The Standard Heirloom events are a great success. I am really very impressed with the state of the format and everyone involved.
When I have the time I always enjoy the opportunity to brew something in the open frontier that the Heirloom format still represents. It's immensely satisfying to be able to be creative in deck design in a format where the likelihood of success is from the activity is fairly high.
Glad to have you back again! It was nice to see your return appearance ending with a win, always a nice way to come back :) Thanks for the kind things you said about me and the others that have been helping keep the format going, very much appreciated. I loved the format and wanted to make sure it kept going so I decided to take over running it back when karazorel stopped playing and during the time I was hosting I got the crazy idea of wanting to run an event that was standard based. Who would have ever guessed it would have gained so much popularity over such a short time span being ran on a Friday evening? I guess I was not the only player out there that wanted to play in a budget standard format. As you mentioned due to conflicting schedule with work I had to find new hosts for the events and both cathomas and mihahitlor stepped up and have been doing a great job! Thank you guys :)
Hope to see you at more events in the future Xaos and once again, glad you are back!
Context is everything. 'Let's not be whiners, let's not be jackasses' appears to be intended as a balanced statement in favour of a moderate position: Don't complain at every little thing anyone tries on the one hand, don't try to constantly break the format so hard it screams on the other. It was not aimed at an individual any more than the 'whiners' part of the pair was. There's a massive difference between 'X is a jackass' and 'let's not be jackasses'.
Kirin is a tough one but has some potential, I've won with kirin decks. Don't underestimate the value of every tribe member having evasion and a decent body, in the right deck.
saying someone is ranting is one thing, saying don't be a jackass is a completely different matter altogether.
Sorry if I have a hard time trying to see how the two even remotely correlate to one another.
I really have a hard time seeing how the word can be used in non-inflammatory way.
Also then add in all of the other various previous negative references in said article and yes it really does look to be a personal attack.
Besides I never said someone would have to run it as 4 of. I did however mention that if something is common and expected that it should be planned for. You can nit-pick at precise examples all you want but that will not negate the fact that people want to play whatever random deck they want and expect it to be viable in tribal wars.
For example, right now, I'm looking at what i could do for a Kirin tribe and honestly the Tribe in and of its self is Horridly positioned to be played due to the fact that every member is legendary. So either i make a subpar deck expecting to beat up on the weaker decks or lesser skilled players or try to abuse the living daylights out of something that has nothing to do with Kirins at all and win on the back of some off tribe card.
Either way i go i realize that i end up with an inconstant deck that will likely have some very gaping holes in its strategy.
With no one to blame but myself for my deck choice.
4 Relic of Progenitus means 4 less removal, or 4 less mana fixing, or 4 less tutoring, or anything else you use your 16 to 20-odd support slots on. Yes, it cycles, but the opportunity cost of running it is very high, much higher than in classic or legacy.
It would be very easy for me to have misconstrued that as an attack, given the whole bolding my name and making my 'rants' a unique thing, but no malice was intended then and none is intended here either.
Relic of progenitius,is not only cheap monetarily but also on mana investment and can be cycled if not needed.
As i mentioned graveyards in general are being abused in every format at this moment. And at this point including 1 or two anti-grave cards in any deck isn't a bad idea (the same way that having answers to artifacts and enchantments is also highly suggested for any deck).
The result becomes that if your deck cannot handle ANY of those 3 elements that your deck is lacking in multiple ways or is made with the intent to not be fully interactive with your opponent.
Thus is a choice made during deckbuilding and should be no surprise then u lose to said strategy.
As for the Liliana argument it was suggested to do something that the deck was ALREADY doing thus is a completely different argument.
So why would I add more monetary investment to do something the deck is already doing in a very efficient manner with little to no actual gain?
Its about the same as if i suggested someone run Scavenging Ooze in a deck that is already packing x4 leyline of the void. It's worth more money so it must be better right?
As for sideboards. AJ you of all people know that I've been of the opinion that tribal should have them. (but seriously that's another can of worms into and of it's self)
All of this still doesn't take away from the fact that it seems he only mentioned my deck as a way to take a personal shot at Duck.
