I don't play paper Magic (only play Magic Duels) so my understanding of Magic set rotations is a bit sketchy. Still, I see from PT coverage that sets don't rotate constantly. Some PTs, like the most recent PT AER, only added cards without rotation.

Question: why doesn't Wizards use the obvious rotation method where after each new set is introduced, the oldest one rotates out?

In 2014 they went from a rotate-once-per-year model to a rotate-every-6-months model (so they weren't quite rotating at every set, but at every block - they were always intentionally keeping each small set atomically bound to its three-months-earlier big brother; small sets are never meant to exist in a different cardpool from their predecessor).

This was their explanation at the time:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/ar ... amorphosis


In 2016 they re-evaluated this and went back to once-a-year rotation, now keeping two blocks - four sets - atomically bound together. The Battle for Zendikar block and the Shadows Over Innistrad block are in Standard together until they rotate at the same time.


This was their explanation at the time:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/ar ... 2016-10-19

The long and short of it is that people like buying cards that have a decent shelf life to play in standard, with an expectation of that shelf life being about 2 years. Anything less and people stop buying cards.

But even under the new model, Eldritch Moon cards are only going to have a shelf life of about 15 months. The OP's proposed solution would actually give uniformity to shelf life... if EM only rotated once the 2-years-later small expansion launched, those cards would have a 9-months-longer shelf life. The OP's suggestion would make every set's cards last 24 months, not just every second block-starting set.

It is less about the shelf life of cards, as shelf life of entire decks. A rotation every 3 months means each deck loses pieces that need to be replaced every 3 months. By only growing to an annual cutoff, the forced retooling of decks is far less frequent.

Aside from the issue of people not liking the need to take cards out of their decks that frequently, it really wouldn't make sense to rotate the big set out while leaving the small set in. Small sets are designed to build on the big set, in terms of both flavor and mechanics. Every small set design decision is made with the understanding that the big set will also be included in the format, for both limited and constructed, so there's already that framework for it to build on. If the big set rotated out, a lot about the orphaned small set wouldn't make sense anymore.

But rotating twice a year, when a new big set comes out, would solve this, make for a more uniform shelf-life, and keep the number of legal cards more uniform. It would also be easier to remember, at least for me, and make for a faster-evolving format.

I read the article thatmarkguy linked and I still don't get it. Even if sets come in blocks that must be kept together for whatever reason (I don't actually see that reason though - certainly you can play Kaladesh without AER as proven in PT Kaladesh, and I don't see why you can't play AER without Kaladesh), can't Standard rotate every two sets? I quote from the article, "In this way, Standard will fluctuate somewhere between five sets being legal, and eight." Between five and eight - that's quite a large difference in total cards available. Rotating every two sets would mean between seven to eight sets legal at all times, which seems much more logical, especially with the shelf life issue added on top.

I referenced two articles. Right near the top of the second article,
"But when the rotation began to take place twice a year, we started hearing from players that it was more difficult to keep up. Yes, the change was exciting, but if play lapsed for a few months—as it often does for any number of reasons—players found it more difficult to jump back into Standard. More and more, players were seeing the twice-yearly rotation of Standard as a bug rather than a feature.

This is the opposite of how we want Standard to feel for new or returning players. Standard has long been the format we feel should be the most welcoming, and a twice-yearly rotation has put up a barrier that was not intended."


Standard was rotating every two sets from the time of my first-referenced article until that last article from late last year, which ... hasn't actually changed anything yet anyway (the first time it'll have an impact is when Amonkhet comes out and BFZ block would've-rotated-but-now-hangs-around-another-6-months). They had it rotating every 2 sets, they found it to be adversely affecting the player experience, and they changed it and provided the above-quoted reasoning.

The last rotation was 2 sets (Dragons of Tarkir and Magic Origins went out when Kaladesh landed). The rotation before that was 2 sets (Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged went out when Shadows over Innistrad landed). They've tried the rotate-every-2 model, and by their measure of 'working', it wasn't working.

Kaladesh has 21 cards that give you (plus 1 creature which gets buffed when you get ). Aether Revolt has 10 cards that give you . AER without KLD lacks a viable deck archetype for .

Wait...wait...missing cards, hold on...Dammit Gatherer. P:

Corrected numbers are 44 for Kaladesh and 22 for Aether Revolt. But the point remains that decks take a massive hit.

So, we should get vocal about changing back to twice-yearly rotation?

Okay ... can't say I agree with this, but at least it's sensible.