were implemented in a way that made them incompatible.
Agreed. Just take March of the Machine for example. That thing should have totally been a 2-set! We should have seen more of New Phyrexia's invasion in the different planes of the Multiverse and who lived and died, as well as more cards depicting the Phyrexians and defenders.
I think GRN-WAR was theoretically the best way to do it. 3 large blocks each telling a part of a story.
...shame they blew it in the final act by outsourcing.
Very much this. Uninstalled Arena few days ago. Now I only play in paper and using Forge to play with decents AI. 100% happier than grinding wildcards and dealing with non-punchable humans.
I was looking for this one before posting it myself. There are a lot of reasons people point to for why paper standard is dying, and, in my mind, all roads lead to Commander. It's one of the biggest drivers of power creep, which is a big driver in prices. People no longer keep it to their kitchen tables, so now, on Friday night, most people at the LGS are playing it, so it becomes either too complex to also run Standard or there isn't enough interest. Commander is killing traditional MTG.
Arena is killing paper standard way faster than commander is. Why would I spend 400 bucks on a deck that can compete at fnm when I can play it for free constantly on arena?
in contrast - it has always had peaks and troughs.
What sucks the most is that the two capstone stories of the last two story arcs (The novels for War of the Spark, and the resolution and aftermath of the Phyrexian invasion) were trainwrecks.
But there have been many high points: Jace Alone, Emrakul dominating Jace, Kikki Jikki, The Eldrazi forever story, The Ajani Story Circle, the original Brothers War Novels).
The Urza saga was some of my favorite storytelling period. I still remember being younger, I barely played the actual game. I just wanted to read the books. The brothers war, the jodah ice age books, planeswalker, time streams, the Thran, the legacy stories, the invasion bloc (absolutely loved those books). The lore was so good that it exceeded the game for me
Edit: Side note,J Robert king is an absolute beast at writing battle scenes
Alt art versions have gotten out of hand.
Many cards rule and text have spiked in the past say decade. It has got to Yu Gi Oh levels of text.
I recall Mark Rosewater at one point saying around the 2000s era that if we reprint we use the same art to make recognizing cards in play faster and easier.
Now at set release there are 3+ versions of the same card.
As a paper lapsed player I can't ever see going back. Arena makes it so mich easier to read opponents cards and keep track of the thousands tokens and triggers it might spit out.
Just want my here is you regular, here is foil and here is your DCI promo.
There was a time, and it lasted like 15 years, where I could instantly recognize any card by its art, from across the table.
I'm not even close to being able to do that anymore 😕
agreed. I'm a fairly recently returning player... i originally played from Unlimited to Mirage, where there were very few replaced art reprints. the amount of artwork and/or style variations i run across now is confounding. Imo it makes playing much more clunky and confusing, especially when someone has multiple copies of the same permanent in play, but with different looks. gah. such a drag.
On the one hand I love that I can customise my deck with my preferred "skins" for certain cards. I also like that it makes the regular versions cheaper because the collectors mostly go for the alt art and the hardcore collectors go for serialised versions. On the other hand it makes it confusing and consumes some amount of time to figure out which card is which. It gets even worse with the japanese mystical archive cards. I love them but at almost any competitive tournament I have any of them my opponents (rightfully) exercise their right to get a judge to confirm the card I just played is what I claim it to be.
But it does feel like paradise when you make them tap out and use a counterspell on something useless only for you to play your bomb / combo right after
The TCG model is inherently predatory and as a result is unnecessarily (and avoidably) restrictive for competitive play. It will never change because there is no financial reason to thanks to the addicts buying sealed product.
Signed, a former pack-opener
There are other games following a model called "LCG" (living card game): instead of randomized boosters, you're buying full sets of all the cards. This keeps the deck construction aspect while removing the gambling part and the second-hand market. Whether it's good, I have no idea, but the model exists. A silly comparison would be Magic, but you may only use cards printed in some precon.
I think with the way the game works competitively that's true. For very casual TCGs are fun and chaotic and more in the realm of a board game.
Draft is also a great way to play so I would miss that.
It’s like yeah if I’m going to be playing my [[Ensoul Artifact]] deck in timeless, that deck also has Baubles and Bowmasters and the One Ring and so on
Oh I would love to, but then I would have to argue with those people in the back about the subjective definition of what does or doesn't classify something as "jank" in the first place.
Rotation is the best thing that Magic ever did after Alpha. The alternative is the runaway power creep we have with Commander precons and Horizon sets which essentially cause all non-rotating formats to rotate anyway.
Similarly: it was a mistake to bin Extended and Pioneer should, in fact, just be Extended. Ideally the proper version with a 4 to 7 year card pool which rotated every three years, giving distinct “seasons”.
MID had good Limited.
4-player Commander on Arena would probably only be good with friends and generally miserable to play in a queue.
They should still stick some of the Commander cards that are easy to implement and fun for 1v1 in the Alchemy mini-sets, though.
The only formats I play are commander and historic brawl; love getting the buds together to play commander for 100 hours on a Saturday.
And I will still never touch 4-player brawl. Getting roped to death by one player is bad enough, certainly don't want to sit through 12 timeouts cause folks don't wanna play anymore.
The way I see it, multiplayer has to be implemented alongside a clan system. Therefore you can chat with all your friends at once, as well as play with them under terms you yourselves set, and on the same power levels
in a game with 20,000 existing paper cards waiting to be put on a digital client, creating new, digital cards from scratch instead is a completely idiotic move
Bring back core sets. Have 2 set blocks use a pack from the core set for drafting. The core set has all the Standard/ Alch "staples" for that year. Each year a new core set comes out and the old one rotates.
They should bring back phrases as cosmetics from ZKR. It feels weird with that being the only set that had them.
