Happy I'm not a store and can just ignore new magic stuff. The magic I remember is long dead. States/regionals/gp/pro tour/jss all gone or different, No magic player rewards, unaffordable cards, pushed commander crap, degenerate gamblers and speculators everywhere, endless sets coming out, unimaginably large sets, no more uniformity of cards, and monopoly style ip themed crap. If someone told me magic will have marvel characters, I'd quit right then because I have no interest in comic books and wouldn't want to play a marvel game.
@@chesterfieldthe3rd929not playing another bs artificially scarce investment tool "collectible" card game. Collectible is just marketing slang for "buy this, dumbass."
@Continuum7 That's only Alpha. Team covenant has beta for 150, and the openboosters store has Arthurian Legends for 117 or so. It is very reasonable for such a gorgeous game, and the chase cards are worth good money if you enjoy the chase. I pulled a gilded foil out of Arthurian Legends, and it's one of the most beautiful cards I've ever laid eyes on.
@@chesterfieldthe3rd929 I'll have to see if I can find a box or two, none of my local LGS sell it so I'll see if ebay or TCG Player has some that are not insane prices.
Getting old sucks. I remember going to work with two or three mono decks wrapped with rubber bands in my back pocket and playing with my buddies all night. Good old overnight maintenance at Walmart back in the nineties!
seems like you had a good time, good for you :) but it doesn't end if you dont want to I offered the starter kit 2022 ( 10 € or $, 2 decks ready to play) to a colleague, we play a little on lunch break, sometimes Players were kind of shocked that i play with deck unsleeved, at an event (commander night) in a shop Lol, my decks are worth less than the sleeves, and that's what i want, just a fun affordable card game, the starter kits and preconstructed commander decks And i even win or have a fair chance to win, of course, it's casual events, and games with friends and colleagues, not turnaments with experts Now i calculate, i bought some collections, at 30€ for 1000 cards (shipping included) So, the joke is actually very close to the truth 40 cards would be 1.2€ (or $) in that collection, 100 cheapest sleeves cost 1.5 to 2€ or $ XD Remember, you don't have to spend a lot to collect, play and have a large collection and fun
As an elder millennial who was actually excited for Foundations and getting back into playing, I do have to admit the last 24 hours has me feeling pretty beaten down. I like sharing in things when we're all genuinely excited for the product itself and I get that prices go up when that happens, but everything is feeling like such a pump and dump lately (both in cardboard and life in general) that I'm thinking it might be a mistake to re-engage with newer sets. Maybe its time to just admit the game I knew is gone and just find other hobbies.
I think there are a few ways you can engage with it without going with every new set there is. Probably the cheapest and still a way to get quite a bit of fun out of it, is finding a group or hosting an event with your own budget cube and do some drafts. I have a list for like 40€ with all kinds of synergies, my wife doesn't like heavy games though so gonna try find a few people near me who are interested in drafts just for fun
I'm in the same boat. I was gonna jump back into standard when foundations launched, but after the UB in standard news, I decided against it. I've always liked MTG lore, and has always been a kind of escape and way for me to enjoy fantasy that was its own thing. UB would totally break the immersion for me.
@@mrtattoocharlie Yes! There used to be multiple sets to a storyline along with comics and books and whatever else. It was a complete and well-rounded way to enjoy the story beyond just playing a card game. Now with UB taking over, even the card game seems like some tangential product to some other story and IP (or in this case, every other story and IP). I feel like if I got into it that the only outcome would be that my good memories are replaced with not so good memories. And then I'd try to sell my cards but I wouldn't get enough back for them to even buy lunch. The whole ecosystem and experience has become disingenuous.
@@chesterfieldthe3rd929 I did look into it quite a bit because it looks great. Have a set of the Beta starter decks but haven't managed to con anyone into a game yet. I have yet to find a store anywhere near me that acknowledges it as a thing either. Including the stores on the "find a store" part of their website. I've only found a friend of a friend who even knew what it was. Sadly, just not a thing in my area so giving it a try would just be ordering online and collecting. Not exactly the experience I was looking for.
I played for 10 years but stopped years ago. Wotc is making it hard to even collect. I love just looking at cards. Boxes. Packs. I’m a nerd but man it’s a weird time.
Embercleave isn't even that strong anymore with Leylines out there doing turn 2 kills. Also it's not even legal in Standard it's just a new art reprint. I don't think the issue is with the set. I think the issue is with the amount of product they're shoving into the ecosystem. 19 sets in Standard makes it impossible to keep healthy. And they've already revealed 7 sets without revealing any non-Standard sets. That's scary. Because you know there's going to be masters sets, other remasters, special sets coming too. I can't do 10-12 different sets a year.
Happened to D&D as well. And guess what, it absolutely has a political element too. The new crowd remakes hobbies this way in their image because they think in communities and collectives. We needed to have gatekept harder.
You are spot on about the people getting into nerdy stuff because it's cool now... and this is exactly why wizards and magic is heading in the direction it is now... I'm sure you're aware that Hasbro isn't doing so well, as far as I know wizards is the only thing profitable for them right now, and if you consider this it's not really a surprise that they're trying to milk this hype as hard as they can... also if you look into wizards history a bit, everything started down this path when Chris Cocks became the CEO of wizards in 2016 and just went into overdrive since he became the CEO of Hasbro in 2022... sadly you are also totally right about not caring about the game anymore, that's clear from Mark Rosewaters comment regardig the online outrage regarding these decisions, he justified it with the sales data LOTR generated them...
