I throw my money at LCG’s. Much nicer on my wallet, much nicer on my storage space, much nicer on my available free time. Overall, never going back to CCG’s.
See, The Prof. Knows how to be balanced is why. He will praise and thank them for when they do something right and bash them for doing something wrong from an extremely clear standpoint of "I love this game and I want it to be great." There are some content creators that think their best content is just when they're blasting Wizards, which is why they never get the same contact.
hahahahahah 100%, that intro killed me. But yea to WoTC credit, it shows strength when they allow open constructive criticism to happen esp from people that love the game.
To be fair, the shocklands were just reprinted. A hypothetical Pioneers Masters probably wouldn't feel a need breathing down its back to reprint them for at least another while. I know it's a joke on never reprinting fetchlands, but it didn't have the weight on me that it should have.
@@flametitan100 Breeding Pool is $20 a pop, and all other shocks are around $10. These cards have doubled in price in just one year. If they want to keep supply high enough to meet the demand, then it is necessary to be reprinting modern grade lands if not constantly then at least once every 2 years. The same applies to fetchlands, but you know how that's going.
@@kindredspirit9703 I'll be honest, I consider $10 a shock land pretty reasonable price to aim for. $5 a land would be nice, but $10 has generally been what you're looking at when it was between reprints. That's not to say they won't need reprints in the future, or even sooner than later, just that if a pioneer masters set came out some time in 2020 for paper (and not for Arena exclusively,) it'd make sense that it'd be considered too early to go straight into reprinting the shocks. If anything, the I'd say fastlands are more due for a reprint; we're still missing the allied colour ones in pioneer.
@@flametitan100 I agree that $10 isn't too bad for Modern grade lands, and other lands like fast lands might need reprints more than shocks. However, there is no good reason to not reprint high value lands regularly. Say for the sake of argument, that all non-reserve list lands are printed into the ground and are worth a buck apiece. What exactly are the downsides? Even if fetches were $1 each, they would be no less tradable, because every deck needs lands. Since manabases are historically the most expensive part of any deck, in theory people would be more willing to brew more outlandish stuff, accelerating the meta and increasing the price of other cards that people started playing because of meta shifts. This is essentially good for investors, collectors, brewers, players, and even WotC. Even if it turns out that reprinting important staple lands constantly is bad somehow, WotC could just pump the breaks, and the prices would go up to where they used to eventually, because the demand for good lands only goes up.
@@kindredspirit9703 The main thing I can see is that wotc doesn't seem to like having multiple rare land cycles in a set at a time. So what I'm thinking is that if there's a pioneer focused set in 2020, there might not be shocks, but if there's one in 2021 or 2022 there might be. I feel like as long as one part of the trio of fast, shocks, and pains are printed in a given year, supply shouldn't be too much of an issue
It's almost like when you hide information from the public, you can say what you want, and lie with numbers. Looking straight at the camera. You're a champ prof.
@@fulgurobaboon1321 I would not call white fair. Rest in Peace and shit like this is not good for fair games. Pure sidebord cards like this can fuck your opponents game plan or they do nothing.
@@aidenpearce6624 I think the idea is that that's White forcing other "unfair decks" to play fair or die. Graveyard-centric decks aren't usually fair, and R.I.P. just makes them play a normal, fair game. Or ya know, die on the spot.
@@fulgurobaboon1321 and yes with Arena showing off cards, people are gonna want to play with those cards. Those cards aren't going to be playable in Modern most likely
The thing is that this exact thing has happened several times over the past couple years. Rotation happens. Wizards pushes for a new format using your cards that just rotated. Format gets hyped and people buy the cards that just rotated. Couple months later, the format dwindles and dies. I’m glad you enjoy it, and I hope this doesn’t happen, but a lot of people who have been playing for a good while are cynical about stuff like Pioneer based on past experience.
@@spooplegeist5260 I've been playing since 2010. Lost my first collection. Started again at Bfz and just am hyped to be able to actually use these cards. I think it is healthy for Wizards to do this once in awhile. A new player isn't going to wanna have to go through 20 thousand plus cards to find ones they like. Keeping that number as low as possible, makes it a lot easier. Then after they get hooked to mtg, they'll end up going through more of the older cards. When I started, I hated pre black border cards. Would've never even checked them out. After years of playing though, and getting into edh. I now use cards that were pre black bordered.
Well, at least they have been reprinting the shocklands with every Ranvica set so far. _And thus they never came back to Ravnica, and never reprinted shocklands again._
For Vince's comment starting at 45:23, I believe some of the colorshifted cards from Planar Chaos are actually corrections of the color identity of older cards. For example Prodigal Sorcerer makes much more sense in red than in blue.
Not a lie, but they were unfair when the professor and vince were comparing the difference in price point between pioneer and modern decks. My friends and I play pioneer because we already have alot of the upfront cost paid for due to recent standards we were involved in. We already have the shocks, checks and other lands needed to make a functioning mana base in pioneer. We already have the format stables we need like Fatal Push. So the upfront cost of us to try a new pioneer deck is only dozens of dollars not hundreds. If we were to try modern, the first thing we would have to do is shell out hundreds for fetchlands. I am annoyed by their distortion because they are such big advocates of reprinting fetchlands to avoid this exact problem. Mildly hypocritical.
DrPeckers “pioneer is not expensive because my friend and I do have most of the cards already” is a weak argument, imo. There are enough people who have non of the needed cards for pioneer or just 1-offs ‘cause they didn’t play played Standard back then.
@@schattenmund Consider this quote from Wizards article announcing pioneer: "But there's a gap. A sizeable one. The oldest Modern set came out in 2003-sixteen years ago. And now that Modern's card pool is this large, it no longer serves the needed role of "format where you can use your Standard cards after rotation." For players who started more recently and still want to play with their favorite cards after rotation, Pioneer, like Modern before it, bridges that gap while providing a fun experience for both tabletop and Magic Online."
"You can get a 50$ pauper deck" That is the kind of attitude that resulted in this sickness I have. I have 6 Pauper decks and am going to build more...
Love modern, and no need to be downhearted if your deck is only 0.1% of the mtg goldfish meta, it's still very playable and that is the beauty of the format.