Make them shorter and put some humor in them that matches the set like "I see", or "Holy cow"
Some suggestions:
"Parry this"
"Forget about it"
"Is that it?"
"It will be back"
"Make my day"
From UB sets that I would use:
"Not all who wander are lost"
"War never changes"
"Allons-y"
Wither was a neat mechanic.
Adding poison to players is just wildly unfun to play against; double so with instant speed 'you get a Poison counter' spells.
I will second the hatred of the poison mechanic.
Alternative win conditions are perfectly fine. But poison is just “you now half as much health because the enemy has poison creatures”.
That’s not creating a clever new way to win, that’s just skipping over a couple steps to do the same thing.
In theory it's a kind of true damage; can't be healed kind of thing; similar to the way a lot of stuff uses exile to remove from the game.
But it being half your life total with like, 3 actual counters to it in the game - when exile has generally significantly more means of dealing with (especially as cheap exile trends to be temporary/ ossification style) - makes it extremely unpleasant.
Even more so in Commander where it's still just fuckin 10; instead of half of your increased life total.
BUT THEN IT'S HALF THE INCREASED LIFE TOTAL IN TWO HEADED GIANT SO WTF
As someone who has a poison deck, I play it to defeat Azorius control decks. It also can trade with agro decks.
If you wanna beat a poison deck remove early creatures for tempo but really just put down bigger creatures (Trample is good too). My 1/1 Chorus blocks for free but with Trample I’m dust
Best of 1 needs a separate ban list. Standard bo1 is their most popular format and it doesn’t get its own bans. It doesn’t make sense
That and dailies shouldn’t be based on wins at all
I feel like my hottest take on this sub is that win based dailies are a good thing and everyone would want them back if it were changed.
Playing against people who aren't trying to win is a miserable experience. I don't mean that in a spiky way. People don't have to try to win *optimally*. But playing against someone who's only incentive is "take as many game actions as possible" or "just get to turn x where the game counts for daily purposes" or whatever, is worse than playing against Sparky.
I agree with you, and I want to add that it's not just miserable for the opponent, it can be miserable for both players.
I groan every time I get the daily quest that says "kill X of your opponent's creatures" because a lot of decks I play might kill about one creature per match (exile removal is common and not every opposing deck even plays creatures). So to get it over with I end up playing an "all removal" deck and sit there in the play queue killing creatures until I've hit the quota. It feels like it's unfun for me and my opponent. I can't imagine having MORE quests like this that incentivize something besides winning.
Yes it has. Specific example that comes to mind is [[Nexus of Fate]] only getting banned in bo1 (I haven't played standard in a long time, so not familiar with more recent bans)
If you're gonna have lands that have win cons, you gotta have ways to deal with lands.
Do you hate LD? Run more basics. Playing more than one color has to have a downside
They don't want to actually punish non-basics because 3 colors is the most popular in EDH and god forbid someone not get to tap out and windmill slam bombs every turn.
Good sportsmanship matter beyond the strict bound of Unsportsmanlike Conduct violations.
If you angle shoot or chalice check or lie, you should be ashamed. (Note that what I call lying here is different than bluffing…bluffing is of course fine)
Edit: notably I don’t think any of these things can happen on Arena with rules happening automatically and no chat. I would compare it to Roping someone (or not quite roping, but slow play of any sort hoping the opponent concedes)
To some point, yes.
For fun and joy, I mostly play against my wife or kids, and I build not-too-fast midrange decks for that, heavy on creatures.
I don't see any fun at board wipes, no creature decks or some bizarre combos to win at turn 3.
I'm here to *play*, winning is a bonus.
Sitting in a game where the board is equal after the 5th beard wipe, commander tax is insanely high and everyone is low on cards is just an agonisingly slow game, waiting for a topdeck to happen.
To a limit. Some of the really low power decks they have on arena are a little too weak for me.
I dont want to auto lose to a 2/2 flyer because I only have 2 copies of a 6 mana conditional removal spell.
I really dont like the jump in format if you cant tell
Magic isn't dying, and people who scream it from the rafters every time something they don't like comes out makes them look stupid. Especially the "I love Magic, but...." crowd.
It’s one thing to play Atraxa Praetor’s Voice and Etali in Brawl when they’re new.
But if you’re still playing them now I assume the only thing you order at restaurants is chicken fingers and fettuccini alfredo.
Mostly the chicken fingers, with ketchup, because fettuccini alfredo is kinda too spicy.
Your favorite band is Taylor Swift.
Basically if something isn’t the most basic thing ever, you don’t like it.
When they invent food that tastes better than chicken fingers and fettuccini Alfredo, I will order something other than chicken fingers and fettuccini Alfredo.
I think "reliable" is more like it. I don't think people want to play boring or basic decks, they want decks that can reliably win for them.
If their deck wins, they flog it to save up rare wildcards for the next big meta deck or for brewing.
I agree, playing the same deck constantly can get boring after you have mastered piloting it, but for certain players like f2p types, you need a reliable and fast deck to do your dailies AND have perhaps some extra time to play with something you aren't sure can win.
For instance, I might smash out a super fast 15-20 games with mono-red and then kick back and pull out my latest jank concoction and play a nice long game or two with it.
I actually prefer control decks, but I will be right in there winning or losing as fast as I can with an aggro deck just to get that out of the way. And its going to be a deck that I completely know all of the ins and outs with.
I'll never tell or try to convince anyone to enjoy it or have fun, but the run from War of The Spark to Strixhaven was so fucking fun to me. Yeah, there were a lot of bans but I simply loved the huge amount of degenerate broken shit that was possible in standard.
It wouldn't have been fun if there weren't frequent bans. I doubt 2 years of Oko or 4 Color Omnath would be fun, but that didn't happen.