I'm out of Magic now. I had mixed feeling with the Marvel universes beyond as a long time comic and mtg fan but having all UB go into standard was the last straw. 3 UB sets and 3 Primier sets is also too much. Everything is too much. Rather than feeling down after every UB set announcement, every reprint, every masters type set and all the power creep, its just better for my sanity, I think, to just walk away now.
That is absolutely profound. So true, for years one would share so much with and be able to effortlessly relate to the fellow MTGer, but now people being attracted to the trend start showing up and all of this is lost as is the camaraderie. Another example of this I see is the Taylor Swift fans at Chief’s game scene. No passion for the grid iron just there to commune with fellow Taylor fans and remotely observe their obsession. Kind of like video gamers coming to the card store for their passion of Forte night and Assassins Creed, but no passion for the intricacy of deck construction and card strategy. It’s like the Never Ending Story Nothing has come into our TCG world and hollowed it out to a shell of what it once was.
The shift of trying to make nerd culture mainstream has made it unbearable. None of my hobbies are the same, they've changed for the worse as they've tried to match the current culture.
Yeah mainstream tends to ruin good stuff. It ruins this and is doing its damage to warhammer etc same things diluted and meh. I just wish the way it all used to be.
As of someone who is playing one piece n haveing a blast but with the mass reprint I was looking for a game to jump into when optcg starts to fall off bc bandi is runing to many card games n mtg w as my go to n amazon sent me the wrong duskmourn 3 momths after my prerelease was suppose to be here so my mtg come back hasn't happened yet but ty Kevin this is the shit I love to see😊
Im recent to MTG (cause of friends) and Pokemon (Nostalgia) and a couple days ago went to a local store where I could chat and trade some ideas and tip, and most of the people were engaged about the value of cards... I just felt like a complete outsider cause for me I was just very happy to get a couple products and crack them up and reakky LOOK into the cards and appretiate them
The only thing worth investing in the last 4 years were commander decks. I bought 5-10 sets of every release from 2020-2024. Everything but the random collector box is still available haha. Magic is lost. The power is outta control. Bannings. Pokémon is where it’s at. One box! One ETB!
Thanks for sharing. As a long time player, I was initially very off-put by the announcement, and have only become more disappointed about it. At the time of the LOTR set, I told people at my LGS that more and worse IP crossovers were on the way. I made the joke that we would have Dora the Explorer secret lairs. It was a great joke, and got lots of laughs, but we all held out enough hope that it was an extreme that WOTC wouldn’t go to. Here we are a couple years later and we have been told that we will be playing SpongeBob into walking dead. The irony is thick, and I’m considering disengaging. There is no walking back when greed is this high. It will only get worse. /rantoff
All valid comments, my only criticism is that is is how it's been for s very long time. Re UB , they essentially have to do it, as I think you pointed in your previous video. Everything is like this. It honestly makes sense as the game is the medium in which everyone brings their game peices too. It's als maximum corporate low effort on their part. Again standard operating procedure. In fairness it might work. Also someone in a c suite has run the numbers and compared commander to standard and everything is pointing towards standard being more profitable, and marketable. I'd argue that the push is towards MTGA. Every time I'm at my LGS they're pushing it for results. In the digital environment this pick and mix, cross over is also SOP. Kid's seem to like and pay for it.
I've ran into kids like that as well. I feel bad for them. Worrying about grading and flipping a zard doesn't sound like something they actually enjoy. I think at this point Gatekeeping is a necessity for things to continue in a healthy way in our hobbies. Investment bros ran to the game I play after a big youtuber promoted it and it caused quite the upheaval in the community that hasn't healed yet several years later.
sadly, it's on purpose by hasbro It's sad that it becomes a money game,like lottery, rather than a fantasy card game( or a lottery disguised as a fantasy card game) When we open boosters, it should be "ooh, i got my favorite planewalker Sorin markow from my favorite edition!" or "cool, a nice powerful dragon" or "yes, pikachu and charizard, my favorites pokemon that are always in my team in the video game!" Now it's more like "oh! a 40$ card!" (even if the card is just a plain useless pair of boots or whatever, lol) At the start of magic, the creator richard garfield said than no cards should be worth more than 20$, and the collector edition was 50$ for ALL cards in 1 exemplary of all beta cards,including black lotus, the other power 9 cards (ancestrall recall, mox of saphire...)plus other new cards
Dude, I'm so glad you've gotten back into making videos tbh... I am right there with ya with everything you've said... The fact that Magic now is a lot more mainstream and the Universes Beyond crap directly effecting Standard has me more worried about the direction of the game and the folks it'll attract. I will say though, I've been absolutely stoked about Final Fantasy coming to magic because it was the first real fantasy series I played and loved. I really hope that these Universes Beyond sets don't destroy the game by creating terribly broken nonsense and that, because they're not really "Magic" sets, I won't enjoy anything that is within them from a gameplay perspective... Not to mention I would definitely hate a bunch of non-magic people coming into is game and trashing how anything outside of their Marvel world isn't good enough for Magic.
The fact the kid bent the cards and raged immediately like that is truly sad… 😞 I can hardly stand that. As a store owner I bet that was hard to sit through. You articulated things very well, great video! I have faith MTG will prevail through the odd times shortly ahead. There will certainly be another wave of interest, it’s an incredible game at its core! 💜💯
The fact that he focused on that 1 kid instead of the 99 other kids that were probably happy and thankful for the packs is expected. People tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive. Clickbait mentality.
