I expect the plan will be to have the summers be for both the core sets to keep the newbies newbieing, and the nonstandard Masters / Conspiracy sets for the enfranchised to have to draft something spicy for at least a large part of the summer after they burn out on the core.

Could Pro Tour's limited leg be done on a Masters-series product?

Yes, as a super type hopefully.

If I was a betting man, I'd bet on Ixtalan having 3 sets (MaRo does not say this in his article, but it seems like one motivating factor toward what they're doing).

I think there was three sets' worth of things to be said on Kaladesh. By contrast, this may open MtG up for more sets like Coldsnap and Origins.

It also occurs to me that the next core set will come out to celebrate Magic's silver anniversary.

You could, say, draft a mix of 2/3 Core Set and 1/3 Spring set

I think they've been having a serious problem attracting fresh meat for several years now. That would also explain the power creep at uncommon.

Overall I think the announcement is good news. I do hope they'll continue to evolve mechanics through subsequent blocks though. Otherwise-too-complicated and often very cool stuff can be accomplished by leaning on what players learned last block.
What I'm really hoping for is a full year of Dominaria blocks. None of this "people will be upset if we don't return to [specific dominarian locale] malarkey. We'll have time to hit all the big ones with a unique identity for each!


If the core sets come out around the same time as the summer masters/conspiracy/whatever then there's an easy fix. Or WOTC could mix it up by rotating which of the year's sets they draft every tournament (or going with the most popular). Heck, they could really mix it up and have people draft Kamigawa. I bet there are still a ton of Alara Reborn and Dragon's Maze boosters in a warehouse somewhere.

fake edit - thatmarkguy beat me to it.


Have they? I know sales are up, but I never looked into the breakdown. Certainly Duels getting stale has been a hindrance to noob-gathering. The Duels franchise needs a reboot.

It would sound more logical to me that they are doing it because Ixalan can't support two sets, in that case.
I'm actually doubtful they would commit to 3 large sets on any new plane.

Even if they're separate big sets with their own mechanics and draft environment, staying on the same world too long would still get stale.

COUGHWeatherlightSagaCOUGH

We spent a whole decade on Dominaria. We even spent two years in Otaria.

I would seriously doubt that. I think MaRo's column yesterday makes it clear Ixalan is going for at least two sets.
So, that means at least one or more of the following:

a) Ixalan goes for a third set
b) The spring 2018 set is a one-off
c) The spring and fall 2018 sets will be set on the same plane
d) The spring and summer/core 2018 sets will be set on the same plane (He didn't close the door on the Core Set all being set on one plane)

Well, yes, Ixalan isn't going to be only one set, since Eggs is in the same block. However, Eggs is also a small set, which means that it was developed before this change. I'm saying that it's more likely that they believe Ixalan wouldn't need two sets, as opposed to it needing three. If they were going to commit to a three-set block, then presumably, Eggs would also be a large set, instead of them only implementing their new changes halfway.

And I doubt they are going to make a 3-set plane on Ixilan because wotc seem like a company that would want to be sure that the plane is a hit with players first, and because I don't think it's all that important to the story, coming right after the "Visit Bolas" plane (or parallel to? I heard rumors about Ajani).

The ability to visit more worlds per year and to the quicker storytelling were both listed as benefits of the move from 3-set blocks to 2-set blocks. Going back to 3 sets per world would undo those benefits.

I really don't see the Weatherlight Saga as a good example of keeping things fresh. People complain about the Gatewatch, but the Weatherlight crew was much worse. I was playing at the time and got very tired of seeing them everywhere. So in terms of storytelling, that got very stale. It didn't all take place on the same plane, though.

As for Dominaria, it's very different from how they now make planes. By using different time periods and different continents, they could have all sorts of different settings all within one plane. These days, they just make a new plane for a new setting, so each individual planes is much more homogeneous. This makes them more distinct from each other, but it also makes it harder to keep them interesting over multiple sets.

Not a big fan of these changes, but I've been using a "wait and see" mentality to look at whatever WotC tries in the past few years. Let's see what they can do. I'll miss small Sets, though.

I just realized that this means that eventually my very slowly growing "one deck per block" collection can eventually be complete. Woohoo?

But at the same time it complicates "Build your own Standard". I feel like now you have to have some stupid arcane rule like "Large expansions are worth 1.5, small expansions and core sets are worth 1, you get a total value of 8, buy your Standard" which loses the former elegance of the exercise.

Then again, things were already a mess as of two set blocks.

At the time of the first Metamorphosis article I commented that my problem wasn't even with the third set, it was with the second set. Third sets often made an effort to differentiate themselves; second sets often just felt like more of the same. I guess they eventually came to agree with this.

So while I am not against this change, and it has a lot of positive points (very specific planes like Ravnica don't need acrobatics to work in block planning, for example) I just wonder if it will make them burn design space faster than usual, since every set now will have to basically do what a whole block did. Blocks were great for conserving design space while slowly building new things in a given structure, I just guess they felt that wasn't worth sacrificing the need for novelty.

As for Core Sets -- I just wish they were an yearly box set in the style of FFG's card games. Just put five preconstructed decks inside, some boosters for the previous expansion set, some extra fluff as necessary reprints, and call it a day. I just don't see why Core Sets need to be booster products (which is not the same as saying they shouldn't contain booster packs, mind you).

For those wondering:

Looks like they're going back to the old "one year in advance" core set naming scheme: http://magic.wizards.com/en/products/core-2019

I'm a little confused that it's "Core 2019" but the set code is still M19. I wonder if they'll have a new set symbol to differentiate Core 20XX from Magic 20XX.

The whole naming one year in advance is a marketing thing. The set will be in production and on sale both the year it comes out and the next year. The issue is that they don't want to be selling a "current" product with last year's number on it. They do the same thing with car model years.

Maro's also said its an issue with mainstream retailers (Target/Wall-Mart and such). Apparently the distributors who organize and stock those displays won't order or restock dated products if the date isn't current.