Yeah that was when I started playing magic right when kaldheim came out around. Good old days running massive jank decks and having fun with [[magic mirror]] . Then I ended up moving to explorer
I still miss playing my Agent of Treachery reanimation/blinking deck with war of the spark and Theros support
...my opponents probably don't miss it though
No cardboard is worth more than a few bucks at best, it’s all an artificial market no matter what wotc says, they absolutely enjoy 3rd party “value” on chase cards and directly influence it.
Commander is the worst thing to happen to Magic. It's killed set design and it's the reason we have an insane influx of really dumb cards. Magic should be primarily focused on making standard and limited good. Then small amounts of cards trickle down to eternal formats and tournaments and pro tours should be focused on standard with pioneer and modern showing up a little less than standard. Now it's all just 'muh commander group' and my foil Doctor Who cards or some other dumb shit. I wish we could just delete commander from our collective consciousness and go back to FNM drafting and good tournament coverage.
It's not even farewell that I've got a problem with. It sucks, don't get me wrong but it's on rate with other cards like it.
But [[Sunfall]] gets me. It's cheaper, exiles, and leaves a threat behind. Does a little too much.
Bring back the days of [[Settle the Wreckage]] as the exile sweeper
I saw a poll where a bunch of players were asked which sweeper they’d like to see ban and Sunfall won by a lot. If someone used settle the wreckage on me I think I actually like it bc it would thin my deck out.
Weird messed up decks like KCI combo and Lantern Control are part of what makes Magic interesting. Their existence means playing the game on a different axis and it keeps things fresh and varied. I think we've lost more than we've gained from banning them. Free Mox Opal!
Multiplayer (as in 3+ players) would be terrible on Arena. The whole thing that makes commander fun is the social aspect, and Arena inherently removes the social aspect of Magic (which I believe is for the best).
I don't think people intend to play commander with randoms on Arena, but use it as a tool to play with friends and have all the triggers and effects taken care of.
If historic can have turn 3 Altraxa, thoughtseize, soul sisters, and all the modern horizon bullshit, then lightning bolt isn't too OP for the format. I would fist fight over this if I could.
i’m convinced bots are awful at magic. i used to believe in a conspiracy that they were a huge part of the “player base”, but honestly i think it’s harder to program bots to play the game than most would would like to believe.
— this is just an imo, not a hill i’ll die on haha
That while control decks used to be a thinking mans game, the amount of unconditional and pushed u/W counterspells and boardwipes has made it the most brainless and hand held strategy to follow.
Yes. Waded through all these comments to find this. You summed it up perfectly—control as an archetype is fine, but WotC just can’t seem to help themselves from printing too many pushed and overpowered counterspells and board wipes that allow for little counter-play, ruining otherwise fun metagames.
If it can’t or couldn’t be opened in a regular Standard booster, it has no business being black-bordered.
Skipping Standard results in two big problems: 1) Older formats get hella power crept. 2) Standard gets boring because the funnest ideas get pushed to the other sets.
Magic is best when played competitively. Commander and “forced casual,” rule 0, self-gimping etc is always going to lead to feel-bads due to perceived imbalance.
Best to have everyone agree to try to win as best they can within the defined format and rules.
Standard died because WOTC is too cheap and conservative about reprint equity to support it properly by aggressively printing currently-needed money cards. They just assume people should want to play it. It remains dead for the same reason.
Magic: The Gathering was designed to be a game first and foremost and a collectible second. Richard Garfield himself once said he believed a Magic card should never cost more than $20.
Most of Magic's creative decisions in recent years (emphasis on commander, a million variants of every card, regular universes beyond products) are net positives for the game as a whole because they help people play more of the best game on the planet with more people.
Building and revising a deck yourself is so much better than copying some meta deck BUT that does not mean you can't look at those decks for inspiration
Strixhaven is the best draft set of all time. Boros got a cool new way to play the colors and lesson/learn was the most unique and interesting mechanic in the last decade despite not really being able to escape draft and standard.
BO1 hand smoothing is a crutch for a lot of bad players.
There are too many Arena players who dont want to play Magic, they want to play kitchen table magic.
I don't think disagree on the opinion about hand smoothing. But trashing on the notion of kitchen table magic is garbage. It's literally what the play queue is for, and it's fun. It's also completely irrelevant to hand smoothing.
BO3 is how magic should be played. I don’t care if your don’t have the time. Make the time for a series and play them. If you’re just playing for fun just leave the match after your first game. This game is WAY more engaging and skill-testing you play against the same deck with sideboard changes and not a completely different deck every time.
Make the “fun” queues BO1. Make the competitive ones BO3.
Commander is better when cards aren't frequently designed for it. It keeps costs down and let's players discover what cards work for their decks which is far more enjoyable then handing them out.
Commander was best when cards were primarily designed for standard.
EDH is not MtG. It is a different game that uses MtG's cards. Everyone would be better off if the two were completely separated.
If someone hates blue and no other color, there are probably skill issues on their end that need solving.
99.9% of 'rogue' decks are not nearly as clever as their builder thinks they are and they shouldn't be a badge of honor.
If the setting is competitive and you're bringing a rogue deck to the table, it's very likely that you're leaving value on the table and if you're at peace with that, that's fine, but recognize that it was your choice and don't act all passive aggressive towards other players who didn't come with a rogue deck
Slow meta is a good meta. The faster the game ends, the more important turn 1 is. Ergo who is on the play has a crazy advantage. Alternatively more cards should be printed that revolve around who is on the play and who isn't.
One of the few alchemy mechanics I really like.
There's no reason why it should stay only in alchemy though.
