My Many Issues with Current Magic: the Gathering

I’m grateful that you shared this. Some times I feel like I’m taking crazy pills because I’m like “Does nobody else see this? Does no one else care about Magic lore!?” So I’m glad I’m not the only only one

Bro.... sorcery....try it out. It's everything magic used to be.

I would like to add on how the Commanderization of every set has also negatively impacted the game. The 2020 year of commander was cool, but they should have dropped it afterwards and went back to standalone decks.

The fact behind each one of these decisions that we know is crap boils down to some kind of spin, broken promise, or outright lie. The Trust Thermocline is a real thing.

The long-term health and popularity of Magic is being cannibalized by short-term motivations. Classic Wall Street.

How many new players who are in and out of the game in two years does it take to be the equivalent to an enfranchised player? It’s not a linear calculation, it’s a geometric one when the love of a game spanned decades, created friendships, and was passed to children. That’s real brand equity and investment in your IP…not flash in the pan profit-taking using the next gimmick that is merely parlayed to the next.

We had the former and it’s starting to die because of the latter.

The damage rules change only convince me further that Banding was done dirty

I don't think you're being cynical in segment 9, just realistic.

I think it's fanmade proxy time for me

I've been looking at other card games lately. Hasbro clearly intends on milking MTG for every penny they can get out of it. I'm just not sure which game to switch to. There's a lot of different options right now.

The game needs to die

if you asked me, i don't mind because they don't mind, so why bother? this game gave me many precious moments with people i love, even if wotc are not taking the best decisons, they only care about money obviously, so... as long as i can play with my friends and having fun (imo is the most important thing) i'll keep playing even if they add the simpsons on the game idk, for me it was always a silly card game

Marvel kicks ass
UB kicks ass
"meme sets" kick ass
Secret lairs kick ass
Mtg kicks ass

You know what doesn't kick ass? Whining and gatekeeping

I started playing MTG with DMU draft and I loved it so much I got into standard after playing a lot of BRO draft.
So far no other set has managed to be as good for draft as these two for me, and they've been anihilating what fun remained on Standard for me with the absurd power creep going on.

Watching your video is so tiring. Not because of you, but because how little respect the owners have for the game or its players.

I’m stopping - going to sorcery tcg instead. It’s still old school fantasy magic.

Everyone needs to just move to sorcery tcg- it’s like old school magic again !

Sorcery is the go to tcg for people who love old school proper fantasy magic.

I haven't played Magic in many years. I can't believe there are sets with Spiderman and Spongebob. That's so gross.

Youve definitely secured yourself on my subcribed list, I love your format and opinions and really entertained by your points and agree a fair bit. Well done

I stopped and I’m better off for it! I love the game and have decks to play every now and then but life is simpler and frankly happier without it.

Im moving to proxys. Im not giving WOTC any of my money with this whole universes beyond obvious cash grab. Ill buy the legitimate magic sets but UB? Nope theyre getting proxied. Also the MSRP coming back isnt all sunshine and rainbows because now the cards will be more expensive

Legacy is still safe for now.

It’s hard to like this game if you are tying to break in. Inundated with product, power creep across all formats, bad rule changes, horrible people on the commander rules committee. Worst of all, Arena is certifiably rigged and stacked.

I started playing magic again recently and it's still a lot of fun

I am relieved to hear someone saying it tbh. I returned after a few years off, bought one release and was horrified at all the little negative changes that had become normalised bit by bit. Everyone I know who plays though is so in love with it still that they get annoyed at anyone pointing out negatives. So I'm glad they're happy but I can't shake the feeling of having been ripped off with every purchase. I'll play with this set for a while but my trust in this company is broken. I know every dollar investd now is something that will likely be misused by a management that doesn't care about the game.

And all the competitive tournaments will never be won by lower class people. So, its rigged.

Okay then stop

MtG now is not the same game as it once was. It has the same name, uses the same rules but it's not the same game. If you feel disenfranchised and feel "This is not Magic anymore" you are not the target audience anymore.