I have always disliked the part of tcg market that pretty much is just "gotta buy boxes to resell them, gotta scalp and bring prices up" and they are a problem because they are really valuable clients for the company, so they can't get rid of them by printing more product or they will saturate the market so there is excess product and sales crumble
Yes the video was ranting but brother I feal you. After 30 years I'm married to this game, so many friends and good memories. But I honestly find it barely tolerable to even play that much anymore because yes it's just not the same culture anymore and frankly it's truly what I feared would happen the day I heard about a walking dead secret lair...
I know Embercleave isn’t in Standard, but I agree with you. F that card. I think the card that will need to be banned is Harmless Offering. 2 of that, plus a playset of Dross demon, Unholy Annex, and Demonic Pact (also in FDN) is a powerful package.
Hey man, long time player here myself, since the 90s. I left shortly after the Hasboro acquisition because the writing was very quickly was all over the walls. MTGs history is actually marred by cover ups and bowing to the mob. Hasboro is walking around a corpse on puppet strings. It's been over, for a long time. This is just the reckoning. Flesh and blood is the way to go baby.
Playing against a different universe will not be fun for either player. We will have to see how this fleshes out. Playing against the same universe will work though. Another problem is mixed universe decks, bizarre and immersion breaking. Sigh … this will be rough. Sorcery and grand archive will probably grow due to this
Honestly, sometimes gatekeeping isn't a bad thing. The more mainstream something becomes the more diluted it becomes because it has to appeal to "the masses". It can be acceptable without it being mainstream. It's ruining hobbies that I enjoy and I'm tired of it. From MTG to retro gaming.....it's insanity.
Ive been watching you since the early days of Rogue Deck Builder and it pains me to hear you speak on the future of magic but I feel the exact same way. Its like loosing an old friend, not from death but they've changed so much you barely recognize them anymore.
There was a deck for a while that was cheating out that nerfed omniscience sphinx and starting to combo off. I think you technically could cheat out omniscience on turn 3. And together with spells like Atraxa that will give you a new hand while also being a good cheat target it could get stupid really quickly.
Standard is the power level of old school modern is exactly what I thought!!! I kinda like the stand environment but I cant play modern anymore this is my way of playing when it was fun
After 10 years of playibg Magic... I need to walk away form this. I don't mind that UB is a thing, I'm happy that people like it, its just not for me. The whole modern era is wild... but this leave a void. I love Magic, I really do... but this isn't it... I've started moving into Flesh and Blood and it's been a wonderful welcome. I'm hoping I can find a good home in FaB like I did Magic.
I ride a motorcyle, play guitar, and race stand up jetskis. I get called a bro all the time its annoying. I've also played magic for 15 years. And was gm in all 3 races in sc2. I also never miss broodwar's asl. I'm only stating this to say you can like different things. Whenever I'm playing games or reading I'm a labeled a nerd. Whenever I take my guns out to the desert don't go shooting I'm a bro. Sorry for the rant, I just found the channel and I agree with alot of what you said.
As a company caring about the the spirit of the game and fans, as in someone that has played since '94- current year. They want to monetize what makes the most money for the consumers to shell out. Not fans that buy this or that, the consumer buys a buffet of options over the spirit of the game. A certain issue is where the focused lies is on the consumer over the fan you ruin your customer base. In turn, this is disappointing to the core fans, who will stop supporting, sooner than later.
Probably xennial like me, xennial's don't exactly relate to millennials fully we juggle between gen X and millennials and are a micro gen with a unique experience
After more then a decade of playing MTG I quietly quit. Several reasons: most of my playing buddies quit too, MH turning a non-rotating format to a rotating format but least and certainly not least reskining MTG with all these francizes. That is why i moved to playing bg instead. I don't like the theme i don't buy the game that simple. Nobody is forcing me to play with Spiderman or Orchish bow master because their are op and i have to be competitive. Long way of saying i agree with your message. Cheers
I think it’s a huge misconception to think that foundations is some kind of newbie set. Yes, it has a few auxiliary products that are new player focused but the real set is designed as a “baseline” for years to come, not some low powered new player jank set.
@@TheRogueMarket yeah but that’s only a few products. Other sets have starter decks and they weren’t beginner sets. Core sets provided the necessary card pool to build healthy formats around without worrying as much about rotation.
They didn’t have to do anything they could’ve let knockoffs be knock offs, and kept to their core product, which is original cards and original themes. They did universes beyond to rake in the dough end of story.
Technically they would have had to make their own IP more appealing. It has been failing for years now. But instead they took the lazy / coward route in my opinion by trying to piggy back off of other IPS success.
WOTC wants 3 turns games. So modern/pioneer/standard all look the same. The power is creep is there to keep the games fast. Isn't cheaper to play poker by that standards?
Just like the tubers who give financial advice on how to live overseas with no money or selling courses. Humans are predators and sell to the sucker's 😂😂😂
take the money, take the trade. Smile, and be grateful people want things you sell. I'd have been pissed if the dude would have bent the cards in front of me, as well. Its like throwing a meal on the floor. He could have given the cards to some kid, (or anything else) instead of just making trash.
Dude... I wish when i was a child they gave out pokemon cards for halloween. I only opened TWO packs as a kid... And for him to just destroy them? How could you damage them like that. Pokemon are supposed to be your friends! Why trash them...