Ranth, I take issue with 'many cheap answers' because the format has no sideboards. Same argument as with not including Liliana: What do you cut for your narrow hoser that will be a blank in most games? How do you choose to dilute your strategy to deal with this angle of attack? There are many cheap answers to combo as well, such as discard or counterspells, with just as much chance of being relevant, but where do you fit them and at what cost?
Reactive strategies are harmful to your own gameplan unless universal enough to have impact against completely different deck types, or in weeks where sufficient information about your opponent's decks can be gleaned from the nature of the event to give you a target, as with angels vs demons or elves vs goblins events. The fact that a narrow answer exists does not mean that running a narrow answer in an extremely broad format is somehow a good idea.
Kuma you know i generally like and get along with you but i gotta say this article really hit me the wrong way.
Calling players jackasses in such a public setting because they have a deck with a fragile jaw that few people have bothered trying to run any answers to seems sketchy at best and down right viscous and personal at worst.
Then to go over your personal attack on deck I made for the endangered event:
"Plus, a discard/reanimate deck with no Liliana of the Veil? That's asking for failure."
Really? have you looked at the tribe at all? 3 of the 5 imps are a discard outlet, then one is one of the best dredge card ever printed, why in gods name would I spend $20+ for subpar removal when I already have the discard aspect covered?? Liliana would have just been and extra expenditure for little to no gain while diluting what the decks goal was in the first place! Seriously what do you cut for her? the tutors or the re-animators?
Not a single positive thing was said about the deck, so why was it featured?
It seems that you mentioned the deck purely because you have some personal agenda vs DirtyDuck currently.
As for cards getting banned because of annoyance..I find that extremely laughable.
Because frankly put, for the longest time before I took a break from playing MTGO at all people would cry all the time about pretty much any deck i ran including up to and even including Cats.
Yes Cats.
The deck that more or less is as tribal as tribal gets: you run 20 creatures, 20 lands, and some combination of removal and pump spells. The deck usually wins from creatures turning sideways, not cute interactions from off tribe or other various cards.
But seriously in the same article to insult one deck that was made for fun and was known to be extremely inconsistent when it was made for fun because it's not running a money mythic and then to slam on a player for running a deck he finds enjoyable rather then suggest one of the MANY CHEAP options available to fight the strategy. Tormods crypt, Relic of progenitius,Leyline of the void, to name a few EXTREMELY CHEAP ones.
Grafdigger's Cage and Surgical extraction to name two that cost more then a ticket.
I understand that this is a more casually oriented tournament but even so there is little reason to not run answers to strategies that are very popular in almost every format.
Let us be honest the graveyard is abused in almost every format right now.
Additionally it always amazes me how few people run any form of artifact or enchantment removal in the format when it seems that they are very common.
Sorry to be so negative, Infact this is one of the Articles i generally look for here on pure but this one just left a sour taste in my mouth....
The new rules for underdog seem fine but I am not sure the list you set up on the spreadsheet is showing correctly. Either that or you intend us to surmise what is available from what hasn't been put on the tops list??
Nah, Kara is right, it happens in Europe too. It's very simple to get, actually: retailers want to sell boosters. Boosters on offer are the ones for Standard (Commander and other multiplayer decks are the only, tiny exception WotC is trying to widen the offer available at any time). People can't try and make their Modern decks better by buying Shadowmoor or Darksteel boosters (*). Therefore, retailers want people to play Standard the most.
(*) Not to mention, that wouldn't be done anyway, since only the younger children buy boosters to open them, and there are no limited events to play old boosters into.
You do realize that if all the cards were worth a penny, you could have a great collection by spending only pennies for it? It's entirely relative. (Unless you usually buy boosters in order to open them and find cards in them, which is something everyone learns not to do after he/she turns 10. Booster price is for playing limited events and potentially win other boosters, not for the cards in them).
What you says is maybe not from the standpoint of a greedy businessman, but it is from the standpoint of a blindfolded collector. I actually wish for people with this mindset to quit "playing" (if they ever do that), since they apparently aren't having any fun with the actual game, while sometimes making it less fun for the rest of us by enabling speculators.