And most importantly, that feeling we link to playing and interacting with MtG as a medium won't come back.

I myself sold my collection and bought 4 competitive PreModern decks for about 500 bucks and moved over to PreModern as my way of interacting with Magic because that format still gives me that feeling that my decisions in game matter to the outcome and I'm not getting snowballed by another 2 card combo-y synergy that happens to be exactly on curve. Modern MtG honestly feels almost oppressive with how much impact every single card need to have to be even considered viable.

I played the game consistently for 21 years now. I've seen bad card design and good ideas but badly implemented. The Imo best format was Legacy before Commander-Precons with Pre-Mirrodin Extended as a close second.

You gotta ask yourself: would you let your best friend stay in a toxic relationship where they only get used for their ressources and everytime they talk about it they seem to gaslight themselfes into believing that it will get better soon since it was soo good in the beginning?

Be your own friend and cut it off if you don't find enjoyment anymore in it. It's a game, it's suppossed to be fun not an obligation cause you spend so much time on it.

They are doing the classic "cater to a wider audience" move, while ignoring their loyal fanbase. It's how most OG game developers have killed their reputation, like Blizzard.

Long ass comment, tl;dr: I agree with almost all of this, and Magic has honestly lost a lot of its "magic" for me as a result. I'm barely a returning player, but this kinda thing makes me want to just move on from the game again.

I've seen a few vids discussing this and I'm usually too lazy to comment, especially because I think people mostly hit on everything that bothers me. I started playing MTG back around Khans of Tarkir, though I really started my collection and dove into the lore from the Gatewatch era through War of the Spark. BFZ in particular absolutely hooked me, and that love for the story is what really pulled me to MTG from Yugioh, my main card game at the time.

I MTG for some years but got back in with my gf earlier this year, just in time for the Karlov Manor release. I was stoked bc Ravnica was a well-known and favorite plane of mine, and I thought the murder mystery theme was a neat sticking point to get my gf invested too. I was keenly aware that there wasn't much to the story of the set, but I assumed this was a one-off thing for the set I just happened to fall back into so nbd. I didn't even bother with Thunder Junction, and from what I hear I dodged a massive bullet there. Also didn't really touch Bloomburrow or Duskmourn, though I don't know anything about the quality of those stories.

Point is, I fell in love with MTG because of the story, and finding out that MKM and OTJ likely aren't exceptions going forward really breaks my heart. I never dove deep into much of the lore prior to Return to Ravnica, but I know that the story used to take itself a lot more seriously, and I really miss that. This new release schedule feels like it's killed that love I had, and as someone who's only tenuously even "back" to this game, yeah it DOES actually kinda just make me want to quit and move on.

Don't buy the product

Yeeeeep, ive walked away a while ago. And as a proud blooded american ive switched to buyin guns instead of mtg

And Arena manipulates matchmaking and card draw (at least opening hands). That isn't Magic, that's algorithmic manipulation.

A lot of us remember what the game used to feel like, that’s why we’re pissed.

I stopped playing Magic a long time ago, back when the PTQs or whatever they were called were taken out of the hands of the regional TOs. I had a dedicated spot to judge any PTQ or whatever in my area that suddenly evaporated as the local TOs weren't as familiar with me and wanted to try different people for staffing their events. And then the regional TOs stopped subsidizing staff travel, and my source of free cards to draft with was gone. I went to a couple prereleases after that, but I really didn't care for the limited environments, so I just stopped playing. I now make way more money than I can spend, and have for the last few years, but what I've seen in Magic absolutely disgusts me. I really hope that they do these crossover sets for a few years and then just stop, but I'm guessing that they're making so much money now that they'll never consider turning back. How anyone who has been a long time player can stomach this sort of thing, I don't know, and it may be that their entire player base turns over again and again and they simply don't care because the money is just pouring in. It's hard to blame this entirely on Hasbro, as WotC has been owned by them for a long time and the game was just fine. I can't imagine that the corporate overlords became more overbearing; it's just that the people that they had in charge at WotC slowly became those hired through Hasbro, and their toy business thinking started permeating everything instead of the game business thinking of the people who started it all. So while Hasbro might be to blame, it's only indirectly. The Hasbro overlords didn't push them into doing this as much as slowly fill all the positions with people who thought like them instead of gamers.