While a lot of the new cards for standard have been pretty good, I'm not happy with the overall format, but just the volume of cards between the list, special guest, commander sets, secret lairs, I just can't keep up anymore and everything feels cookie cutter copy and paste abilities all over the place. I've lost a lot of interest and am actually considering downsizing my old collection. I don't feel pride any more having those cards. I am starting to feel like a shill selling any sealed product anymore. It feels like the demand is all just fake and WotC will reprint and steal the money from people's collections at every opportunity. Nothing ever appreciates anymore or is exciting any more. Sorcery is just 10x better but so few people play.
Magic is and always was a game engine. I don't like this UB crap in general but Magic wouldn't exist another 30 years without trying something like this. Also if they didn't do this then standard would never have come back. I'll still just keep playing premodern
Spiteful gatekeeping in terms of the "This is my nerd culture, and we went through x, blah blah blah". However, I entirely agree with Magic being something I don't care about now.
Even the kids are ruining the love of card games now - company policies, scalpers, investors, over competetive 40 year olds and now the gen alpha investor bro offspring
I hope you get some sort of therapy out of these videos, but you really have to come to a realization of a couple of things. First, you can't control what or why people buy TCGs, understand that not everyone is going to want the same things in life that you want. So if someone wants to buy and flip Pokemon cards why should that bother you? Who cares what they do with their money to get enjoyment out of a product? If your passion is old school MTG and you hate that anyone outside may start to find and enjoy that game in a way you don't, why does that bother you. Nobody is stopping you, your customers, your friends from enjoying the game you want, playing it how you want. Second, I had never played a TCG before last fall when Lorcana came out, I knew what they were but didn't have time or energy to learn how to play them. I am a Disney fan so a Disney card game gave me a chance to try something new, and I play twice a week at leagues, have made new friends IRL and online thru the game, and as a result of playing Lorcana I have learned more about other games and let me tell you I love that people are enjoying Pokemon, from playing the game, to investing, to running stores or selling online, I love the people have a passion that makes them happy. I was gifted a collector booster of Bloomburrow from a friend, who knows I love critters and animals, when I saw things like the field art cards I knew I wanted those in my collection, not to play MTG, but simply because I love the art and creativity of the cards (go ahead and hate me all you want). Then at NYCC a friend was sending me pictures from the Marvel/Secret Lair panel, we are both huge Marvel fans, from movies and comics, to games and pin collecting. Guess what you will hate me more, I love what they are doing and releasing next week. I will be fighting for my place in the virtual line to buy those cards, because I love the art, the characters and the imagination that goes into the creation of them. I still have no desire to play MTG, or Pokemon, but I appreciate them for what they are and if someone else finds joy and passion in buying, playing, collecting, flipping, or bending the cards and throwing them on the floor, who am I to say no to their joy? I do understand you don't like interlopers into your world, and that you want things to be the way they were when you fell in love with MTG, but the world and times they are a changing, so find what you still enjoy in this space and enjoy it. If someone finds something completely different that they enjoy in this space, why should that bother you? The last month has been watching you simply implode and it is kinda scary to someone on the outside, my friend if your joy or frustrations come from what other people do, it is a very rough world out there. Find what makes you happy, find what brings you real joy and focus on that, I know as a businessman all of it impacts you, but you can only control what you can control and losing sleep or peace of mind over what you can't control isn't healthy. Find your joy again, cause that guy made great content.
Just sell to that kid. Other than that. I swear, alot of these mtg complainers come across as the kids in the back of the cafeteria who now have a chance to spew out their BS. Gatekeepy much of your hobby? Wtf. Love the hypocrisy. This is why you dont listen to plebs.
Happy I'm not a store and can just ignore new magic stuff. The magic I remember is long dead. States/regionals/gp/pro tour/jss all gone or different, No magic player rewards, unaffordable cards, pushed commander crap, degenerate gamblers and speculators everywhere, endless sets coming out, unimaginably large sets, no more uniformity of cards, and monopoly style ip themed crap. If someone told me magic will have marvel characters, I'd quit right then because I have no interest in comic books and wouldn't want to play a marvel game.
Sorcery Contested Realm is amazing. Old mtg feel to the art and really fun games. I'm really enjoying it.
@@chesterfieldthe3rd929not playing another bs artificially scarce investment tool "collectible" card game. Collectible is just marketing slang for "buy this, dumbass."
@@chesterfieldthe3rd929 I wish Sorcery was more accessible. Those first set boxes are like thousands of dollars lol
@Continuum7 That's only Alpha. Team covenant has beta for 150, and the openboosters store has Arthurian Legends for 117 or so. It is very reasonable for such a gorgeous game, and the chase cards are worth good money if you enjoy the chase. I pulled a gilded foil out of Arthurian Legends, and it's one of the most beautiful cards I've ever laid eyes on.
@@chesterfieldthe3rd929 I'll have to see if I can find a box or two, none of my local LGS sell it so I'll see if ebay or TCG Player has some that are not insane prices.
Getting old sucks. I remember going to work with two or three mono decks wrapped with rubber bands in my back pocket and playing with my buddies all night. Good old overnight maintenance at Walmart back in the nineties!