Prof, I am saying this as a long time viewer of this channel, I remember watching the videos you did with Jimmy and Josh on card flicking when they had just come out, but the bit that you did starting at 48:28 was the most impactful statement I have heard on this channel and exactly what got me into playing competitive magic at my LGS. I watched professional players play legacy storm, dredge, burn, cephalon breakfast, and mono-blue forecast in competitor legacy events and it blew my mind!! I couldn’t believe the plays and lines these players would take and I wanted to be like that! I now own and play paper legacy and I love it more than any other format because it rewards those years of dedication and experience to the game. When people watch us play legacy tournaments at my LGS it’s always filled with excitement and curiosity of the format which inspires people to attend our events (we allow proxies)! Paper legacy makes Magic feel like “Magic” and people really do enjoy watching it at the highest level. I sincerely hope that someone at WOTC hears the communities cries over this and brings back just ONE GP a year. Love the podcast and keep up the great work!
Any chance you can add a blurb in the description of when this was recorded since you have mentioned these are recorded a bit ahead of time. Just to give us a better idea of what time period you are referring to.
I started playing during return to ravnica and modern isn't the place for me to play MY old cards. I think this psedo-rotation of modern and pioneer and post-modern and so on is filling the modern need but for different generations of players.
There are a few issues that arise with the mentality of making a new eternal format for the next generation of players. The first is that many Magic players will quit because their standard deck rotated and nothing was playable in the most recent eternal format; and when the next eternal format that their cards fit in comes out, they won't care because they don't play anymore. The second and more important issue is that having multiple eternal formats can split the playerbase. The more formats there are to keep up with, the harder it becomes to find someone with overlap on what formats they play (unless you can afford to keep an up to date deck for Standard, EDH, Modern, Pioneer, Legacy, Pauper, Vintage, etc.). This can be fixed by supporting older formats with reprints, allowing players to climb up to being able to play older formats over time as they get more enfranchised, but that is largely not happening.
@@kindredspirit9703 Supporting with reprints is difficult to do, however, as Wizards also wants to add new cards which will often add to the number of needed reprints. This isn't an easy problem to solve. At least I still have Vintage to keep me entertained on the ridiculousness of this entire game.
Prof, while I enjoyed listening to your arguments very much, I feel like there is one pretty big hole that needs to be addressed. A major part ofyour argument is a modern fills the role of the format where you can play with your cards, a place where players who have been collecting and playing can have all their cards legal. The problem I see with this line of thought is the fact that the further we go down the line unless this will be true of most players.if not right now, then certainly in the future the majority of players collections will more closely mirror what is legal on the pioneer format than is legal in the modernformat. If less about having a place for all the cards illegal and more about having a place where the majority of the players' are both legal and relevant to play. as we acquire more and more new players, the reality is that their collections won't look like anything that resembles competitive in modern. eventually you get to a tipping point where you have the majority of players who can't even realistically play with theonly because they haven't played magic for long enough to own the cards that they need to play Magic at the bottom level. Obviously, a better reprinting system for modern is in need,and while I do believe that this is a nice solution, at the same time even the idea that what we need is more reprints is subversive to the idea that modern is a place for players to play with the cards that they've collected. The very notion that we need more reprints means that this is not truly a format for players to just play with the cards that they've collected. It is a format that a lot of people want to get into who didn't collect those cards at the time and therefore those cards need reprints. in conclusion, while I do think that modern is valuable andimportant, it doesn't make sense to say that it's the format that's necessary because people just need a place to play with the cards they own. the need for reprints shows that this is not the case, and additionally the fact that the further we go on the future most magic players won't actually actually be able to use it as the format where they can just use the own because the bulk of what they own - these two pieces of evidence to consider seem to present a problem to your argument.
"God, they hate reprinting lands" omg, and the 99.99 price tag for the FTV. hahahaha. I'm dieing from the intro. New Player Masters...yah it's only a matter of time. It'll be $19 a pack.
I agree with Vince. I like that Pioneer and Modern are different, and they do feel different: *Some things are viable where others aren't. I've played Modern meta w proxies and it is a really intense, fast format, whereas in Pioneer, it feels like some rogue decks are viable because the game is slower. (I love both )
Hi, I am thinking about going back to play mtg with proxies with family and friends. What format do you advice me to choose to dig into? I used to play modern and really like the format, but I am not sure if it is good because some friends never played it. I have seen there are new formats I never heard of, like Highlander and Historic, what would you choose?
I think at least some of the value of new formats is that they are hopefully going to feel and play differently from what has come before. Pioneer doesn’t fill the same gaps that modern, legacy or standard do but that doesn’t mean it has no value as something different. If we went off the profs argument that formats just need to fill needs then there will never be another format. That seems sad to me.
A Masters Set containing all 141 MtG cards that have "Master" in their names would be neat. Who doesn't dream of owning another copy of Ogre Taskmaster?
Speaking as someone who returned to the game 6 months ago after being away for 20 years, I am loving Pioneer. I could afford fetch lands if I wanted, and I do indeed own some, but I really don't like how they enable consistent 3-4 color "good stuff" decks. A lot of modern decks don't seem to have an identity or central strategy outside of playing with your bank account. Pioneer feels more open to tinkering with limitations that seem to be in line with what was intended by having five unique colors.
What 3-4 color good stuff decks with no identities are you talking about? I can only think of jund, sultai, maybe control or fringe 5 color niv. Fetches don't just expand the reach of playing colors, they make your deck more consistent for getting the right colors at the right time, and some of the most historically powerful decks don't play fetches
Not no identity, but rather a muddy identity. The more colours you add to a deck, the more capable it is of doing anything: draw cards, destroy creatures / planeswalkers, hand hate, counter spells, etc. The very notion of a colour pie means that certain colours get to do certain things and not others. Having all or almost all colours in a deck means that you can theoretically do anything and I find that it makes the identity of the deck more vague.
It would be good though. Overpriced and underprinted reprints is still better for the format than no reprints. Instead we will get Pioneer Horizons to punish anyone who thought pioneer would be a cheaper eternal format or an eternal format they could play in with cards they already own.