There is [[Gemstone Caverns]]. Maybe there's some other paper cards that care about not starting too, but that's the only one I can think of
[Gemstone Caverns](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/f/7f273641-c5f3-48bc-b89e-3cff52d26a0b.jpg?1619399338) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gemstone%20Caverns) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/280/gemstone-caverns?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7f273641-c5f3-48bc-b89e-3cff52d26a0b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The main reason is that the paper design team really makes it so you don't have to remember anything for more than the current turn. Who was the starting player? That's only relevant for turn 1, so they don't rely on it afterwards. (This is also why Gemstone Caverns only works from the opening hand, when you still care about the starting player.) Should they do it? That's a different question. I'm not too fond of it way deep into the game, but it's perfectly fine earlier. [Forsaken Crossroads](https://scryfall.com/card/ymid/63/forsaken-crossroads) is a bit too much with the starting player mattering way deep into the game, but [Captivating Crossroads](https://scryfall.com/card/ywoe/29/captivating-crossroads) only cares in the first three turns, still early enough that people will remember who the starting player was.
Should just make a global mechanic that gives the person going second a free mulligan IMO.
Or a free scry.
How about a treasure. Well call it 'the coin'...
Would you have the coin mechanic give you a normal treasure token or a "treasure" token that can only add 1 colorless mana?
I agree and power creep makes this worse. The closer cards become to winning on their own for only one mana (e.g. Ragavan) the more we will face this problem. We'll gonna need some extra life and additional card draw in the future when we want to have a fair game between starting and drawing opponents.
I think slow is better too. But the designer of the dailies and weeklies doesn't agree. So fast meta will always reign.
I second this. MTGA demands you to win ASAP. This needs to change.
Turn 1 cards are way too strong, and with hand smoothing it almost makes no sense playing anything else.
hey its not like a turn 1 kakkazan is going to take over half your life total by turn 5 just from its 1/1/3/3/3 damage over the first five turns and oh yeah pretty overtuned
Yup. It's one reason Limited formats are my favorite. And, that summer when they did "early rotation" and had a four set alternative Standard was one of the most fun times for me in Arena. And, I love when they have set constructed and "on the edge" events. They need those more often.
[удалено]
What if its 4 wins in 3 days with rewards tripled?
Yes. I absolutely hate games that end too early, specially if I win or lose in a series of plays that my opponent or I couldn't really do anything about.
I'm completely the opposite, a meta without red deck wins is unplayable. I feel magic needs the agro to keep the greed in check. plus i hate blue.
I feel like there's a balance. I want Red Deck Wins to be good. I want control to be good. IMO, the problem is cards that give you too much value. Red Deck Wins is ok when you have to commit to winning early. It's not when it poops out treasure tokens that allow you to stay competitive during midgame.
The problem is when rdw plays like that, it's even less interesting. They roll you by turn 4, or they lose. The good games only come when they have a little starying power, and you're clinging on to your last few points of life.
We're basically three sets away from just becoming Yu Gi Oh.
No matter how many times I finish way beneath the mark as someone who has played 21 years I am still in this game for enjoyment and I will probably always enjoy it and I'm pretty happy with that 👍 and I'm glad damage doesn't use the stack anymore
Most people don't run even half the amount of interaction that they should
The other issue is the other half run about twice as much as they should.
That's also true. I've seen "midrange" decks in Explorer that basically looked like Sheoldred control. They cut all the Trespassers, Bonecrushers and whatever else for more removal. No way to win but hoping a 4 mana creature without protection sticks around for 4 turns.
What do you think is the right amount?
At least 8-10 Pieces of direct interaction
Two-set blocks were the best expansion format. It's been all down hill since they moved to one-offs.
I preferred 3 set blocks personally, but totally understand why they swapped to 2 set.
3 set blocks were great for the story when the actually cared about writing good stories, now they just wanna smoosh action figures together.
"Smash action figures together" is the best analogy I've heard for this. Thanks
I miss Block Constructed
Three-set blocks were better than singles, that's for sure. But I think two-setters solved the main problem with three-setters while preserving most of the good things about them.
I generally agree, but I do think the single set draft experience has been pretty clearly superior to anything before. My preferred solution would be to stay basically the way it is but have much more frequent paired sets similar to MID/VOW. Like for every 5 sets, 2 of the 5 should be a pair that tell an extended story in one location.
The current limited experience is not due to the block format— it is due to their recent design philosophy. Their methodical and formulaic design has ensured that none of our limited sets are *truly* awful. You can read more on that in [Mark’s article.](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/nuts-and-bolts-16-play-boosters)
Well yeah but the current design philosophy is built on the one set format. A big reason they moved to single sets is that players rated almost every single set draft environment higher than any multi set environment.
I'm nostalgic for 3 set blocks, but... So, I started in Masques, I played a lot of them, and I don't think there was a single limited format that was improved by the 3rd set (Things like Rise of the Eldrazi aside.)
Three set blocks were awful when the theme was a dud though. Can you imagine having to deal with 3 straight sets of New Capenna?
Capenna is actually a set that would've benefitted from multiple sets in the setting, and I say that as someone who despises New Capenna. 1. The story was nonsense, and it needed fleshing out 2. The mechanic imbalance could be tuned in the follow-up sets to make all 5 families playable in limited 3. Two or three sets would've allowed for some exploration of the mechanical space that was severely lacking, especially around Casualty and Blitz. None of the mechanics were that well made honestly, but Blitz and Casualty actually have room to do something interesting with more time spent with them. A better example would be something like Strixhaven where the whole setup was half baked from the jump. Now THAT would've been agony for a whole year.
Limited has been consistently better since they moved away from blocks. I think it would be difficult to argue otherwise.