Phenomenal username btw
seems like you had a good time, good for you :)
but it doesn't end if you dont want to
I offered the starter kit 2022 ( 10 € or $, 2 decks ready to play) to a colleague, we play a little on lunch break, sometimes
Players were kind of shocked that i play with deck unsleeved, at an event (commander night) in a shop
Lol, my decks are worth less than the sleeves, and that's what i want, just a fun affordable card game, the starter kits and preconstructed commander decks
And i even win or have a fair chance to win, of course, it's casual events, and games with friends and colleagues, not turnaments with experts
Now i calculate, i bought some collections, at 30€ for 1000 cards (shipping included)
So, the joke is actually very close to the truth
40 cards would be 1.2€ (or $) in that collection, 100 cheapest sleeves cost 1.5 to 2€ or $
XD
Remember, you don't have to spend a lot to collect, play and have a large collection and fun
As an elder millennial who was actually excited for Foundations and getting back into playing, I do have to admit the last 24 hours has me feeling pretty beaten down. I like sharing in things when we're all genuinely excited for the product itself and I get that prices go up when that happens, but everything is feeling like such a pump and dump lately (both in cardboard and life in general) that I'm thinking it might be a mistake to re-engage with newer sets. Maybe its time to just admit the game I knew is gone and just find other hobbies.
I think there are a few ways you can engage with it without going with every new set there is. Probably the cheapest and still a way to get quite a bit of fun out of it, is finding a group or hosting an event with your own budget cube and do some drafts. I have a list for like 40€ with all kinds of synergies, my wife doesn't like heavy games though so gonna try find a few people near me who are interested in drafts just for fun
I'm in the same boat. I was gonna jump back into standard when foundations launched, but after the UB in standard news, I decided against it. I've always liked MTG lore, and has always been a kind of escape and way for me to enjoy fantasy that was its own thing. UB would totally break the immersion for me.
@@mrtattoocharlie Yes! There used to be multiple sets to a storyline along with comics and books and whatever else. It was a complete and well-rounded way to enjoy the story beyond just playing a card game. Now with UB taking over, even the card game seems like some tangential product to some other story and IP (or in this case, every other story and IP). I feel like if I got into it that the only outcome would be that my good memories are replaced with not so good memories. And then I'd try to sell my cards but I wouldn't get enough back for them to even buy lunch. The whole ecosystem and experience has become disingenuous.
Sorcery Contested Realm is amazing. Give it a try!
@@chesterfieldthe3rd929 I did look into it quite a bit because it looks great. Have a set of the Beta starter decks but haven't managed to con anyone into a game yet. I have yet to find a store anywhere near me that acknowledges it as a thing either. Including the stores on the "find a store" part of their website. I've only found a friend of a friend who even knew what it was. Sadly, just not a thing in my area so giving it a try would just be ordering online and collecting. Not exactly the experience I was looking for.
I played for 10 years but stopped years ago. Wotc is making it hard to even collect. I love just looking at cards. Boxes. Packs. I’m a nerd but man it’s a weird time.
Hard agree. Corporate profit will always supercede all else.
@@rennnem and they will ruin themselves eventually as a result if its always only about the bottom line
If you like checking out cards, you should check out Sorcery: Contested Realm - Gorgeous.
Isn't Embercleave just a special guest in this set? I don't think it's legal in standard is it?
It's a commander set, Kevin. It doesn't matter what wotc calls them, they are all commander sets now.
Isn't Embercleave not in Standard still because its in the special guest slot?
Damn! I missed that, the symbols looks so close with this set. I guess that kind of proves my point about confusion in legality though...
Embercleave isn't even that strong anymore with Leylines out there doing turn 2 kills. Also it's not even legal in Standard it's just a new art reprint. I don't think the issue is with the set. I think the issue is with the amount of product they're shoving into the ecosystem. 19 sets in Standard makes it impossible to keep healthy. And they've already revealed 7 sets without revealing any non-Standard sets. That's scary. Because you know there's going to be masters sets, other remasters, special sets coming too. I can't do 10-12 different sets a year.
Happy Halloween bro!
Great video, always appreciate your insights and passion you have for the game and industry.
Hey man, stumbled upon your channel again. I watched your videos from looong ago. Great to see you again. Subbed 🙏
It happened with comics... it is an invasion... I call it cultural colonialism. I will be seeking reparations in 20 years.
Happened to D&D as well.
And guess what, it absolutely has a political element too. The new crowd remakes hobbies this way in their image because they think in communities and collectives. We needed to have gatekept harder.
DEI poisoned everything.
You are spot on about the people getting into nerdy stuff because it's cool now... and this is exactly why wizards and magic is heading in the direction it is now... I'm sure you're aware that Hasbro isn't doing so well, as far as I know wizards is the only thing profitable for them right now, and if you consider this it's not really a surprise that they're trying to milk this hype as hard as they can... also if you look into wizards history a bit, everything started down this path when Chris Cocks became the CEO of wizards in 2016 and just went into overdrive since he became the CEO of Hasbro in 2022... sadly you are also totally right about not caring about the game anymore, that's clear from Mark Rosewaters comment regardig the online outrage regarding these decisions, he justified it with the sales data LOTR generated them...
I'm out of Magic now. I had mixed feeling with the Marvel universes beyond as a long time comic and mtg fan but having all UB go into standard was the last straw. 3 UB sets and 3 Primier sets is also too much. Everything is too much. Rather than feeling down after every UB set announcement, every reprint, every masters type set and all the power creep, its just better for my sanity, I think, to just walk away now.
WotC has become beyond irredeemable in my books
That is absolutely profound.
So true, for years one would share so much with and be able to effortlessly relate to the fellow MTGer, but now people being attracted to the trend start showing up and all of this is lost as is the camaraderie.
Another example of this I see is the Taylor Swift fans at Chief’s game scene.
No passion for the grid iron just there to commune with fellow Taylor fans and remotely observe their obsession.
Kind of like video gamers coming to the card store for their passion of Forte night and Assassins Creed, but no passion for the intricacy of deck construction and card strategy.