I'm late to the party, but... I really enjoyed this discussion, and I think both people make a really good points. As somebody who primarily plays (casual) pioneer, I never sat down and made the decision to play pioneer versus modern. I play Pioneer because the block of relevant cards are largely synonymous with the block of cards I've been collecting over the years. I think this speaks to that kind of macro/archival element of the formats. The longer MTG goes on, I can definitely understand why even pioneer would at some point be succeeded with different time constraints that are relevant to a different growing population of players. To the professor's point... I would exclusively play legacy if it weren't for the reserve list and how expensive some of the important cards are. I feel very similarly towards modern. I'd probably play it over pioneer, since it affords me more options for brewing decks, except there are a few integral cards that it feels like everybody uses that I just don't have and are prohibitively expensive or in short supply. I already own a lot of pioneer staples from collecting. I don't have to make another big investment or search out fetch lands, original dual lands, etc. As the professor has said before, I think everyone would play vintage were it not for the cost. As long as cost is relevant, formats like pioneer that speak to time base defined strata of the playerbase certainly has appeal and feels intuitive, at least to me. I think that's why pioneer and modern can co-exist, so long as both groups of players continue to be invested. People want to play with the cards they have. But they don't all want to find cards from the collection that precedes where they got on the MTG bus
I feel like at 25:00 I agree mostly with the professor. Legacy should have everything available. Modern can be the more competitive version of that with bans only to cards that make the game unplayable(in competitive terms). And then standard. Why we need more than that outside of formats like commander n such seems unreasonable to me. Maybe I’m wrong idk
I just love what Wizard's of the Capitalism is doing. Reprinting cards straight to the secondary market instead of boosters. Releasing an un-product with 5 decks where there's actually decks for 2 players only and the only valuable things in it are 10 basic lands. Just Love
@@MrLoowiz but the lands are still the most valuable part in un-sanctioned? I just wish it was instead 5 X 40card decks instead of 5 X 20 card decks with fancy lands
I 100% agree with prof and have said this since Pioneer came out. Pioneer 2.0 and forward will kill Pioneer 1.0 and forward. Modern is a forever format.
39:12 "each week that a new ban was announced, I became less excited for Pioneer" So you were less excited to play the format after they banned fast mana? (Leyline of Abundance) And less excited when they removed a combo deck that was also a grindy midrange control deck? (Felidar Guardian) And less excited when they banned the best cantrip in a colour that shouldn't have that title? (Oath of Nissa) And less excited when they removed inevitability from decks that shouldn't have it? (Field of the Dead) And less excited when they unbanned blue and black interaction? (Veil of Summer) And less excited when they took away the flying 3/3 card selection engine for aggro decks? (Smuggler's Copter) And less excited when they unbanned creatures with text? (Oko, Thief of Crowns) And less excited when they banned the literal Solitaire deck where one player gets to spectate for 10 minutes? (Nexus of Fate) I defy you to demonstrate that any of these initial bans were incorrect or somehow made the format worse.
I agree! I’ve had Chalice of the Void myself for less than half a year, and it’s already one of my favorite spells to resolve (cough, especially against burn, cough).
Here's some ideas for formats: Renaissance : No Reserve List Legacy Captain : "Commander" but with Modern cards. Officer : "Commander" but with Pioneer cards. Plus I'd love to see something different, like 40 card constructed formats or something.
Always a great time when Pleasant Kenobi stops by. Just hoping that this was filmed a long time ago or that you used some digital effects to make it look like you were less than the recommended 6 feet apart for physical distancing.
as a jund player i would fight to keep modern alive. love the modern format and love the challenge of dismantling any deck i vs regardless if i win or loose. i feel the most important thing for modern is reprints to enable new players easy entry to the format.
I actually like the deck design decisions of clunkier manabases in Pauper and Old School, so I was glad to see the Fetches banned in Pioneer. I think it gives a real shot in the arm to mono-color and two-color decks in that format, and that makes it different from Modern. Unfortunately I think Fabled Passage sort of ruins it a bit by being a "strictly better evolving wilds" that shows up in a lot of three-color decks now (even two-color decks), and I'd like to see that card go.
Something I never hear anyone touch on is that for a lot of us pioneer players, we already had a lot of these cards. I've been playing since M14, it was way cheaper for me to get into pioneer than modern and that's the case for the majority of people I play with. Bant spirits for example cost me about 60 bucks to put together because I had the rest of the deck from just playing through that time in magic. So when comparing prices consider a lot of us already own 50-75% of cards in a given deck.
25:14 "playing with cards that you like" This is the biggest reason that there should be multiple non-rotating formats. I, personally, enjoy casting 5- and 6-mana planeswalkers. You can't do that in modern or legacy because you will just die. But in Pioneer you can (or could). A lot of thought goes into designing high cmc walkers and that they see virtually no play is incredibly disappointing. Even in Pioneer, it becomes less viable as time goes on, as competitive formats will always trend towards non-interactive aggro and combo decks and away from "fair magic". They tend to play well against fair decks - indeed their plan is to not care about the other side of the table. There are vast quantities of cards, especially rares and mythics, that are simply unplayable because they can't match the efficiency of the most powerful cards. And that makes me sad.
I think I agree with both of you guys. Modern will always exist as the eternal format without a multithousand dollar barrier to entry, but I do think creating rotating "eternal" formats like pioneer helps as almost a testing ground for modern, it helps give a filter of whats good and whats bad before it can go into Modern play.
Love watching these... im 31 and just getting back into the game since 2018 after playing once in the year 2000 but was too young to understand/appreciate the gm. NOW, I just wanna play pioneer and commander since that seems like the most accessible to me and my card collection. I just wanna play and not necessarily WIN but I wanna have fun... and that means not dying by turn 5... I have yet to go to a FNM but there are 2 shops within 30 mins of me... I wanna go once this "quarantine" is lessened and sit down and play with people. Maybe meet a friend... I have a mono green pioneer deck and a BANT commander deck ive kinda homebrewed but still used online for a guide on powerful cards.
Just because of the technical difficulties programming all of those cards, I think it'll be a good 2 to 3 years before Arena is expanded out to the Modern level, and another couple years to expand to include Legacy if they go that route (which would mean they can close down MODO and port collections to Arena, provided they can make that work with Legal).