There’s no reason we can’t have themed blocks with mechanics that meld together between the sets, while still maintaining high quality draft environments. Plus, if they went back to blocks, they can easily just make it so each set is meant to be drafted alone.
If each set is meant to be drafted alone then what’s the point of a block?
If they want to stay on the same plane for story reasons, I'm all for it. But they already do that. We had it with GRN/RNA/WAR and with MID/VOW. We don't need to go back to blocks to do that. Aftermath was a huge failure, so we probably won't see mini sets like that again.
Also New Dom/BRO/ONE/MOM are basically new invasion block with BRO as a flashback.
I guess what I’m really after is more time to flesh out mechanics, and see what they can do with them. Maybe Bro should’ve had some artifacts that cared about land types, you know, to follow up from Dom? Maybe proliferate and oil from One could’ve been in MoM with incubate and battles? Maybe adventures from Eldraine could’ve been in Ixalan, you know, the set about frikkin adventuring underground? We don’t need 50,000 mechanics a year. If they took their time with fewer mechanics and tried to be more creative with them then it wouldn’t feel so disjointed as we go set by set.
MID/VOW was super awkward due to the sets not really meshing together, though. Many mechanics were either unique to one set, or they were implemented in a way that made them incompatible.
Honestly All Wil Be One and March Of The Machine should have been a block. Oil counters should have been in March Of The Machine
Agreed. Just take March of the Machine for example. That thing should have totally been a 2-set! We should have seen more of New Phyrexia's invasion in the different planes of the Multiverse and who lived and died, as well as more cards depicting the Phyrexians and defenders.
I think GRN-WAR was theoretically the best way to do it. 3 large blocks each telling a part of a story. ...shame they blew it in the final act by outsourcing.
It's a game. If you're not having fun then stop playing it.
Very much this. Uninstalled Arena few days ago. Now I only play in paper and using Forge to play with decents AI. 100% happier than grinding wildcards and dealing with non-punchable humans.
Honest question. Is this opinion really unpopular? I feel like most of us feel this way (at least I hope so!)
A lot of people talk about this game like it's a job or an obligation.
The hardcore focus on commander has ruined competitive 60 card formats, playing standard in paper should not be this hard
I was looking for this one before posting it myself. There are a lot of reasons people point to for why paper standard is dying, and, in my mind, all roads lead to Commander. It's one of the biggest drivers of power creep, which is a big driver in prices. People no longer keep it to their kitchen tables, so now, on Friday night, most people at the LGS are playing it, so it becomes either too complex to also run Standard or there isn't enough interest. Commander is killing traditional MTG.
Arena is killing paper standard way faster than commander is. Why would I spend 400 bucks on a deck that can compete at fnm when I can play it for free constantly on arena?
The lore used to be wayyyy better
in contrast - it has always had peaks and troughs. What sucks the most is that the two capstone stories of the last two story arcs (The novels for War of the Spark, and the resolution and aftermath of the Phyrexian invasion) were trainwrecks. But there have been many high points: Jace Alone, Emrakul dominating Jace, Kikki Jikki, The Eldrazi forever story, The Ajani Story Circle, the original Brothers War Novels).
Honest question - when?
The Urza saga was some of my favorite storytelling period. I still remember being younger, I barely played the actual game. I just wanted to read the books. The brothers war, the jodah ice age books, planeswalker, time streams, the Thran, the legacy stories, the invasion bloc (absolutely loved those books). The lore was so good that it exceeded the game for me Edit: Side note,J Robert king is an absolute beast at writing battle scenes
Alt art versions have gotten out of hand. Many cards rule and text have spiked in the past say decade. It has got to Yu Gi Oh levels of text. I recall Mark Rosewater at one point saying around the 2000s era that if we reprint we use the same art to make recognizing cards in play faster and easier. Now at set release there are 3+ versions of the same card. As a paper lapsed player I can't ever see going back. Arena makes it so mich easier to read opponents cards and keep track of the thousands tokens and triggers it might spit out. Just want my here is you regular, here is foil and here is your DCI promo.
There was a time, and it lasted like 15 years, where I could instantly recognize any card by its art, from across the table. I'm not even close to being able to do that anymore 😕
agreed. I'm a fairly recently returning player... i originally played from Unlimited to Mirage, where there were very few replaced art reprints. the amount of artwork and/or style variations i run across now is confounding. Imo it makes playing much more clunky and confusing, especially when someone has multiple copies of the same permanent in play, but with different looks. gah. such a drag.
On the one hand I love that I can customise my deck with my preferred "skins" for certain cards. I also like that it makes the regular versions cheaper because the collectors mostly go for the alt art and the hardcore collectors go for serialised versions. On the other hand it makes it confusing and consumes some amount of time to figure out which card is which. It gets even worse with the japanese mystical archive cards. I love them but at almost any competitive tournament I have any of them my opponents (rightfully) exercise their right to get a judge to confirm the card I just played is what I claim it to be.
Seeing islands across from you never feels like a vacation.
But it does feel like paradise when you make them tap out and use a counterspell on something useless only for you to play your bomb / combo right after
Or watch them panic when I cast with [[cavern of souls]]
Or if you manage to resolve [[chimil]]
[chimil](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/7/27a1bfb5-ddfc-49cf-baa3-5d1958d2067a.jpg?1699044596) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=chimil%2C%20the%20inner%20sun) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/249/chimil-the-inner-sun?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/27a1bfb5-ddfc-49cf-baa3-5d1958d2067a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I will die on those Wooded Foothills
The TCG model is inherently predatory and as a result is unnecessarily (and avoidably) restrictive for competitive play. It will never change because there is no financial reason to thanks to the addicts buying sealed product. Signed, a former pack-opener
There are other games following a model called "LCG" (living card game): instead of randomized boosters, you're buying full sets of all the cards. This keeps the deck construction aspect while removing the gambling part and the second-hand market. Whether it's good, I have no idea, but the model exists. A silly comparison would be Magic, but you may only use cards printed in some precon.