It’s like the Never Ending Story Nothing has come into our TCG world and hollowed it out to a shell of what it once was.
I wish Chris Cox had a heart....
The shift of trying to make nerd culture mainstream has made it unbearable. None of my hobbies are the same, they've changed for the worse as they've tried to match the current culture.
Yeah mainstream tends to ruin good stuff. It ruins this and is doing its damage to warhammer etc same things diluted and meh. I just wish the way it all used to be.
Yup large influxes of new peoplw into your hobbies suck, ESPECIALLY, if they share some sort of demographic that'll unify their interest.
As of someone who is playing one piece n haveing a blast but with the mass reprint I was looking for a game to jump into when optcg starts to fall off bc bandi is runing to many card games n mtg w as my go to n amazon sent me the wrong duskmourn 3 momths after my prerelease was suppose to be here so my mtg come back hasn't happened yet but ty Kevin this is the shit I love to see😊
theres not a single set im interested in next year, maybe innistrad
Im recent to MTG (cause of friends) and Pokemon (Nostalgia) and a couple days ago went to a local store where I could chat and trade some ideas and tip, and most of the people were engaged about the value of cards... I just felt like a complete outsider cause for me I was just very happy to get a couple products and crack them up and reakky LOOK into the cards and appretiate them
One question. Where did these standard players come from??? I thought no one played standard. We only play commander......
The only thing worth investing in the last 4 years were commander decks. I bought 5-10 sets of every release from 2020-2024. Everything but the random collector box is still available haha. Magic is lost. The power is outta control. Bannings. Pokémon is where it’s at. One box! One ETB!
there is a difference between investing and collecting
Thanks for sharing. As a long time player, I was initially very off-put by the announcement, and have only become more disappointed about it. At the time of the LOTR set, I told people at my LGS that more and worse IP crossovers were on the way. I made the joke that we would have Dora the Explorer secret lairs. It was a great joke, and got lots of laughs, but we all held out enough hope that it was an extreme that WOTC wouldn’t go to. Here we are a couple years later and we have been told that we will be playing SpongeBob into walking dead. The irony is thick, and I’m considering disengaging. There is no walking back when greed is this high. It will only get worse. /rantoff
All valid comments, my only criticism is that is is how it's been for s very long time. Re UB , they essentially have to do it, as I think you pointed in your previous video. Everything is like this. It honestly makes sense as the game is the medium in which everyone brings their game peices too. It's als maximum corporate low effort on their part. Again standard operating procedure. In fairness it might work. Also someone in a c suite has run the numbers and compared commander to standard and everything is pointing towards standard being more profitable, and marketable. I'd argue that the push is towards MTGA. Every time I'm at my LGS they're pushing it for results. In the digital environment this pick and mix, cross over is also SOP. Kid's seem to like and pay for it.
I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. You can thank the sneaker heads / resellers. Their market got destroyed so they moved to us.
I've ran into kids like that as well. I feel bad for them. Worrying about grading and flipping a zard doesn't sound like something they actually enjoy. I think at this point Gatekeeping is a necessity for things to continue in a healthy way in our hobbies. Investment bros ran to the game I play after a big youtuber promoted it and it caused quite the upheaval in the community that hasn't healed yet several years later.
sadly, it's on purpose by hasbro
It's sad that it becomes a money game,like lottery, rather than a fantasy card game( or a lottery disguised as a fantasy card game)
When we open boosters, it should be "ooh, i got my favorite planewalker Sorin markow from my favorite edition!"
or "cool, a nice powerful dragon" or "yes, pikachu and charizard, my favorites pokemon that are always in my team in the video game!"
Now it's more like "oh! a 40$ card!" (even if the card is just a plain useless pair of boots or whatever, lol)
At the start of magic, the creator richard garfield said than no cards should be worth more than 20$, and the collector edition was 50$ for ALL cards in 1 exemplary of all beta cards,including black lotus, the other power 9 cards (ancestrall recall, mox of saphire...)plus other new cards
For my friends we had our "NFL List" the no fun list of cards we retired from our group.
Dude, I'm so glad you've gotten back into making videos tbh... I am right there with ya with everything you've said... The fact that Magic now is a lot more mainstream and the Universes Beyond crap directly effecting Standard has me more worried about the direction of the game and the folks it'll attract. I will say though, I've been absolutely stoked about Final Fantasy coming to magic because it was the first real fantasy series I played and loved. I really hope that these Universes Beyond sets don't destroy the game by creating terribly broken nonsense and that, because they're not really "Magic" sets, I won't enjoy anything that is within them from a gameplay perspective... Not to mention I would definitely hate a bunch of non-magic people coming into is game and trashing how anything outside of their Marvel world isn't good enough for Magic.
The fact the kid bent the cards and raged immediately like that is truly sad… 😞 I can hardly stand that. As a store owner I bet that was hard to sit through. You articulated things very well, great video! I have faith MTG will prevail through the odd times shortly ahead. There will certainly be another wave of interest, it’s an incredible game at its core! 💜💯
The fact that he focused on that 1 kid instead of the 99 other kids that were probably happy and thankful for the packs is expected. People tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive. Clickbait mentality.
Welcome to being old man. We all feel like this about everything.
I have always disliked the part of tcg market that pretty much is just "gotta buy boxes to resell them, gotta scalp and bring prices up" and they are a problem because they are really valuable clients for the company, so they can't get rid of them by printing more product or they will saturate the market so there is excess product and sales crumble
Yes the video was ranting but brother I feal you. After 30 years I'm married to this game, so many friends and good memories. But I honestly find it barely tolerable to even play that much anymore because yes it's just not the same culture anymore and frankly it's truly what I feared would happen the day I heard about a walking dead secret lair...