I have started playing magic a year ago. I am not a big fan of standart and its set rotations, but I do love competitive play. So naturly I looked into modern... and it was way, way beyond what I could afford to spend on the game. So I was super happy when they announced pioneer. Ofc. it is also not cheep, but I was able to put together an izzet ensoul deck that I am super excited to play with, once stores open again. So for me it is not that I play pioneer (or modern) because I allready do have a collection, but I am a new player who wants to pick up a deck then I can play for a long time. I think for pepole like me pioneer is by far the better format, because modern is just way to expensive for someone who is new to the game. Great video and a great topic!
if there were people in my area playing legacy (with proxies) it'd be my preferred format. i started with mirrodin, so what i really enjoy about magic is broken stuff and fast mana. probably the reason why i am 99% commander player now
You say broken, but Legacy is the least broken format because it actually has efficient answers and stopgaps to broken things. So people can play crazy combos without ruining the format.
@@spooplegeist5260 big agree there. I love legacy for its dynamic, similar to how i love cEDH for its interaction (although everyone know legacy just has more interaction in general)
I'm disappointed that Covid stopped me from playing Pioneer. At the time I didn't have a computer so I couldn't have played on mtgo, so I was without mtg for about 9 months. That just sucks because Pioneer is my favorite format.
I play eldrazi and taxes Merfolk and Infect. All fun as hell decks , and we will come back in the meta. Nikachu has been on simic, and been having a tough time last couple leagues.
Reserve list masters announced. Cards ONLY on reserve list included. Booster boxes start at $34,000 each and VIP boosters (foil reserve list cards) start at $49,000 per pack. The only one that can afford them is Rudy and he's already bought out every distributor in mainland America. GLHF guys.
I find it funny that you said it was unlikely for us to get fetch lands in Zendikar and another modern set which would make the price go down. We got the fetches in both, fetchlands did go down but not plummet, and Modern is a lot more expensive now than in this video. Kinda crazy.
I am not drawn to commander as a someone who wants to start playing MTG. Would you recommend pioneer or pauper to start? I ordered two decks from Card Kingdom to get my feet, but I know those will last only so long.
I think it makes sense for eternal format to have cost based weight classes, decks would stay playable forever, though they'd go in and out of different tiers as the prices fluctuated, and it would encourage players to find alternatives to popular cards so their deck could play in a lower tier. The only real problem is its not all that easy to facilitate physically, but that could be solved with a good image recognition app
It's legitimately impressive that you can throw that much shade at WotC and still get people from WotC on your show.
Its similar to how WotC screws over customers and we keep throwing money at them.
I throw my money at LCG’s. Much nicer on my wallet, much nicer on my storage space, much nicer on my available free time. Overall, never going back to CCG’s.
See, The Prof. Knows how to be balanced is why. He will praise and thank them for when they do something right and bash them for doing something wrong from an extremely clear standpoint of "I love this game and I want it to be great." There are some content creators that think their best content is just when they're blasting Wizards, which is why they never get the same contact.
hahahahahah 100%, that intro killed me. But yea to WoTC credit, it shows strength when they allow open constructive criticism to happen esp from people that love the game.
archon298 give this person Top Replyyyy
“Pioneer Masters isn’t the best place for a shock land reprint.”....that one got me laughing. Well done!
To be fair, the shocklands were just reprinted. A hypothetical Pioneers Masters probably wouldn't feel a need breathing down its back to reprint them for at least another while. I know it's a joke on never reprinting fetchlands, but it didn't have the weight on me that it should have.
@@flametitan100 Breeding Pool is $20 a pop, and all other shocks are around $10. These cards have doubled in price in just one year. If they want to keep supply high enough to meet the demand, then it is necessary to be reprinting modern grade lands if not constantly then at least once every 2 years. The same applies to fetchlands, but you know how that's going.
@@kindredspirit9703 I'll be honest, I consider $10 a shock land pretty reasonable price to aim for. $5 a land would be nice, but $10 has generally been what you're looking at when it was between reprints.
That's not to say they won't need reprints in the future, or even sooner than later, just that if a pioneer masters set came out some time in 2020 for paper (and not for Arena exclusively,) it'd make sense that it'd be considered too early to go straight into reprinting the shocks. If anything, the I'd say fastlands are more due for a reprint; we're still missing the allied colour ones in pioneer.
@@flametitan100 I agree that $10 isn't too bad for Modern grade lands, and other lands like fast lands might need reprints more than shocks. However, there is no good reason to not reprint high value lands regularly.
Say for the sake of argument, that all non-reserve list lands are printed into the ground and are worth a buck apiece. What exactly are the downsides? Even if fetches were $1 each, they would be no less tradable, because every deck needs lands. Since manabases are historically the most expensive part of any deck, in theory people would be more willing to brew more outlandish stuff, accelerating the meta and increasing the price of other cards that people started playing because of meta shifts. This is essentially good for investors, collectors, brewers, players, and even WotC.
Even if it turns out that reprinting important staple lands constantly is bad somehow, WotC could just pump the breaks, and the prices would go up to where they used to eventually, because the demand for good lands only goes up.
@@kindredspirit9703 The main thing I can see is that wotc doesn't seem to like having multiple rare land cycles in a set at a time. So what I'm thinking is that if there's a pioneer focused set in 2020, there might not be shocks, but if there's one in 2021 or 2022 there might be. I feel like as long as one part of the trio of fast, shocks, and pains are printed in a given year, supply shouldn't be too much of an issue
It's amazing that you guys just made an offhand remark about reprinting scalding tarn for market price.
It's almost like when you hide information from the public, you can say what you want, and lie with numbers.
Looking straight at the camera. You're a champ prof.
His delivery was perfect.
Waiting for the inevitable Secret Lair: Secret Lair. It's just a Secret Lair box with alternate artwork!
Hilarious 😂
Love it
It’s a white box with silver letters. And it costs twice the average secret lair.
Lmao.
399.99
Little did pleasant kenobi know how much human interaction would date the video
And, 7 months later, it just keeps going and going.
"Yes, but penmanship counts."
I literally had to put my head down on my desk for a moment from running out of air.
Shortness of breath is a corona symptom. Stay inside the next two weeks
Einar Grude Contact spread via TH-cam? I suppose that’s why I was told to install an antivirus software... ;)
"Two? Thats more than I thought"
Well played professor
My inner white mage... kinda had to agree with them :(
@@fulgurobaboon1321 at least in commander
@@aidenpearce6624 Yeah, or any old format. Degenerate interactions don't go well with white's fairness
@@fulgurobaboon1321 I would not call white fair. Rest in Peace and shit like this is not good for fair games. Pure sidebord cards like this can fuck your opponents game plan or they do nothing.
