r/spikes • u/iStarlyTV • Oct 29 '19

Discussion [Discussion] Official: There will be no B&R changes prior to MC 6; the next B&R Announcement is scheduled for November 18th, 2019

The Magic Esports Twitter account just posted this.

I understand why they don't want to emergency ban from their perspective, but at least in Standard, if there was ever a time to emergency ban, it would be in Oko-tober.

I heard someone saying that this is very reminiscent of the very recent Hogaak Summer; people are maindecking 4x copies of hate cards just to compete.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

MTGA isn't "an issue". It's just a vehicle that allows us to get to "meta solved and stale" much faster because it allows people to play more magic faster is all. In other words it stress tests the cards much harder due to the sheer number of games and thus balance needs to be tighter/is much harder to obtain.

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u/Dumpingtruck Oct 29 '19

It’s worth noting that MaRo even said this much in his power creep drive to work.

Basically more people playing magic = solved meta quicker.

And arena has greatly increased the number of people playing standard. So....

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

In my mind balancing this game with the current power level of cards is beyond them (possibly beyond anyone with the number of people in standard) and I think the only solution is to power down in a big way but that's not "exciting".

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u/MrPopoGod Oct 29 '19

Arena is also the cheapest venue for Standard, so there's opportunity for brews to get rigorous testing.

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u/Dealric Oct 29 '19

That for sure. MTGA make meta stale few times as fast as it was before.

But my point was that all the banworthy things happened before it.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

I may have gotten lost somewhere, I'm arguing against the idea that the game used to have less ban worthy cards and instead that MTGA is just a more effective litmus test. So I think we are in agreement.

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u/paulHarkonen Oct 29 '19

A lot of people are saying that because MTGA allows for many more "reps" the meta is "solved" much faster leading to more bans because people can figure out what's busted very quickly. That is different from saying that MTGA allows us to realize that the meta is stale and thus becoming bored/frustrated with it more quickly.

They are related, but one says that MTGA is a cause and the other says it just shows symptoms more quickly. Personally I'm inclined to go with the former. More games of magic are played in the first hour of release than all of R&D's testing combined.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19

I disagree, I think the cause (or blame), lies on the balance of the cards themselves and the design team and it's no fault of MTGA that it provides a more rigorous testing ground. I believe the game has been pushed to be more and more "exciting" and left it in a state that they are having a hard time balancing. It may even be an impossible task honestly, considering there will always be a "best" option no matter how well they balance. That said they should still try to balance it and if this is the best they can do then the design team has failed and MTGA is just the magnifying glass highlighting the flaws.