I know Embercleave isn’t in Standard, but I agree with you. F that card. I think the card that will need to be banned is Harmless Offering. 2 of that, plus a playset of Dross demon, Unholy Annex, and Demonic Pact (also in FDN) is a powerful package.
the companies deserve some share of the blame for this, they build in FOMO and scarcity
Hey man, long time player here myself, since the 90s. I left shortly after the Hasboro acquisition because the writing was very quickly was all over the walls. MTGs history is actually marred by cover ups and bowing to the mob. Hasboro is walking around a corpse on puppet strings. It's been over, for a long time. This is just the reckoning. Flesh and blood is the way to go baby.
Playing against a different universe will not be fun for either player. We will have to see how this fleshes out.
Playing against the same universe will work though.
Another problem is mixed universe decks, bizarre and immersion breaking.
Sigh … this will be rough. Sorcery and grand archive will probably grow due to this
😂 sell your collections to Kevin, Rudy and Louie and go all in on Sorcery and Grand Archive 😂
@ haha yeah
I will tell you , foundations looks sweet though
Honestly, sometimes gatekeeping isn't a bad thing. The more mainstream something becomes the more diluted it becomes because it has to appeal to "the masses".
It can be acceptable without it being mainstream. It's ruining hobbies that I enjoy and I'm tired of it. From MTG to retro gaming.....it's insanity.
Ive been watching you since the early days of Rogue Deck Builder and it pains me to hear you speak on the future of magic but I feel the exact same way. Its like loosing an old friend, not from death but they've changed so much you barely recognize them anymore.
There was a deck for a while that was cheating out that nerfed omniscience sphinx and starting to combo off. I think you technically could cheat out omniscience on turn 3. And together with spells like Atraxa that will give you a new hand while also being a good cheat target it could get stupid really quickly.
Just another reason to move all in on Pokémon. They don't need to dilute their brand.
We're here with you Man!
i feel your pain . you can here in your voice how frustrated you are . my only hope is a format that excludes all universes beyond.
Foundation cards are strong 💪 😂
Standard is the power level of old school modern is exactly what I thought!!! I kinda like the stand environment but I cant play modern anymore this is my way of playing when it was fun
More money for Bandai games I say!
They’ve got plenty and they’re all pretty ok-great!😊
Great video. Agree 100%. It’s all greed driven now.
After 10 years of playibg Magic... I need to walk away form this. I don't mind that UB is a thing, I'm happy that people like it, its just not for me. The whole modern era is wild... but this leave a void. I love Magic, I really do... but this isn't it... I've started moving into Flesh and Blood and it's been a wonderful welcome. I'm hoping I can find a good home in FaB like I did Magic.
I ride a motorcyle, play guitar, and race stand up jetskis. I get called a bro all the time its annoying. I've also played magic for 15 years. And was gm in all 3 races in sc2. I also never miss broodwar's asl. I'm only stating this to say you can like different things. Whenever I'm playing games or reading I'm a labeled a nerd. Whenever I take my guns out to the desert don't go shooting I'm a bro. Sorry for the rant, I just found the channel and I agree with alot of what you said.
As a company caring about the the spirit of the game and fans, as in someone that has played since '94- current year. They want to monetize what makes the most money for the consumers to shell out. Not fans that buy this or that, the consumer buys a buffet of options over the spirit of the game. A certain issue is where the focused lies is on the consumer over the fan you ruin your customer base. In turn, this is disappointing to the core fans, who will stop supporting, sooner than later.
Probably xennial like me, xennial's don't exactly relate to millennials fully we juggle between gen X and millennials and are a micro gen with a unique experience
Embercleave will not be coming to standard. I had a heart attack also when I saw it and then I saw the set symbol.
Here for the rants
After more then a decade of playing MTG I quietly quit. Several reasons: most of my playing buddies quit too, MH turning a non-rotating format to a rotating format but least and certainly not least reskining MTG with all these francizes. That is why i moved to playing bg instead. I don't like the theme i don't buy the game that simple. Nobody is forcing me to play with Spiderman or Orchish bow master because their are op and i have to be competitive. Long way of saying i agree with your message. Cheers
I think it’s a huge misconception to think that foundations is some kind of newbie set. Yes, it has a few auxiliary products that are new player focused but the real set is designed as a “baseline” for years to come, not some low powered new player jank set.
Well, they sort of marketed it that way, with beginner boxes and starter collections.
@@TheRogueMarket yeah but that’s only a few products. Other sets have starter decks and they weren’t beginner sets. Core sets provided the necessary card pool to build healthy formats around without worrying as much about rotation.
They didn’t have to do anything they could’ve let knockoffs be knock offs, and kept to their core product, which is original cards and original themes. They did universes beyond to rake in the dough end of story.
Technically they would have had to make their own IP more appealing. It has been failing for years now. But instead they took the lazy / coward route in my opinion by trying to piggy back off of other IPS success.
WOTC wants 3 turns games. So modern/pioneer/standard all look the same. The power is creep is there to keep the games fast. Isn't cheaper to play poker by that standards?
STANDARD WILL BE CRAZY POWERFUL MORE POWERFUL THAN 2016 MODERN AND EVERYTHING SNOWBALLS SO THEY CAN MAKE A PLAYABLE SEPHIROTH
Sephiroth, dun dun dun dun dun.