The combat change is also complete garbage. They've gone through several iterations of trying to figure out the best way to handle the issues with double blocking and combat tricks, and they decided to take the simplest way forward and say "screw you double blockers, you get NO info" most likely because they are going with the philosophy of making the rules work the way players think they should work. While this is a noble goal and makes sense in theory, it's as big of a nerf to defensive tricks as 6th edition was a buff to stuff like Mogg Fanatic. They had better print much better defensive combat tricks, or no one will ever double block again.

It seems that the typical Mtg player stays mad and continuously complains about just about everything

As someone who has always disliked Magic as a game, the fact that Giant Growth has to be announced before blockers are chosen just feels like a better game. Rug pulls like that on the defense aren't fun. But I don't have a horse in this race and won't pick up MtG, it's just kind of fun watching it burn.

Come to Ward TCG.

To me, I loved the magic the gathering story, the flavor text, and the old block set release schedule. I know that lots of people love the new alternate, art, versions, and limited release versions of specific cards, but I miss classic magic. I started playing at the end of the Rath cycle and the beginning of Urza’s block - I stopped playing after future sight. great memories, but that game is gone

If youre over Magic, play Sorcery Contested Realm. Hits all the same high notes as early MTG without the issues of modern Magic.

Come play Flesh and Blood

Please tell me the SpongeBob thing is a joke a stoped following MTG and randomly found this vid

I love MTG but the problem with all these IP’s coming to the Game I.E. universes beyond.

The community complains about it, but the same people who complained about U.B. are the same ones who are Scalping the product and buying it at record numbers.

If players want MTG to stop with the U.B. And some of the ridiculous products. Stop the Scalpers by not buying from them.

The day WoTC was sold to friggin Hasbro; THAT was the death knell for creative, interesting, original “Magic lore”. I sold my old MtG collection ~10 years ago, and moved on. You should probably do the same.

You'll be surprised how many people feel the same and have been feeling it since before Secret Lairs became a thing, just projecting on Hasbro's decisions. "Rest assured" it's not just MTG that has this conundrom, you'll find most franchises that has a long standing player base has been warping themselves basically to encompass an even wider market, of which the potential of is unkown and weirdly obtuse. I honestly scarecely believe the sales numbers they put out on these things anymore, it doesn't seem sustainable or reasonable for a game.

I agree with almost all of your points, but your speculation about what AI will or will not be able to do is incredibly silly. "AI will never be capable of true creation." This is such an arrogant and frankly foolish statement. No one has any idea what the future forms of AI will look like and what its capabilities will be. If consciousness is a matter of intelligence processing then it is entirely possible that some day AI will be functionally capable of creating art in the same way humans do. AI art today is bad for all of the reasons you mentioned, but your confident speculation about what AI will never be able to do is a massive underestimation of it. It's really a reminder that despite its rapid development many people seem incapable of identifying the danger it represents. People whose careers revolve around studying and working on AI don't ever make such claims as yours in this video. AI today is in its infancy and its future forms are completely uncertain, and we don't need to pretend to know anything else about it to say that AI art is bad for the game and we don't want Hasbro to ever use it.

Seems like de$igned de$truction just like Gaia Online.

Eh yo come play flesh and blood

I agree with point 10 specifically as it removes avenues for skilled plays that change the game and it slightly dumbs down combat. Not enough that it will matter in the vast majority of games, but in those it does, it will be a shame.

"We worked with cultural consultants"
Does that mean the raksasha are going to look cooler ? No they will look worse and barely be in the set because in reality they werent as important to those cultures. F off !

Ive just started to really enjoy playing card games, and i would probably be very likely to be a new magic player but i care about lore too (and i dont really care about spiderman or racecars) thanks for making the video

My main issue is the price of entry and cost of keeping up with the best decks. I stopped when Hearthstone came out and never looked backed.