3) Then again, it would be unbelievably amusing to see limited games with first turns like this: Forest, Mox Emerald, Black Lotus, Gorilla Berserkers. Or upkeeps like this: sacrifice Black Lotus, untap Island Fish Jasconius.
There are about 5 to 6 stores in my area I can go to, and they all play standard. The real problem is that if the owner isn't into the game, they just do whatever.
I've said this a billion times in a billion places. I don't own every card needed to play Classic, so I don't say this from the standpoint of a greedy businessman. But if the cards in my collection dropped in value by a significant amount, I would quit playing Magic completely. The ONLY way this game is worth the amount of money we put into it is if at least some of the cards hold significant value going forward. Winning packs is fantastic, but if all the cards I own are worth pennies, I am simply spending money and there's no need to own a collection. All the people who complain about the price of cards are baffling to me. If you can't afford all the cards you need to play a deck, it's not really a problem with the game or the cards, it's just that you can't afford all the cards. That's life. Would the format see more play if all the cards cost a dollar? Probably. But it would be pointless to have a collection. The only reason I can justify continuing to play is because the cards hold value. That's already hard enough with the current landscape of Magic Online (it's very rare for a card to be more expensive online than paper, despite the easy glitz to point out FOW). Personally, I want cards to be more expensive. It gives me a reason to collect, you know, those things that sit in my binder.
1) Classic should just go away from online play. It is just too expensive and just too small a fan base.
- Getting rid of Classic would lead to more Legacy and Modern play which are much better formats.
2) Great, just what Classic needs, more expensive cards that would make people want to stray away from older formats.
3) They would be cool, but purposeless. They would be released in ME5 and therefor make Wizards, who btw does something really illegal by printing their own currency, tons of money with people hoping to hit the jackpot. But you run into an issue where you have some valuable cards in what would probably be a really unplayable limited set like the last ME set.
Want to make ME5 successful? Make every rare in the set worth something. Like all Duals, all P9, etc., that way you know you are going into a draft and getting things that can get people into Legacy or Classic.
The only other thing I can think of is to include cards so that the average player like me who started playing after Zendikar, can play enough limited of ME5 to make an entire Legacy deck. That means having cards like the Duals, Shocks, Fetches, FOW, Goyf, Stoneforge, Batterskull, all 5 swords, JTMS, etc..
Basically I am saying ME5 should be the cube but you get to keep the cards. Sure it would hurt the price of cards people already have, but if people are hoarding FOW's, then the market is manipulated and there is no purpose anyway.
If the main cards played in Legacy/Modern were in ME5 and it was draftable for 3-6 months, the amount of people getting into those formats would increase tenfold. Who would get hurt by that? The bots? Who cares? Last time I checked, Wizards has nothing to do with the secondary market and shouldn't care about bots.
Hell, if they want to charge 20 tickets per draft, and there were still cards people could potentially profit off of, I could live with that if I can build a T1 Legacy and Modern deck just from drafting. I would just hate to see the P9 foil. I have the P9 from Beta, seeing them foil would ruin it. I hate seeing some of my old cards reprinted or foiled. It takes away from their "if factor.
I have been making about Classic (eternal formats) for years now, too expensive to play competitively for most Magic players. Thus, the format doesn't fire hardly ANY events and those that do have just over the minimum number of players. It's a shame, I find it one of the most fun formats but I will not pay 120 x 4 for FOW, 100 x 4 for LED's, etc, etc, etc, etc. I'm sure Whiffy or some other Classic player will come in here and get upset with me and make all kinds of rationales that "you only have to buy the staples once" and "standard is more expensive because it rotates" etc. The ONLY way to get people playing these formats more often is to flood the environment with more of these staple power cards, anyone who doesn't see that is either blind or ignorant. These arguments will hold true with the P9 if they are released as lvl 8/9 prizes or some other ridiculously limited way. The health of the game would benefit from larger more widespread release as most players could afford to drop 50 - 100 on 30 cards to try a new format or to complete multiple decks in a format they play. Sure, WotC would have people gripe that they put all this money into investing and trying to make a living off of MTGO, but this is a game for players not a money making opportunity for businessmen, at least it should be.