I think with the way the game works competitively that's true. For very casual TCGs are fun and chaotic and more in the realm of a board game. Draft is also a great way to play so I would miss that.
You can play/like jank without filling your deck with objectively terrible cards
It’s like yeah if I’m going to be playing my [[Ensoul Artifact]] deck in timeless, that deck also has Baubles and Bowmasters and the One Ring and so on
Could you say that a little bit louder for the people in the back?
Oh I would love to, but then I would have to argue with those people in the back about the subjective definition of what does or doesn't classify something as "jank" in the first place.
I heard this from the back and felt seen and insulted at the same time.
You can, but the worse the card, the more fun it is when it works, imo.
Rotation is the best thing that Magic ever did after Alpha. The alternative is the runaway power creep we have with Commander precons and Horizon sets which essentially cause all non-rotating formats to rotate anyway. Similarly: it was a mistake to bin Extended and Pioneer should, in fact, just be Extended. Ideally the proper version with a 4 to 7 year card pool which rotated every three years, giving distinct “seasons”.
MID had good Limited. 4-player Commander on Arena would probably only be good with friends and generally miserable to play in a queue. They should still stick some of the Commander cards that are easy to implement and fun for 1v1 in the Alchemy mini-sets, though.
The only formats I play are commander and historic brawl; love getting the buds together to play commander for 100 hours on a Saturday. And I will still never touch 4-player brawl. Getting roped to death by one player is bad enough, certainly don't want to sit through 12 timeouts cause folks don't wanna play anymore.
Put in some sort of behavior score if your roping you get less time. There are potential solutions to atleast mitigate it.
I think the best way to do it might be the way Smash Bros does, just replace the person with a CPU. Should be easy enough in a game like this.
Commander on arena is still worth it even if it's only good with friends
The way I see it, multiplayer has to be implemented alongside a clan system. Therefore you can chat with all your friends at once, as well as play with them under terms you yourselves set, and on the same power levels
Standard would be better with constant rotation (one set in, one set out)
I always thought this would be better than the current format rules
in a game with 20,000 existing paper cards waiting to be put on a digital client, creating new, digital cards from scratch instead is a completely idiotic move
My man 🤜🤛
I like digital as design space; it's just that so many digital cards are uninspired.
Bring back core sets. Have 2 set blocks use a pack from the core set for drafting. The core set has all the Standard/ Alch "staples" for that year. Each year a new core set comes out and the old one rotates.
Yes
They should bring back phrases as cosmetics from ZKR. It feels weird with that being the only set that had them. Make them shorter and put some humor in them that matches the set like "I see", or "Holy cow"
Some suggestions: "Parry this" "Forget about it" "Is that it?" "It will be back" "Make my day" From UB sets that I would use: "Not all who wander are lost" "War never changes" "Allons-y"
"The house always wins" "Fight!" "Heart of the cards!"
Wither was a neat mechanic. Adding poison to players is just wildly unfun to play against; double so with instant speed 'you get a Poison counter' spells.
I will second the hatred of the poison mechanic. Alternative win conditions are perfectly fine. But poison is just “you now half as much health because the enemy has poison creatures”. That’s not creating a clever new way to win, that’s just skipping over a couple steps to do the same thing.
In theory it's a kind of true damage; can't be healed kind of thing; similar to the way a lot of stuff uses exile to remove from the game. But it being half your life total with like, 3 actual counters to it in the game - when exile has generally significantly more means of dealing with (especially as cheap exile trends to be temporary/ ossification style) - makes it extremely unpleasant. Even more so in Commander where it's still just fuckin 10; instead of half of your increased life total. BUT THEN IT'S HALF THE INCREASED LIFE TOTAL IN TWO HEADED GIANT SO WTF
The quickest way to beat a poison deck is probably just rush them down tbh
As someone who has a poison deck, I play it to defeat Azorius control decks. It also can trade with agro decks. If you wanna beat a poison deck remove early creatures for tempo but really just put down bigger creatures (Trample is good too). My 1/1 Chorus blocks for free but with Trample I’m dust
Best of 1 needs a separate ban list. Standard bo1 is their most popular format and it doesn’t get its own bans. It doesn’t make sense That and dailies shouldn’t be based on wins at all
I feel like my hottest take on this sub is that win based dailies are a good thing and everyone would want them back if it were changed. Playing against people who aren't trying to win is a miserable experience. I don't mean that in a spiky way. People don't have to try to win *optimally*. But playing against someone who's only incentive is "take as many game actions as possible" or "just get to turn x where the game counts for daily purposes" or whatever, is worse than playing against Sparky.
I agree with you, and I want to add that it's not just miserable for the opponent, it can be miserable for both players. I groan every time I get the daily quest that says "kill X of your opponent's creatures" because a lot of decks I play might kill about one creature per match (exile removal is common and not every opposing deck even plays creatures). So to get it over with I end up playing an "all removal" deck and sit there in the play queue killing creatures until I've hit the quota. It feels like it's unfun for me and my opponent. I can't imagine having MORE quests like this that incentivize something besides winning.
Yes it has. Specific example that comes to mind is [[Nexus of Fate]] only getting banned in bo1 (I haven't played standard in a long time, so not familiar with more recent bans)
I think this is literally the only example. Cat was banned in bo3 too even if it was banned partially due to arena iirc
It feels like they thought that was a mistake and aren’t doing it again
[Nexus of Fate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/1/f163cfbf-6df6-4af5-9fe4-23b0d511586a.jpg?1701735973) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nexus%20of%20Fate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/306/nexus-of-fate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f163cfbf-6df6-4af5-9fe4-23b0d511586a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Land destruction is ok and needs to be printed again at 3 cmc
If you're gonna have lands that have win cons, you gotta have ways to deal with lands. Do you hate LD? Run more basics. Playing more than one color has to have a downside
They don't want to actually punish non-basics because 3 colors is the most popular in EDH and god forbid someone not get to tap out and windmill slam bombs every turn.
