i doubt playerbase will suffer.
it may split the kongregate community to some extent
Nice job cutting down my sentence until it said what you wanted in the last post.
May. As in it might. Or it might not. I don't think it will. And "to some extent". Meaning the splitting might not be permanent, major, or anything else. If friendships and communities shatter so easily then that's flat out depressing. And, I dont think it will hurt the playerbase at all since PVP and Arena is the same.
Is there anyone else playing old versions of magic on outdated sites and refusing to move to a new update? I highly doubt it. Any organized play would still be the same. At the absolute most, some people who choose not to upgrade to the better version of the game will be in a different chatroom but still use the same forums.
Considering I spend hardly any time in either current chatroom, nor do a majority of players, I'd be willing to bet this wont destroy a community. More likely, it will bring in a large number of new players, reintroduce people who have given up and dont care about 1.4 because of the slow, small updates of the past, and only strengthen both communities. The odds of it damaging the community are slim