OHBB, a Kevin rant? Let's go!
I say this because I'm likely gonna agree
Just like the tubers who give financial advice on how to live overseas with no money or selling courses. Humans are predators and sell to the sucker's 😂😂😂
How are you supposed to know doubling season isn't playable in standard? Is the symbol different? Wtf?
I like your rants
take the money, take the trade. Smile, and be grateful people want things you sell. I'd have been pissed if the dude would have bent the cards in front of me, as well. Its like throwing a meal on the floor. He could have given the cards to some kid, (or anything else) instead of just making trash.
Dude... I wish when i was a child they gave out pokemon cards for halloween. I only opened TWO packs as a kid... And for him to just destroy them? How could you damage them like that. Pokemon are supposed to be your friends! Why trash them...
So…. you are indeed aware that embercleave is not legal in standard, right?
Idk, that side rant seemed a bit out of place.
While a lot of the new cards for standard have been pretty good, I'm not happy with the overall format, but just the volume of cards between the list, special guest, commander sets, secret lairs, I just can't keep up anymore and everything feels cookie cutter copy and paste abilities all over the place. I've lost a lot of interest and am actually considering downsizing my old collection. I don't feel pride any more having those cards. I am starting to feel like a shill selling any sealed product anymore. It feels like the demand is all just fake and WotC will reprint and steal the money from people's collections at every opportunity. Nothing ever appreciates anymore or is exciting any more. Sorcery is just 10x better but so few people play.
I feel you. Hate being married to the game.
Magic is and always was a game engine. I don't like this UB crap in general but Magic wouldn't exist another 30 years without trying something like this. Also if they didn't do this then standard would never have come back.
I'll still just keep playing premodern
To be fair to WotC, standard is not a format that is meaningfully played and is unlikely to make a comeback any time soon.
Wasn't it WotC that killed the format?
Yeah thats why the game is dying.
Spiteful gatekeeping in terms of the "This is my nerd culture, and we went through x, blah blah blah".
However, I entirely agree with Magic being something I don't care about now.
But MTG Has utility! LOL!
wait, theyre putting non standard cards into the core 5 year set? haha omg theyre so dumb
I feel like magic is dead now
It's not a feeling at this point anymore. It's sadly factual.
Even the kids are ruining the love of card games now - company policies, scalpers, investors, over competetive 40 year olds and now the gen alpha investor bro offspring
Breaking News‼️
Utah LGS owner takes criticism from little Timmy after his pack has no Charizard! Shun the man!
First!
For someone scraping by running a game store in southern Utah, you sure do whine alot about your dominant product for sales.
Yeah when you know that the game is being damaged you get upset
@@JimmieFaethe data and sales point otherwise
@@MrRayRockstar it's called cashing in equity. They are doing an excellent job of pursuing short-term growth and profits.
@@JimmieFae yu only think it's short term because you're shortsighted
Hey, pokemon Go is getting a bit later 8 years later.
I hope you get some sort of therapy out of these videos, but you really have to come to a realization of a couple of things. First, you can't control what or why people buy TCGs, understand that not everyone is going to want the same things in life that you want. So if someone wants to buy and flip Pokemon cards why should that bother you? Who cares what they do with their money to get enjoyment out of a product? If your passion is old school MTG and you hate that anyone outside may start to find and enjoy that game in a way you don't, why does that bother you. Nobody is stopping you, your customers, your friends from enjoying the game you want, playing it how you want.
Second, I had never played a TCG before last fall when Lorcana came out, I knew what they were but didn't have time or energy to learn how to play them. I am a Disney fan so a Disney card game gave me a chance to try something new, and I play twice a week at leagues, have made new friends IRL and online thru the game, and as a result of playing Lorcana I have learned more about other games and let me tell you I love that people are enjoying Pokemon, from playing the game, to investing, to running stores or selling online, I love the people have a passion that makes them happy. I was gifted a collector booster of Bloomburrow from a friend, who knows I love critters and animals, when I saw things like the field art cards I knew I wanted those in my collection, not to play MTG, but simply because I love the art and creativity of the cards (go ahead and hate me all you want). Then at NYCC a friend was sending me pictures from the Marvel/Secret Lair panel, we are both huge Marvel fans, from movies and comics, to games and pin collecting. Guess what you will hate me more, I love what they are doing and releasing next week. I will be fighting for my place in the virtual line to buy those cards, because I love the art, the characters and the imagination that goes into the creation of them. I still have no desire to play MTG, or Pokemon, but I appreciate them for what they are and if someone else finds joy and passion in buying, playing, collecting, flipping, or bending the cards and throwing them on the floor, who am I to say no to their joy?
I do understand you don't like interlopers into your world, and that you want things to be the way they were when you fell in love with MTG, but the world and times they are a changing, so find what you still enjoy in this space and enjoy it. If someone finds something completely different that they enjoy in this space, why should that bother you? The last month has been watching you simply implode and it is kinda scary to someone on the outside, my friend if your joy or frustrations come from what other people do, it is a very rough world out there. Find what makes you happy, find what brings you real joy and focus on that, I know as a businessman all of it impacts you, but you can only control what you can control and losing sleep or peace of mind over what you can't control isn't healthy. Find your joy again, cause that guy made great content.
I attack with my little pony and defend with captain america
Just sell to that kid. Other than that. I swear, alot of these mtg complainers come across as the kids in the back of the cafeteria who now have a chance to spew out their BS. Gatekeepy much of your hobby? Wtf. Love the hypocrisy. This is why you dont listen to plebs.