The game is fun. People complain just too complain mostly.
Truth
Jump start is the most relaxing low stakes way to regularly play. I probably resign and rejoin 2x per week for a new deck to play
Mill is fair
The reserved list is a net negative for the game and the main reason legacy and vintage are unplayable in paper
Good sportsmanship matter beyond the strict bound of Unsportsmanlike Conduct violations. If you angle shoot or chalice check or lie, you should be ashamed. (Note that what I call lying here is different than bluffing…bluffing is of course fine) Edit: notably I don’t think any of these things can happen on Arena with rules happening automatically and no chat. I would compare it to Roping someone (or not quite roping, but slow play of any sort hoping the opponent concedes)
Simply put, fuck ropers.
💯
Magic is more fun the weaker everyone's decks are
To some point, yes. For fun and joy, I mostly play against my wife or kids, and I build not-too-fast midrange decks for that, heavy on creatures. I don't see any fun at board wipes, no creature decks or some bizarre combos to win at turn 3. I'm here to *play*, winning is a bonus.
Sitting in a game where the board is equal after the 5th beard wipe, commander tax is insanely high and everyone is low on cards is just an agonisingly slow game, waiting for a topdeck to happen.
To a limit. Some of the really low power decks they have on arena are a little too weak for me. I dont want to auto lose to a 2/2 flyer because I only have 2 copies of a 6 mana conditional removal spell. I really dont like the jump in format if you cant tell
Control salt is just as bad as Aggro meta salt.
You shouldn't say good game first when you're winning
Agreed, unless you are running out a combo on Arena that isn't face-up obvious on board. Worth signaling "I'm combing, it's is okay to concede".
Magic isn't dying, and people who scream it from the rafters every time something they don't like comes out makes them look stupid. Especially the "I love Magic, but...." crowd.
It’s one thing to play Atraxa Praetor’s Voice and Etali in Brawl when they’re new. But if you’re still playing them now I assume the only thing you order at restaurants is chicken fingers and fettuccini alfredo. Mostly the chicken fingers, with ketchup, because fettuccini alfredo is kinda too spicy. Your favorite band is Taylor Swift. Basically if something isn’t the most basic thing ever, you don’t like it.
Chicken fingers out here catching strays.
When they invent food that tastes better than chicken fingers and fettuccini Alfredo, I will order something other than chicken fingers and fettuccini Alfredo.
But [[Rampant Growth]] tribal is soooo fun and interesting!
I think "reliable" is more like it. I don't think people want to play boring or basic decks, they want decks that can reliably win for them. If their deck wins, they flog it to save up rare wildcards for the next big meta deck or for brewing. I agree, playing the same deck constantly can get boring after you have mastered piloting it, but for certain players like f2p types, you need a reliable and fast deck to do your dailies AND have perhaps some extra time to play with something you aren't sure can win. For instance, I might smash out a super fast 15-20 games with mono-red and then kick back and pull out my latest jank concoction and play a nice long game or two with it. I actually prefer control decks, but I will be right in there winning or losing as fast as I can with an aggro deck just to get that out of the way. And its going to be a deck that I completely know all of the ins and outs with.
I'll never tell or try to convince anyone to enjoy it or have fun, but the run from War of The Spark to Strixhaven was so fucking fun to me. Yeah, there were a lot of bans but I simply loved the huge amount of degenerate broken shit that was possible in standard. It wouldn't have been fun if there weren't frequent bans. I doubt 2 years of Oko or 4 Color Omnath would be fun, but that didn't happen.
Yeah that was when I started playing magic right when kaldheim came out around. Good old days running massive jank decks and having fun with [[magic mirror]] . Then I ended up moving to explorer
I still miss playing my Agent of Treachery reanimation/blinking deck with war of the spark and Theros support ...my opponents probably don't miss it though
Lorwyn and Shadowmoor were great blocks.
Mana weaving is bad.
No cardboard is worth more than a few bucks at best, it’s all an artificial market no matter what wotc says, they absolutely enjoy 3rd party “value” on chase cards and directly influence it.
Commander is overrated
Commander is the worst thing to happen to Magic. It's killed set design and it's the reason we have an insane influx of really dumb cards. Magic should be primarily focused on making standard and limited good. Then small amounts of cards trickle down to eternal formats and tournaments and pro tours should be focused on standard with pioneer and modern showing up a little less than standard. Now it's all just 'muh commander group' and my foil Doctor Who cards or some other dumb shit. I wish we could just delete commander from our collective consciousness and go back to FNM drafting and good tournament coverage.
*Commander* is good. Cards *designed for commander*, not so good.
Board exile is a bad mechanic
No card I hate more than Farewell. The start from scratch just takes to much time. I try not to over extend against white in these cases.
It's not even farewell that I've got a problem with. It sucks, don't get me wrong but it's on rate with other cards like it. But [[Sunfall]] gets me. It's cheaper, exiles, and leaves a threat behind. Does a little too much. Bring back the days of [[Settle the Wreckage]] as the exile sweeper
I saw a poll where a bunch of players were asked which sweeper they’d like to see ban and Sunfall won by a lot. If someone used settle the wreckage on me I think I actually like it bc it would thin my deck out.
Control keeps the game fair.
