Yeah, I'm not very surprised by them having the wrong takeaway for why Standard has flopped in paper the last few years. Forsythe had a tweet months back that I saw in a group chat where it seemed like he was legitimately confused as to why Paper had died and that's a terrible sign for the braintrust behind the health of this game. Unless you've been under a rock, it's pretty obvious that it's way deeper than the brief overview they touched upon in this article (also, why would you release a plan piece by piece like this?). COVID definitely had an impact, that's undeniable, but Standard had been dying a slow death before that for a long while.
It's not rotation that was the issue, it's the fact that there was zero incentive to playing paper Standard. They killed the competitive circuit and structure for any people who were interested in that aspect by making it super convoluted and also just outright removing big GPs and whatnot (which was a major reason why Standard thrived). They destroyed any interest people had in competitive play via shelving the Pro Tour which created a domino effect of killing off GPs and Standard FNMs and even beyond that something like the SCG Circuit which relied upon the format to thrive. They had that stretch where they banned a different card like every other set which killed player interest in actively following or investing in the format; turns out people don't like losing money, who knew?
Most egregiously they had a few pre-emptive bans down the line which were bizarre and then also ramped up power to an unhealthy level and tried course correcting each time by banning a format staple. That's obviously not going to sit well with people who spent real money in keeping up and they'll just move onto to something else for entertainment. Every new pushed card forces players to pick them up to compete with the best decks and then if they're too powerful they just eat a ban hammer down the line. Why would you ever think that this would NOT be a negative towards player retention? Feels like you didn't need hindsight for that one.
And since then they have NOT re-incentivized players in any way to revisit this dumpster fire. Hell, they don't even give half decent promos anymore for FNM participation. I still remember the summer they had
Path to Exile and
Serum Visions which were small incentives to stop by on a Friday to draft or play Standard.
Fatal Push was another one during Ixalan as well. Even GPs used to be a fun experience back in the day with a main event flameout because of all the goodies you'd get or being able to stop by a venue to experience the side events and visit shops. Most Magic players realize at some point that if they're not fully invested in the competitive aspect, either via weekly FNMs or the occasional local PTQ/Gameday, that it's just not worth it to keep a Standard deck ready to go in paper. All 3 game stores in my area that used to be thriving places to play Standard back from like '13-18 with 20+ players weekly all slowly died out and it was mostly due to players getting disillusioned with bannings. And this was far before the shift to Commander as their go-to format. WoTC really can't find it in their budget to promote these aspects of the game that primarily serve to anchor their billion dollar enterprise? Who is driving this clown car?
It's obvious that Magic thrived when they pushed various formats because it lifted up a whole ecosystem that includes LGS's, a competitive circuit for grinders, AND alternatives like Commander and kitchen table play. The strength of Magic was the various ways in which you could interact with the game. Don't like Standard? Here's Commander. Not a fan of multiplayer? Try out Draft. Draft boring you but Standard not your thing? Save up and get in Modern where your deck
is was safe. I don't know how you miss this and then kill it all off without thinking of the repercussions.
I just don't understand the decisions they make with this game nowadays. For the past 5 years it's all felt so shortsighted and wholly avoidable. As someone who used to eagerly follow along everything Magic I've become solely an EDH player and Cube curator. And most of the time I'd rather be messing around with my other hobbies than playing Magic. I'll probably never revisit the highs of weekly Magic with friends during my college days, but I never expected to be this disillusioned with the game so soon. I used to really love Magic but I just don't anymore with these casual missteps from incompetent leadership who don't seem to understand their own product.