There's no reason why Power 9 has to be expensive. How can a rational player possibly think it would be a good thing for the product to cost a ton? Seriously, that is just completely baffling to me. If P9 comes out for $10 each and irrational people whine about that, they are welcome to pay me $1000 per copy for it if it adds to the level of "mystique" that they feel for those cards. I simply cannot roll my eyes enough at people who would prefer to pay more for something rather than less.
Not everyone finds standard boring. In fact Id say many would call it much cooler than it used to be by far. Lots more weird interactions and ways to win. Just because there are a few decks at the top does not make it boring for everyone. Just those who insist on playing those top decks. Now if you are saying people who only want to win are playing boring decks thats hard to argue with but also not unique to standard. Name a format I'll show you the top boring contenders.
I don't know if your arguments about playability and availability hold up. At least, it doesn't seem like that's the complete picture. Sword of War and Peace was around 45 not too long ago, and there was a point in standard when big Jace was around 100 in paper. Now, they are back down? Why? Not because they're unplayable. With the passing of time, you'd think more people would collect these cards and the price would go up right?
But with paper, I discovered that just about every place you can go to plays standard- the most boring format magic has to offer with the most narrow metagame. If it's in a tier 1 standard deck, it will be expensive, no questions asked there. What really needs to happen to moderate prices is shops need to host formats other than standard. This is a tough thing to ask most dealerships to do, since the newest set will generally be the hottest set. People will buy new cards so they have a place to use them.
If Wizards would have a reprinting schedule where they'd send out older sets for a limited "look back release" in paper, that might help moderate prices and push eternal formats as well. Only, Wizards won't do that. I suspect they'll just keep printing mediocre duel decks and things.
The Standard Heirloom events are a great success. I am really very impressed with the state of the format and everyone involved.
When I have the time I always enjoy the opportunity to brew something in the open frontier that the Heirloom format still represents. It's immensely satisfying to be able to be creative in deck design in a format where the likelihood of success is from the activity is fairly high.
Glad to have you back again! It was nice to see your return appearance ending with a win, always a nice way to come back :) Thanks for the kind things you said about me and the others that have been helping keep the format going, very much appreciated. I loved the format and wanted to make sure it kept going so I decided to take over running it back when karazorel stopped playing and during the time I was hosting I got the crazy idea of wanting to run an event that was standard based. Who would have ever guessed it would have gained so much popularity over such a short time span being ran on a Friday evening? I guess I was not the only player out there that wanted to play in a budget standard format. As you mentioned due to conflicting schedule with work I had to find new hosts for the events and both cathomas and mihahitlor stepped up and have been doing a great job! Thank you guys :)
Hope to see you at more events in the future Xaos and once again, glad you are back!
Context is everything. 'Let's not be whiners, let's not be jackasses' appears to be intended as a balanced statement in favour of a moderate position: Don't complain at every little thing anyone tries on the one hand, don't try to constantly break the format so hard it screams on the other. It was not aimed at an individual any more than the 'whiners' part of the pair was. There's a massive difference between 'X is a jackass' and 'let's not be jackasses'.
Kirin is a tough one but has some potential, I've won with kirin decks. Don't underestimate the value of every tribe member having evasion and a decent body, in the right deck.
saying someone is ranting is one thing, saying don't be a jackass is a completely different matter altogether.
Sorry if I have a hard time trying to see how the two even remotely correlate to one another.
I really have a hard time seeing how the word can be used in non-inflammatory way.
Also then add in all of the other various previous negative references in said article and yes it really does look to be a personal attack.
Besides I never said someone would have to run it as 4 of. I did however mention that if something is common and expected that it should be planned for. You can nit-pick at precise examples all you want but that will not negate the fact that people want to play whatever random deck they want and expect it to be viable in tribal wars.
For example, right now, I'm looking at what i could do for a Kirin tribe and honestly the Tribe in and of its self is Horridly positioned to be played due to the fact that every member is legendary. So either i make a subpar deck expecting to beat up on the weaker decks or lesser skilled players or try to abuse the living daylights out of something that has nothing to do with Kirins at all and win on the back of some off tribe card.