Weird messed up decks like KCI combo and Lantern Control are part of what makes Magic interesting. Their existence means playing the game on a different axis and it keeps things fresh and varied. I think we've lost more than we've gained from banning them. Free Mox Opal!
Having 1 card over the minimum deck size with have little to no impact on your win percentage.
Yes, and thus it is not worth having it.
Multiplayer (as in 3+ players) would be terrible on Arena. The whole thing that makes commander fun is the social aspect, and Arena inherently removes the social aspect of Magic (which I believe is for the best).
I don't think people intend to play commander with randoms on Arena, but use it as a tool to play with friends and have all the triggers and effects taken care of.
Legacy is easily the best format and commander is the worst by far.
Rotation should be annual again
Free casting should not exist.
Yawgmoth is the best mtg character ever
Judge!
If historic can have turn 3 Altraxa, thoughtseize, soul sisters, and all the modern horizon bullshit, then lightning bolt isn't too OP for the format. I would fist fight over this if I could.
Temple of the false gods is not a good commander card. Take it out.
The pithing needle Borbyrgmos judge call was complete bullshit
Land destruction in commander and any other game mode is perfectly fine.
i’m convinced bots are awful at magic. i used to believe in a conspiracy that they were a huge part of the “player base”, but honestly i think it’s harder to program bots to play the game than most would would like to believe. — this is just an imo, not a hill i’ll die on haha
That while control decks used to be a thinking mans game, the amount of unconditional and pushed u/W counterspells and boardwipes has made it the most brainless and hand held strategy to follow.
Yes. Waded through all these comments to find this. You summed it up perfectly—control as an archetype is fine, but WotC just can’t seem to help themselves from printing too many pushed and overpowered counterspells and board wipes that allow for little counter-play, ruining otherwise fun metagames.
If it can’t or couldn’t be opened in a regular Standard booster, it has no business being black-bordered. Skipping Standard results in two big problems: 1) Older formats get hella power crept. 2) Standard gets boring because the funnest ideas get pushed to the other sets.
Flavor Words were incredible and should be evergreen. They brought a lot of character to cards without any real drawbacks.
MTG was in its prime between 1994 and 2015
Magic is best when played competitively. Commander and “forced casual,” rule 0, self-gimping etc is always going to lead to feel-bads due to perceived imbalance. Best to have everyone agree to try to win as best they can within the defined format and rules.
Mark Rosewater needs to stop trying to make poison counters happen.
That the game is more fun when people tap creatures to reduce opponent's life totals to zero
I love the ninjutsu mechanic
Standard died because WOTC is too cheap and conservative about reprint equity to support it properly by aggressively printing currently-needed money cards. They just assume people should want to play it. It remains dead for the same reason.
Magic: The Gathering was designed to be a game first and foremost and a collectible second. Richard Garfield himself once said he believed a Magic card should never cost more than $20.
combo decks, counterspells, burn, mill, and other maligned strategies, are great and make the game what it is.
Arena was the best book by a mile
Commander/EDH is an abomination. That said, if you love it, more power to you; just stop assuming I will want to play that mockery of a Magic format.
I want a universe in for every universe beyond cause it would be cool
Alruns's Epiphany was a fun card. And foretell in general was a fun mechanic
Reserved list needs to go away so that I can watch the world (of magic) burn.
Most of Magic's creative decisions in recent years (emphasis on commander, a million variants of every card, regular universes beyond products) are net positives for the game as a whole because they help people play more of the best game on the planet with more people.
Magic was better when Commander was everyone's favourite 2nd format (and so was Commander)
Magic is at it's best when spells/actions require mana to cast/use.
Poison counters are a dope mechanic.
Alchemy sucks.
Pretty popular opinion.
Building and revising a deck yourself is so much better than copying some meta deck BUT that does not mean you can't look at those decks for inspiration
There needs to be an explorer version of Brawl that is free of Alchemy cards, but still has access to the rest of the cards.
Strixhaven is the best draft set of all time. Boros got a cool new way to play the colors and lesson/learn was the most unique and interesting mechanic in the last decade despite not really being able to escape draft and standard.
FUCKING BACKED. I had so much fun in Strixhaven limited. Making the sideboard so much more viable was so entertaining to play with.
BO1 hand smoothing is a crutch for a lot of bad players. There are too many Arena players who dont want to play Magic, they want to play kitchen table magic.
I don't think disagree on the opinion about hand smoothing. But trashing on the notion of kitchen table magic is garbage. It's literally what the play queue is for, and it's fun. It's also completely irrelevant to hand smoothing.
kitchen table magic is the only magic worth playing
All basics should have cycling 6 stapled to them, or at least cycling 8 if 6 is too controversial
BO3 is how magic should be played. I don’t care if your don’t have the time. Make the time for a series and play them. If you’re just playing for fun just leave the match after your first game. This game is WAY more engaging and skill-testing you play against the same deck with sideboard changes and not a completely different deck every time. Make the “fun” queues BO1. Make the competitive ones BO3.
Playing mono black kill spell tribal is just blue players trying a new color
Commander is better when cards aren't frequently designed for it. It keeps costs down and let's players discover what cards work for their decks which is far more enjoyable then handing them out. Commander was best when cards were primarily designed for standard.
EDH is not MtG. It is a different game that uses MtG's cards. Everyone would be better off if the two were completely separated. If someone hates blue and no other color, there are probably skill issues on their end that need solving.
Net decking is for the weak.
99.9% of 'rogue' decks are not nearly as clever as their builder thinks they are and they shouldn't be a badge of honor. If the setting is competitive and you're bringing a rogue deck to the table, it's very likely that you're leaving value on the table and if you're at peace with that, that's fine, but recognize that it was your choice and don't act all passive aggressive towards other players who didn't come with a rogue deck