@@aidenpearce6624 I think the idea is that that's White forcing other "unfair decks" to play fair or die.
Graveyard-centric decks aren't usually fair, and R.I.P. just makes them play a normal, fair game. Or ya know, die on the spot.
I love that Pioneer exists. It's amazing for people like me, who's collection is of cards within recent years.
True fact, even moreso with Magic Arena exposing standard cards to pc gamers, and exposing cards creates desire for them
@@fulgurobaboon1321 yup. My collection starts at BFZ. None of I have could make a decent Modern deck. I can build some awesome Pioneer decks though
@@fulgurobaboon1321 and yes with Arena showing off cards, people are gonna want to play with those cards. Those cards aren't going to be playable in Modern most likely
The thing is that this exact thing has happened several times over the past couple years. Rotation happens. Wizards pushes for a new format using your cards that just rotated. Format gets hyped and people buy the cards that just rotated. Couple months later, the format dwindles and dies.
I’m glad you enjoy it, and I hope this doesn’t happen, but a lot of people who have been playing for a good while are cynical about stuff like Pioneer based on past experience.
@@spooplegeist5260 I've been playing since 2010. Lost my first collection. Started again at Bfz and just am hyped to be able to actually use these cards. I think it is healthy for Wizards to do this once in awhile. A new player isn't going to wanna have to go through 20 thousand plus cards to find ones they like. Keeping that number as low as possible, makes it a lot easier. Then after they get hooked to mtg, they'll end up going through more of the older cards. When I started, I hated pre black border cards. Would've never even checked them out. After years of playing though, and getting into edh. I now use cards that were pre black bordered.
*Wizards employees watching the intro* "Jot this down, jot this down!"
No, no, wizards wouldn't do that.
They would do MUCH worse.
"They hate reprinting lands don't they."
Yes, Vince. Yes they do.
yet they've no dramas to make money off them (Secret Lair)..
Well, at least they have been reprinting the shocklands with every Ranvica set so far.
_And thus they never came back to Ravnica, and never reprinted shocklands again._
"What do you love the most about Magic these days?" "Commander and Legacy." That's why I like you Vince. You are a man with good taste.
For Vince's comment starting at 45:23, I believe some of the colorshifted cards from Planar Chaos are actually corrections of the color identity of older cards. For example Prodigal Sorcerer makes much more sense in red than in blue.
"you can lie with numbers"
*furiously begins checking the numbers they've had in the video*
Not a lie, but they were unfair when the professor and vince were comparing the difference in price point between pioneer and modern decks. My friends and I play pioneer because we already have alot of the upfront cost paid for due to recent standards we were involved in. We already have the shocks, checks and other lands needed to make a functioning mana base in pioneer. We already have the format stables we need like Fatal Push. So the upfront cost of us to try a new pioneer deck is only dozens of dollars not hundreds. If we were to try modern, the first thing we would have to do is shell out hundreds for fetchlands.
I am annoyed by their distortion because they are such big advocates of reprinting fetchlands to avoid this exact problem. Mildly hypocritical.
DrPeckers “pioneer is not expensive because my friend and I do have most of the cards already” is a weak argument, imo. There are enough people who have non of the needed cards for pioneer or just 1-offs ‘cause they didn’t play played Standard back then.
@@schattenmund Consider this quote from Wizards article announcing pioneer: "But there's a gap. A sizeable one. The oldest Modern set came out in 2003-sixteen years ago. And now that Modern's card pool is this large, it no longer serves the needed role of "format where you can use your Standard cards after rotation." For players who started more recently and still want to play with their favorite cards after rotation, Pioneer, like Modern before it, bridges that gap while providing a fun experience for both tabletop and Magic Online."
@@DrPeckers Having the cards already doesn't make your deck worth less. You could trade or sell the cards to get back their worth in another form.
I would watch these shows just for the intro skits. Darn shame that it's always great staying through the entire conversation!
"You can get a 50$ pauper deck"
That is the kind of attitude that resulted in this sickness I have. I have 6 Pauper decks and am going to build more...
Now it's your time to get pauper going at your LGS.
@@JamieSutor maybe once the plague passes and my lgs is able to host events or have people in the store xD
you can get a playable commander deck for 50 bucks too
@@medleyshift1325 Yeah but a $50 pauper deck can be a top of the line meta deck whereas a $50 commander deck will be okay at best
@@TheArbiter1999 $50 commander decks will be terrible unless you cheat by buying a strong precon like the Markov vampires
"I traded the Force of Will for 3 euros"
- The Professor
This is my level of cynicism. Well done boys.
Drakanar and TheDogFish are rising stars in the Merfolk community! We’ll never go to 0%!
Fish 4 Life
👍 immediately when we had the zoom into Prof’s expression “…when & if they reprint fetch-lands” 22:00
Priceless
Love modern, and no need to be downhearted if your deck is only 0.1% of the mtg goldfish meta, it's still very playable and that is the beauty of the format.
That opening was brilliant!
The blatant SHADE in the opening three minutes gives me LIFE!!
I love legacy and completely despise the reserved list... Investors ruin everything...
capitalism being the root. investors will always leech off everyone else in this system
@@selkokieli843 The investors have artificial levels of authority they shouldn't have. Wizards needs to tell them to fuck off.
@@bobby45825 how could wotc exert that kind of authority? Why would they, when they can print scalding tarn for 69,9999?
@@selkokieli843 Indeed, they know vintage would never bring in the kind of money modern staples will.
50:11 was priceless though!!
Can’t wait to play Duel Decks: Jace vs Yawgmoth jr
Prof,
I am saying this as a long time viewer of this channel, I remember watching the videos you did with Jimmy and Josh on card flicking when they had just come out, but the bit that you did starting at 48:28 was the most impactful statement I have heard on this channel and exactly what got me into playing competitive magic at my LGS. I watched professional players play legacy storm, dredge, burn, cephalon breakfast, and mono-blue forecast in competitor legacy events and it blew my mind!! I couldn’t believe the plays and lines these players would take and I wanted to be like that! I now own and play paper legacy and I love it more than any other format because it rewards those years of dedication and experience to the game. When people watch us play legacy tournaments at my LGS it’s always filled with excitement and curiosity of the format which inspires people to attend our events (we allow proxies)! Paper legacy makes Magic feel like “Magic” and people really do enjoy watching it at the highest level. I sincerely hope that someone at WOTC hears the communities cries over this and brings back just ONE GP a year. Love the podcast and keep up the great work!