Either way i go i realize that i end up with an inconstant deck that will likely have some very gaping holes in its strategy.
With no one to blame but myself for my deck choice.
4 Relic of Progenitus means 4 less removal, or 4 less mana fixing, or 4 less tutoring, or anything else you use your 16 to 20-odd support slots on. Yes, it cycles, but the opportunity cost of running it is very high, much higher than in classic or legacy.
Be wary of assuming malice where there is none: take a look at the previous column, http://puremtgo.com/articles/diaries-apocalypse-tribal-weeks-81-82
It would be very easy for me to have misconstrued that as an attack, given the whole bolding my name and making my 'rants' a unique thing, but no malice was intended then and none is intended here either.
Relic of progenitius,is not only cheap monetarily but also on mana investment and can be cycled if not needed.
As i mentioned graveyards in general are being abused in every format at this moment. And at this point including 1 or two anti-grave cards in any deck isn't a bad idea (the same way that having answers to artifacts and enchantments is also highly suggested for any deck).
The result becomes that if your deck cannot handle ANY of those 3 elements that your deck is lacking in multiple ways or is made with the intent to not be fully interactive with your opponent.
Thus is a choice made during deckbuilding and should be no surprise then u lose to said strategy.
As for the Liliana argument it was suggested to do something that the deck was ALREADY doing thus is a completely different argument.
So why would I add more monetary investment to do something the deck is already doing in a very efficient manner with little to no actual gain?
Its about the same as if i suggested someone run Scavenging Ooze in a deck that is already packing x4 leyline of the void. It's worth more money so it must be better right?
As for sideboards. AJ you of all people know that I've been of the opinion that tribal should have them. (but seriously that's another can of worms into and of it's self)
All of this still doesn't take away from the fact that it seems he only mentioned my deck as a way to take a personal shot at Duck.
Ranth, I take issue with 'many cheap answers' because the format has no sideboards. Same argument as with not including Liliana: What do you cut for your narrow hoser that will be a blank in most games? How do you choose to dilute your strategy to deal with this angle of attack? There are many cheap answers to combo as well, such as discard or counterspells, with just as much chance of being relevant, but where do you fit them and at what cost?
Reactive strategies are harmful to your own gameplan unless universal enough to have impact against completely different deck types, or in weeks where sufficient information about your opponent's decks can be gleaned from the nature of the event to give you a target, as with angels vs demons or elves vs goblins events. The fact that a narrow answer exists does not mean that running a narrow answer in an extremely broad format is somehow a good idea.
Kuma you know i generally like and get along with you but i gotta say this article really hit me the wrong way.
Calling players jackasses in such a public setting because they have a deck with a fragile jaw that few people have bothered trying to run any answers to seems sketchy at best and down right viscous and personal at worst.
Then to go over your personal attack on deck I made for the endangered event:
"Plus, a discard/reanimate deck with no Liliana of the Veil? That's asking for failure."
Really? have you looked at the tribe at all? 3 of the 5 imps are a discard outlet, then one is one of the best dredge card ever printed, why in gods name would I spend $20+ for subpar removal when I already have the discard aspect covered?? Liliana would have just been and extra expenditure for little to no gain while diluting what the decks goal was in the first place! Seriously what do you cut for her? the tutors or the re-animators?
Not a single positive thing was said about the deck, so why was it featured?
It seems that you mentioned the deck purely because you have some personal agenda vs DirtyDuck currently.
As for cards getting banned because of annoyance..I find that extremely laughable.
Because frankly put, for the longest time before I took a break from playing MTGO at all people would cry all the time about pretty much any deck i ran including up to and even including Cats.
Yes Cats.
The deck that more or less is as tribal as tribal gets: you run 20 creatures, 20 lands, and some combination of removal and pump spells. The deck usually wins from creatures turning sideways, not cute interactions from off tribe or other various cards.
But seriously in the same article to insult one deck that was made for fun and was known to be extremely inconsistent when it was made for fun because it's not running a money mythic and then to slam on a player for running a deck he finds enjoyable rather then suggest one of the MANY CHEAP options available to fight the strategy. Tormods crypt, Relic of progenitius,Leyline of the void, to name a few EXTREMELY CHEAP ones.
