The Comboist Manifesto: Five Elkin' Years Later [Article]

[Oversoul]

It's time for the five-year retrospective on my "Elk Need Not Apply" article. I've gone back and reread the article a couple of times, in anticipation of this five-year anniversary. While I didn't think that I could predict what the game would look like in five years, and never pretended that I could, I still find myself a bit stuck here. There's an elephant in the room, and we might as well address it right away. My entire article was focused on the concepts of "power level" and "power creep." While we did see relevant changes in the game that are worth discussing, it's the changes to the structure of the game itself that easily overshadow anything to do with power level. A lot of my analysis in 2019 focused on questions like, "What if this trend continues?" or "What if this trend reverses?" I never stopped to ask, "What if WotC prints cards that can bring themselves in from outside the game?" or "What if Captain America were a Magic card?" It never would have occurred to me to ask those questions. But quibbling over how much "power creep" there will be in five years seems pointless in a world where those five years represent such dramatic change in the game itself.


With that in mind, let's recap some of the bizarre twists and turns that led us to where we are now...

1. A pivotal development in 2019 was the creation of a non-Standard set that was released directly into the Modern format: Modern Horizons. This was well before Throne of Eldraine and the "Philosophy of F.I.R.E." article, but it bears a lot of emphasis, because from a tournament philosophy standpoint, this set and the central conceit behind it kind of threw a wrecking ball at Magic. Going back to the creation of the Extended format in 1997, the premise was that sets would rotate out of Standard, but that there'd be a home for these post-rotation cards in another format. The "Eternal" formats (which would eventually become Legacy and Vintage) took on a different role, providing a home for cards from throughout Magic's history, even ones that had never been part of the Standard format rotation in the first place. Replacing Extended with Modern wasn't done in one fell swoop, but it was done. And from 2011 to 2019, the Modern format was a vital tournament format following this premise. Cards would graduate from Standard into Modern. That was the way of things. Not my personal ideal system or anything, but it was a well-established system and had certain advantages. The advent of Modern Horizons in June of 2019 crashed that entire system. It was a shot across the bow. And it was a significant impetus for my "Elk Need Not Apply" article. Cards going directly into Modern destroys the entire system of a Standard-to-Modern pipeline with Eternal formats as a sidebar.
2. In October of 2019, WotC announced the creation of the Pioneer format. This was to be a new, non-rotating format that included sets which had rotated out of Standard. At the time, this sure seemed like a way to replace Modern. And at first, it sure seemed like that was going to be the trend. Seeing the immediate popularity of the new format while Modern was at an all-time ebb, I imagined that WotC was preparing to kill Modern. I wasn't the only one with this misconception. I recall considerable discussion in late 2019 of the idea that the Modern playerbase would eventually get divvied up between Legacy and Pioneer. Well, that idea turned out to be very wrong.
3. 2020 was planned to be the "Year of Commander." WotC was already gearing up for it, with a new release schedule that would feed more Commander-oriented products to players. This could either exacerbate or ignore the "Philosophy of F.I.R.E." At the time, it wasn't clear which would be the case.
4. The release of Theros Beyond Death, while not as (philophically) inflammatory as Throne of Eldraine, did seem like a clear continuation of the power creep trend. This was the set that gave us Thassa's Oracle, Underworld Breach, Heliod 2.0, Uro, Klothys, etc.
5. The pandemic shut down virtually all tournament play. This played out in a strange manner that I'm sure WotC could neither really plan, nor even anticipate very well. Regardless of their intentions, 2020 saw Standard become critically weaker as a flagship format and the reliably profitable Limited formats dwindled as well. The influx of Modern players on MTGO drowned out Eternal formats. Despite the assumption by so many of us that Pioneer would replace Modern, instead it was more like Modern replaced Legacy, while Pioneer replaced Standard. This was not a sustainable situation: WotC needed Standard to be healthy in order for a Standard-to-Pioneer pipeline to exist.
6. The "Year of Commander" concept was a minor shift in release philosophy with the clear goal of doing more to monetize the Commander format. But Commander did much better in the pandemic than traditional tournament formats. It was probably already the case that Commander was doing more to influence old card prices than Legacy and Vintage, but 2020 saw those Eternal formats fade into irrelevance, while Commander basically took over Magic as a whole. This had strange consequences for things like set design, power creep, etc. Commander had never been conceptualized, either by the RC or by WotC, as Magic's flagship format. It grew and flourished as an alternative, as a fun casual variant. And it wasn't really clear how the game could carry on with Commander taking on such a domineering role.
7. Secret Lairs, Masters sets, and other new products clogged up the release schedule. Far more Magic cards were coming out each year than had ever been possible in the 2010's. And these consisted primarily of Commander-oriented reprints or of new designs meant to power-up Commander decks. The power creep theme of the Philosophy of F.I.R.E. was pretty evident in the early 2020's, but it was strongly skewed toward power in the Commander format, which didn't always line up with power creep in other formats (although it often did).
8. Following the disaster of the "Companion" mechanic in Ikoria, it does seem that there was some reflexive attempt at curtailing the effects of rampant power creep in Standard sets. However, power creep was only partially curbed (that's good, in a sense).
9. The direct-to-Modern concept stuck around, becoming a conduit for even more severe power creep than was allowed in Standard-legal sets.
10. Due to either diminishing returns or predictions of an incoming market bubble, WotC acted to course-correct the company's all-in approach to Commander. Tournament formats were damaged due to the pandemic and neglect, but they began to experience some resurgence.