Proxi masters... I kind of want that to be real.
Make a bunch of cards with gold boarder and blank brown card back. Not legal but for causal and cube. This way we can get the power nine.
@@benjaminlehman3221 they're called bootleg mtg cards and they already exist
BazeLiquidz I mean made by wizards. Some proxies can still be expensive.
This series is the Half in The Bag of MTG.
Any chance you can add a blurb in the description of when this was recorded since you have mentioned these are recorded a bit ahead of time. Just to give us a better idea of what time period you are referring to.
FYI, the date of the recording had been revealed when they go over the Pioneer meta.
February 26 of this year, so right in the middle of people claiming the sky's falling because Inverter and Lotus Breach exist.
I started playing during return to ravnica and modern isn't the place for me to play MY old cards. I think this psedo-rotation of modern and pioneer and post-modern and so on is filling the modern need but for different generations of players.
Working on a pioneer pirates deck rn, which is kinda my merfolk and something I really love playing. Not top tier, but should be playable in pioneer.
Yeah, that's the edge that Prof is missing.
There are a few issues that arise with the mentality of making a new eternal format for the next generation of players. The first is that many Magic players will quit because their standard deck rotated and nothing was playable in the most recent eternal format; and when the next eternal format that their cards fit in comes out, they won't care because they don't play anymore.
The second and more important issue is that having multiple eternal formats can split the playerbase. The more formats there are to keep up with, the harder it becomes to find someone with overlap on what formats they play (unless you can afford to keep an up to date deck for Standard, EDH, Modern, Pioneer, Legacy, Pauper, Vintage, etc.). This can be fixed by supporting older formats with reprints, allowing players to climb up to being able to play older formats over time as they get more enfranchised, but that is largely not happening.
@@kindredspirit9703 Supporting with reprints is difficult to do, however, as Wizards also wants to add new cards which will often add to the number of needed reprints. This isn't an easy problem to solve. At least I still have Vintage to keep me entertained on the ridiculousness of this entire game.
Secret Lair: good white cards, only 2 cards in them^^
Path to Exile and Teferis protection
Or even Smothering Tithe. White has good cards, but compared to other colors..... Naaaaah
Prof, while I enjoyed listening to your arguments very much, I feel like there is one pretty big hole that needs to be addressed. A major part ofyour argument is a modern fills the role of the format where you can play with your cards, a place where players who have been collecting and playing can have all their cards legal. The problem I see with this line of thought is the fact that the further we go down the line unless this will be true of most players.if not right now, then certainly in the future the majority of players collections will more closely mirror what is legal on the pioneer format than is legal in the modernformat. If less about having a place for all the cards illegal and more about having a place where the majority of the players' are both legal and relevant to play. as we acquire more and more new players, the reality is that their collections won't look like anything that resembles competitive in modern. eventually you get to a tipping point where you have the majority of players who can't even realistically play with theonly because they haven't played magic for long enough to own the cards that they need to play Magic at the bottom level.
Obviously, a better reprinting system for modern is in need,and while I do believe that this is a nice solution, at the same time even the idea that what we need is more reprints is subversive to the idea that modern is a place for players to play with the cards that they've collected. The very notion that we need more reprints means that this is not truly a format for players to just play with the cards that they've collected. It is a format that a lot of people want to get into who didn't collect those cards at the time and therefore those cards need reprints.
in conclusion, while I do think that modern is valuable andimportant, it doesn't make sense to say that it's the format that's necessary because people just need a place to play with the cards they own. the need for reprints shows that this is not the case, and additionally the fact that the further we go on the future most magic players won't actually actually be able to use it as the format where they can just use the own because the bulk of what they own - these two pieces of evidence to consider seem to present a problem to your argument.
The intro skits are my favorite. I would watch a playlist of just those.
Niiiiceeee i'm happy when a new episode of dies to removal appears.
TY so much Vince and Prof.!!!
I missed something tho. Does Vince have a youtube channel??
The dynamic you two have is one of the best things about the Magic community. I look forward to these videos so much.
"God, they hate reprinting lands" omg, and the 99.99 price tag for the FTV. hahahaha. I'm dieing from the intro. New Player Masters...yah it's only a matter of time. It'll be $19 a pack.
53:26 - 53:42 Gyros wraps are actually 2.5 euros each these days, which is approximately 16% of an Uro.
I agree with Vince. I like that Pioneer and Modern are different, and they do feel different:
*Some things are viable where others aren't. I've played Modern meta w proxies and it is a really intense, fast format, whereas in Pioneer, it feels like some rogue decks are viable because the game is slower. (I love both )
Hi, I am thinking about going back to play mtg with proxies with family and friends. What format do you advice me to choose to dig into? I used to play modern and really like the format, but I am not sure if it is good because some friends never played it. I have seen there are new formats I never heard of, like Highlander and Historic, what would you choose?
I think at least some of the value of new formats is that they are hopefully going to feel and play differently from what has come before. Pioneer doesn’t fill the same gaps that modern, legacy or standard do but that doesn’t mean it has no value as something different. If we went off the profs argument that formats just need to fill needs then there will never be another format. That seems sad to me.
Great point 👌
A Masters Set containing all 141 MtG cards that have "Master" in their names would be neat. Who doesn't dream of owning another copy of Ogre Taskmaster?
Masters Horizons Masters 2020
I haver never been this early. I'm going to sit down and enjoy this
Speaking as someone who returned to the game 6 months ago after being away for 20 years, I am loving Pioneer. I could afford fetch lands if I wanted, and I do indeed own some, but I really don't like how they enable consistent 3-4 color "good stuff" decks. A lot of modern decks don't seem to have an identity or central strategy outside of playing with your bank account. Pioneer feels more open to tinkering with limitations that seem to be in line with what was intended by having five unique colors.
That describes how I feel really well.
Part of why I dont enjoy play 3+ colour decks is because they dilute the identity of the deck.