Grafdigger's Cage and Surgical extraction to name two that cost more then a ticket.
I understand that this is a more casually oriented tournament but even so there is little reason to not run answers to strategies that are very popular in almost every format.
Let us be honest the graveyard is abused in almost every format right now.
Additionally it always amazes me how few people run any form of artifact or enchantment removal in the format when it seems that they are very common.
Sorry to be so negative, Infact this is one of the Articles i generally look for here on pure but this one just left a sour taste in my mouth....
The new rules for underdog seem fine but I am not sure the list you set up on the spreadsheet is showing correctly. Either that or you intend us to surmise what is available from what hasn't been put on the tops list??
Welcome back. The art for the cards you designed are pretty but have no artist credits. Who are the artists?
Nah, Kara is right, it happens in Europe too. It's very simple to get, actually: retailers want to sell boosters. Boosters on offer are the ones for Standard (Commander and other multiplayer decks are the only, tiny exception WotC is trying to widen the offer available at any time). People can't try and make their Modern decks better by buying Shadowmoor or Darksteel boosters (*). Therefore, retailers want people to play Standard the most.
(*) Not to mention, that wouldn't be done anyway, since only the younger children buy boosters to open them, and there are no limited events to play old boosters into.
Well played. :)
You do realize that if all the cards were worth a penny, you could have a great collection by spending only pennies for it? It's entirely relative. (Unless you usually buy boosters in order to open them and find cards in them, which is something everyone learns not to do after he/she turns 10. Booster price is for playing limited events and potentially win other boosters, not for the cards in them).
What you says is maybe not from the standpoint of a greedy businessman, but it is from the standpoint of a blindfolded collector. I actually wish for people with this mindset to quit "playing" (if they ever do that), since they apparently aren't having any fun with the actual game, while sometimes making it less fun for the rest of us by enabling speculators.
3) Then again, it would be unbelievably amusing to see limited games with first turns like this: Forest, Mox Emerald, Black Lotus, Gorilla Berserkers. Or upkeeps like this: sacrifice Black Lotus, untap Island Fish Jasconius.
I always love the debate on P9 (almost as much as the debate on what is Casual/Fun).
I think that the P9 should appear in cube drafts. If you draft one AND win the draft, you keep it....
There are about 5 to 6 stores in my area I can go to, and they all play standard. The real problem is that if the owner isn't into the game, they just do whatever.
I've said this a billion times in a billion places. I don't own every card needed to play Classic, so I don't say this from the standpoint of a greedy businessman. But if the cards in my collection dropped in value by a significant amount, I would quit playing Magic completely. The ONLY way this game is worth the amount of money we put into it is if at least some of the cards hold significant value going forward. Winning packs is fantastic, but if all the cards I own are worth pennies, I am simply spending money and there's no need to own a collection. All the people who complain about the price of cards are baffling to me. If you can't afford all the cards you need to play a deck, it's not really a problem with the game or the cards, it's just that you can't afford all the cards. That's life. Would the format see more play if all the cards cost a dollar? Probably. But it would be pointless to have a collection. The only reason I can justify continuing to play is because the cards hold value. That's already hard enough with the current landscape of Magic Online (it's very rare for a card to be more expensive online than paper, despite the easy glitz to point out FOW). Personally, I want cards to be more expensive. It gives me a reason to collect, you know, those things that sit in my binder.
Here are the issues with the P9.
1) Classic should just go away from online play. It is just too expensive and just too small a fan base.
- Getting rid of Classic would lead to more Legacy and Modern play which are much better formats.
2) Great, just what Classic needs, more expensive cards that would make people want to stray away from older formats.
3) They would be cool, but purposeless. They would be released in ME5 and therefor make Wizards, who btw does something really illegal by printing their own currency, tons of money with people hoping to hit the jackpot. But you run into an issue where you have some valuable cards in what would probably be a really unplayable limited set like the last ME set.
Want to make ME5 successful? Make every rare in the set worth something. Like all Duals, all P9, etc., that way you know you are going into a draft and getting things that can get people into Legacy or Classic.