What 3-4 color good stuff decks with no identities are you talking about? I can only think of jund, sultai, maybe control or fringe 5 color niv. Fetches don't just expand the reach of playing colors, they make your deck more consistent for getting the right colors at the right time, and some of the most historically powerful decks don't play fetches
Not no identity, but rather a muddy identity. The more colours you add to a deck, the more capable it is of doing anything: draw cards, destroy creatures / planeswalkers, hand hate, counter spells, etc. The very notion of a colour pie means that certain colours get to do certain things and not others. Having all or almost all colours in a deck means that you can theoretically do anything and I find that it makes the identity of the deck more vague.
If you need to do everything just play green.
- - The sound Vince makes after hearing about Pioneer Masters - -
It would be good though. Overpriced and underprinted reprints is still better for the format than no reprints. Instead we will get Pioneer Horizons to punish anyone who thought pioneer would be a cheaper eternal format or an eternal format they could play in with cards they already own.
Its amazing how accurate 24:28 is to what's happening with the 30th ed....
I'm late to the party, but... I really enjoyed this discussion, and I think both people make a really good points. As somebody who primarily plays (casual) pioneer, I never sat down and made the decision to play pioneer versus modern. I play Pioneer because the block of relevant cards are largely synonymous with the block of cards I've been collecting over the years. I think this speaks to that kind of macro/archival element of the formats. The longer MTG goes on, I can definitely understand why even pioneer would at some point be succeeded with different time constraints that are relevant to a different growing population of players.
To the professor's point... I would exclusively play legacy if it weren't for the reserve list and how expensive some of the important cards are. I feel very similarly towards modern. I'd probably play it over pioneer, since it affords me more options for brewing decks, except there are a few integral cards that it feels like everybody uses that I just don't have and are prohibitively expensive or in short supply. I already own a lot of pioneer staples from collecting. I don't have to make another big investment or search out fetch lands, original dual lands, etc. As the professor has said before, I think everyone would play vintage were it not for the cost. As long as cost is relevant, formats like pioneer that speak to time base defined strata of the playerbase certainly has appeal and feels intuitive, at least to me. I think that's why pioneer and modern can co-exist, so long as both groups of players continue to be invested. People want to play with the cards they have. But they don't all want to find cards from the collection that precedes where they got on the MTG bus
36:49 Did I hear that right? Did Vince say he was only 21?
He did, but that’s in metric years. In imperial, he’s 34.
Europeans, am I right?
This is the only podcast I watch anymore. Freaking gold!
The Curb Your Enthusiasm outro music after the Scaling Tarn burn was just *chef hand kiss* perfect.
I feel like at 25:00 I agree mostly with the professor. Legacy should have everything available. Modern can be the more competitive version of that with bans only to cards that make the game unplayable(in competitive terms). And then standard. Why we need more than that outside of formats like commander n such seems unreasonable to me. Maybe I’m wrong idk
"The power 9 would be in a mythic edition that would cost £1k"
If only it was so
There's nothing better than opening youtube and finding a fresh 50 minutes video to join me while I'm working. Thanks once again Prof.
I just love what Wizard's of the Capitalism is doing. Reprinting cards straight to the secondary market instead of boosters. Releasing an un-product with 5 decks where there's actually decks for 2 players only and the only valuable things in it are 10 basic lands. Just Love
You must be all in for the cancellation of Un sets and all non-competitive products.
@@MrLoowiz I mostly play un-sets and non-competive formats so no
Then you are contradicting your original comment, especially the argument regarding the value of the individual cards in the product.
@@MrLoowiz but the lands are still the most valuable part in un-sanctioned? I just wish it was instead 5 X 40card decks instead of 5 X 20 card decks with fancy lands
The lands are the most valuable part because people make them the most valuable part. What's your point, though? Are the Un products too expensive?
I 100% agree with prof and have said this since Pioneer came out. Pioneer 2.0 and forward will kill Pioneer 1.0 and forward. Modern is a forever format.
39:12 "each week that a new ban was announced, I became less excited for Pioneer"
So you were less excited to play the format after they banned fast mana? (Leyline of Abundance)
And less excited when they removed a combo deck that was also a grindy midrange control deck? (Felidar Guardian)
And less excited when they banned the best cantrip in a colour that shouldn't have that title? (Oath of Nissa)
And less excited when they removed inevitability from decks that shouldn't have it? (Field of the Dead)
And less excited when they unbanned blue and black interaction? (Veil of Summer)
And less excited when they took away the flying 3/3 card selection engine for aggro decks? (Smuggler's Copter)
And less excited when they unbanned creatures with text? (Oko, Thief of Crowns)
And less excited when they banned the literal Solitaire deck where one player gets to spectate for 10 minutes? (Nexus of Fate)
I defy you to demonstrate that any of these initial bans were incorrect or somehow made the format worse.
I mean Emry and Gearseeker Serpent have affinity for artifacts, even if it isn't keyworded.
I agree! I’ve had Chalice of the Void myself for less than half a year, and it’s already one of my favorite spells to resolve (cough, especially against burn, cough).
This intro is gold.
Here's some ideas for formats:
Renaissance : No Reserve List Legacy
Captain : "Commander" but with Modern cards.
Officer : "Commander" but with Pioneer cards.
Plus I'd love to see something different, like 40 card constructed formats or something.
I love that the bit just kept going.
Brilliant.
I honestly really liked the Bogleless Bogles deck you put out Professor.
Always a great time when Pleasant Kenobi stops by. Just hoping that this was filmed a long time ago or that you used some digital effects to make it look like you were less than the recommended 6 feet apart for physical distancing.
"Recommended" not necessary.
as a jund player i would fight to keep modern alive. love the modern format and love the challenge of dismantling any deck i vs regardless if i win or loose. i feel the most important thing for modern is reprints to enable new players easy entry to the format.
I actually like the deck design decisions of clunkier manabases in Pauper and Old School, so I was glad to see the Fetches banned in Pioneer. I think it gives a real shot in the arm to mono-color and two-color decks in that format, and that makes it different from Modern. Unfortunately I think Fabled Passage sort of ruins it a bit by being a "strictly better evolving wilds" that shows up in a lot of three-color decks now (even two-color decks), and I'd like to see that card go.
the intro was a great video just by itself
Something I never hear anyone touch on is that for a lot of us pioneer players, we already had a lot of these cards. I've been playing since M14, it was way cheaper for me to get into pioneer than modern and that's the case for the majority of people I play with. Bant spirits for example cost me about 60 bucks to put together because I had the rest of the deck from just playing through that time in magic. So when comparing prices consider a lot of us already own 50-75% of cards in a given deck.