The only other thing I can think of is to include cards so that the average player like me who started playing after Zendikar, can play enough limited of ME5 to make an entire Legacy deck. That means having cards like the Duals, Shocks, Fetches, FOW, Goyf, Stoneforge, Batterskull, all 5 swords, JTMS, etc..
Basically I am saying ME5 should be the cube but you get to keep the cards. Sure it would hurt the price of cards people already have, but if people are hoarding FOW's, then the market is manipulated and there is no purpose anyway.
If the main cards played in Legacy/Modern were in ME5 and it was draftable for 3-6 months, the amount of people getting into those formats would increase tenfold. Who would get hurt by that? The bots? Who cares? Last time I checked, Wizards has nothing to do with the secondary market and shouldn't care about bots.
Hell, if they want to charge 20 tickets per draft, and there were still cards people could potentially profit off of, I could live with that if I can build a T1 Legacy and Modern deck just from drafting. I would just hate to see the P9 foil. I have the P9 from Beta, seeing them foil would ruin it. I hate seeing some of my old cards reprinted or foiled. It takes away from their "if factor.
Um I go to multiple stores in the area that have weekly Standard, Modern, Legacy, and multiple limited formats.
Maybe it's just your store.
I have been making about Classic (eternal formats) for years now, too expensive to play competitively for most Magic players. Thus, the format doesn't fire hardly ANY events and those that do have just over the minimum number of players. It's a shame, I find it one of the most fun formats but I will not pay 120 x 4 for FOW, 100 x 4 for LED's, etc, etc, etc, etc. I'm sure Whiffy or some other Classic player will come in here and get upset with me and make all kinds of rationales that "you only have to buy the staples once" and "standard is more expensive because it rotates" etc. The ONLY way to get people playing these formats more often is to flood the environment with more of these staple power cards, anyone who doesn't see that is either blind or ignorant. These arguments will hold true with the P9 if they are released as lvl 8/9 prizes or some other ridiculously limited way. The health of the game would benefit from larger more widespread release as most players could afford to drop 50 - 100 on 30 cards to try a new format or to complete multiple decks in a format they play. Sure, WotC would have people gripe that they put all this money into investing and trying to make a living off of MTGO, but this is a game for players not a money making opportunity for businessmen, at least it should be.
There's no reason why Power 9 has to be expensive. How can a rational player possibly think it would be a good thing for the product to cost a ton? Seriously, that is just completely baffling to me. If P9 comes out for $10 each and irrational people whine about that, they are welcome to pay me $1000 per copy for it if it adds to the level of "mystique" that they feel for those cards. I simply cannot roll my eyes enough at people who would prefer to pay more for something rather than less.
Not everyone finds standard boring. In fact Id say many would call it much cooler than it used to be by far. Lots more weird interactions and ways to win. Just because there are a few decks at the top does not make it boring for everyone. Just those who insist on playing those top decks. Now if you are saying people who only want to win are playing boring decks thats hard to argue with but also not unique to standard. Name a format I'll show you the top boring contenders.
You want to put untradeable cards into my account? No thank you!
I don't know if your arguments about playability and availability hold up. At least, it doesn't seem like that's the complete picture. Sword of War and Peace was around 45 not too long ago, and there was a point in standard when big Jace was around 100 in paper. Now, they are back down? Why? Not because they're unplayable. With the passing of time, you'd think more people would collect these cards and the price would go up right?
But with paper, I discovered that just about every place you can go to plays standard- the most boring format magic has to offer with the most narrow metagame. If it's in a tier 1 standard deck, it will be expensive, no questions asked there. What really needs to happen to moderate prices is shops need to host formats other than standard. This is a tough thing to ask most dealerships to do, since the newest set will generally be the hottest set. People will buy new cards so they have a place to use them.
If Wizards would have a reprinting schedule where they'd send out older sets for a limited "look back release" in paper, that might help moderate prices and push eternal formats as well. Only, Wizards won't do that. I suspect they'll just keep printing mediocre duel decks and things.
Untradable P9 complete set automatically added to every account. Distribution? Universal. Value? Priceless. Problem solved.