Wow, This intro was absolutely brilliant! You guys are awesome, thanks for the laugh during this miserable quarantine
25:14 "playing with cards that you like"
This is the biggest reason that there should be multiple non-rotating formats. I, personally, enjoy casting 5- and 6-mana planeswalkers. You can't do that in modern or legacy because you will just die. But in Pioneer you can (or could). A lot of thought goes into designing high cmc walkers and that they see virtually no play is incredibly disappointing.
Even in Pioneer, it becomes less viable as time goes on, as competitive formats will always trend towards non-interactive aggro and combo decks and away from "fair magic". They tend to play well against fair decks - indeed their plan is to not care about the other side of the table.
There are vast quantities of cards, especially rares and mythics, that are simply unplayable because they can't match the efficiency of the most powerful cards. And that makes me sad.
I think I agree with both of you guys. Modern will always exist as the eternal format without a multithousand dollar barrier to entry, but I do think creating rotating "eternal" formats like pioneer helps as almost a testing ground for modern, it helps give a filter of whats good and whats bad before it can go into Modern play.
Love watching these... im 31 and just getting back into the game since 2018 after playing once in the year 2000 but was too young to understand/appreciate the gm. NOW, I just wanna play pioneer and commander since that seems like the most accessible to me and my card collection. I just wanna play and not necessarily WIN but I wanna have fun... and that means not dying by turn 5... I have yet to go to a FNM but there are 2 shops within 30 mins of me... I wanna go once this "quarantine" is lessened and sit down and play with people. Maybe meet a friend... I have a mono green pioneer deck and a BANT commander deck ive kinda homebrewed but still used online for a guide on powerful cards.
Just because of the technical difficulties programming all of those cards, I think it'll be a good 2 to 3 years before Arena is expanded out to the Modern level, and another couple years to expand to include Legacy if they go that route (which would mean they can close down MODO and port collections to Arena, provided they can make that work with Legal).
I have started playing magic a year ago. I am not a big fan of standart and its set rotations, but I do love competitive play. So naturly I looked into modern... and it was way, way beyond what I could afford to spend on the game. So I was super happy when they announced pioneer. Ofc. it is also not cheep, but I was able to put together an izzet ensoul deck that I am super excited to play with, once stores open again. So for me it is not that I play pioneer (or modern) because I allready do have a collection, but I am a new player who wants to pick up a deck then I can play for a long time. I think for pepole like me pioneer is by far the better format, because modern is just way to expensive for someone who is new to the game. Great video and a great topic!
That skit at the start was beautifull XD
"We can't get rid of the reserve list" ohhhh but we can professor.
Oh....hearing "commander horizons" while watching this video in June 2024 gave me a small chuckle.
That opening was hilarious!
Those socks that Vince is wearing tho
Man, Wizards got roasted so hard in this video, lol. Just some examples: 21:58 , 22:25 , 23:25 , 24:28
if there were people in my area playing legacy (with proxies) it'd be my preferred format. i started with mirrodin, so what i really enjoy about magic is broken stuff and fast mana. probably the reason why i am 99% commander player now
I agree. I started with Legacy Elves and i loved it. Now theres no one to play with though, so i just jumped onto the commander scene
You say broken, but Legacy is the least broken format because it actually has efficient answers and stopgaps to broken things. So people can play crazy combos without ruining the format.
@@spooplegeist5260 big agree there. I love legacy for its dynamic, similar to how i love cEDH for its interaction (although everyone know legacy just has more interaction in general)
@Mega Police Thats my same reason for playing cEDH too. If I wanted to play solitaire, I have it on my pc by default.
@@spooplegeist5260 lol so true
I barely play MTG and love this channel. I'm getting some Red Letter Media vibes from the intro skits
*video begins. me:
I am engaging with this content. This content is engaging...
Makeup Tutorial! Luxury Goods! Family Friendly and yet not for kids!
Glad to see someone touch on the absurdness of Thassa's Oracle. For the sake of optics, compare it to Happily Ever After from Eldraine.
I'm disappointed that Covid stopped me from playing Pioneer. At the time I didn't have a computer so I couldn't have played on mtgo, so I was without mtg for about 9 months. That just sucks because Pioneer is my favorite format.
As a lands player, I appreciate the love from Vince. Prof, please no hurt my moxen
Gotta love those intros
Fetchlands got reprinted! In the collector packs lol this was a nice precursor.
Opener was BRILLIANT!!!!
Tezzeret, Emery, and Gearseaker Serpent all have affinity for artifacts
the great thing about modern and pioneer is that they both dont have the reserved list, so both can co-exist well
FIrst three minutes are comic gold.
I play eldrazi and taxes
Merfolk and
Infect.
All fun as hell decks , and we will come back in the meta.
Nikachu has been on simic, and been having a tough time last couple leagues.
These bits at the start are great lol
Reserve list masters announced. Cards ONLY on reserve list included. Booster boxes start at $34,000 each and VIP boosters (foil reserve list cards) start at $49,000 per pack. The only one that can afford them is Rudy and he's already bought out every distributor in mainland America. GLHF guys.
I find it funny that you said it was unlikely for us to get fetch lands in Zendikar and another modern set which would make the price go down. We got the fetches in both, fetchlands did go down but not plummet, and Modern is a lot more expensive now than in this video. Kinda crazy.
I am not drawn to commander as a someone who wants to start playing MTG. Would you recommend pioneer or pauper to start? I ordered two decks from Card Kingdom to get my feet, but I know those will last only so long.
Best. Intro. Ever.
This is becoming my most favourite series! Thanks for the great work 😁
God Bless you, may you be heard :)
They called me a fool! when I said inverter of truth was a cool card, now five years latter who is the fool?
I think it makes sense for eternal format to have cost based weight classes, decks would stay playable forever, though they'd go in and out of different tiers as the prices fluctuated, and it would encourage players to find alternatives to popular cards so their deck could play in a lower tier. The only real problem is its not all that easy to facilitate physically, but that could be solved with a good image recognition app