Exactly! Basically, it's down to building a Cube if you don't want to play with outside IP. At this point I'm just going to maintain my cubes and EDH decks and not bother with anything else.
The amount of online pissing and moaning about bloomburrow, a setting that follows the rules of mtg, really shows the either mtg is too big and can't please everyone or that you genuinely don't know what you want.
@@Medowokha-bp5lq Pissing and moaning is almost the entirety of Magic's internet footprint anymore. Personally, I loved Bloomburrow (enough to make a set cube)
I think 13:04 is the most cynical take I hear over and over again from UB defenders. That magic's story or flavor has never been a selling point. But is was why it was unique. No other card game has a spice8rack or a rhystic studies. UB has me moving to yugioh, and they lose their mind over even the implication of a story among a few cards with no written text at all. Like "the eldrazi take inspiration from other works of literature" like everything ever written?
What's funny is yes, magic's flavor has been a selling point. I remember the armada Comics that followed lore, the novels that came in fatpacks, or the sets themselves having story elements as a big deal. The invasion block where the phyrexians were finally in dominaria, urza became corrupted and yawgmoth was defeated? That was all a selling point as much as if not more than kicker or the Volvers. New Phyrexia? War of the spark? huge story events where we'd see the events and results in the cards. Dominaria had me excited because Darigaaz made a return. Now it's just wait for batman meta to hit commander and counter it with daffy's rabbit season.
Also the same reason why many were pissed at how writers made an impressively awful job with the latest important story bits of magic and how they set up an extremely cool concept (phyrexia invading a bunch of planes) for them to just do basically shit nothing with it. Or Garruk being cursed for ages just returning to form in an afternoon. The story and lore has a ton of potential and they waste it continously. This UB direction seams like they just gave up, decided it was too much of a hustle and they couldn't make it work so just screw it and go with the easy path.
I think people are also missing that with 6 standard releases a year now we are going from a standard that used to be at most 7 sets to now a standard that will be 18 sets plus foundations. How the heck WotC will get people to buy the latest sets without some power creep is beyond me. They are backing themselves into a corner with this cadence until every set has to have some power crept chase card or be essential Standard Horizons.
I was happy with faeries and Dimir finally back on the menu for standard, and then they said they will have 6 standard sets a year and half of them being UB (which I hate).... All the entusiasm I had to start playing paper magic again went into the trash
@@_Ve_98players have consistently hated standard and preferred larger card pool formats. Pushing Standard to what is essentially the size of old Extended makes sense, Extended was popular but players didn't play it because it was a second rotating format that was also secondary in tournament support from WotC that kept players from picking it up.
Being told by the official face of the game that we shouldn’t be upset by this is the most obnoxious part - ‘you lost, get over it’ is a deliberate failure to address anyone’s issues and complaints. If I want to spend time in the Marvel universe, I can go to comics or films or games, and soon I can also go to MTG. If I want to spend time in the LotR universe or the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, I can go to films and books and games and all sorts, and I can also go to MTG. If I want to spend time in the Magic universe, I can go to hell because it is now a second-class citizen in its own game.
MTG just being just a card game is one of WotC's biggest failures. Especially when held up to something like Pokemon, which is a full franchise of different media.
@@EpicMEF or better yet, yugioh. Sure yugioh tecnically didn't start as a card game but everyone knows yugioh as a card game. And Yugioh's anime has continued to be extreemely well known and influential in pop culture even 20 years later. Magic should have something simular (sure they are trying to make a Netflix series but that thing's production has been absolute Hell)
I started playing in 2014 when a buddy gave me a monogreen deck and taught me how to play. I immediately fell in love with Kalonian Tusker. It was a vanilla 3/3 for GG. Unplayable outside of draft these day. But the beast was captivating! The artwork was amazing imo. Distinctly high fantasy, resembling something i knew, like a rhino or a dinosaur, but simultaneously unlike anything id ever seen. Even the shade of green used in the border was really nice to me. And what was Kalonia? Was it a place? Was it a people? I wanted to know more. The flavor text was amazing too. "All this time, i thought WE were tracking IT." It was so much fun stomping my friends 1 and 2 drops with that overstatted bad boi, until he got stonewall by a vanilla 4/4 and I had to figure how to deal with that. I was hooked so fast, it wasnt even funny. Bought the Jace vs. Vraska planeswalker duel deck the next day so id have my own cards to play with. And Planeswalkers! How fucking cool were these guys! Blew my mind after playing with the vanilla green dudes. They had their own flavor, personalities, origin stories, their own unique spells they could cast with their loyalty abilities. It was literally the coolest thing i had ever seen. And it was Magic. Just Magic. Magic through and through that pulled me in. No gimmicks. No adds. It wasn't trying to be anything else. It wasn't LIKE anything else. It didn't need to be. The artwork captivated me, the worldbuilding and lore enthralled me, and the gameplay was cerebral and thought provoking in a way I'd never experienced. I might just be a boomer now i guess. The proverbial old man shaking his fist at the clouds, reminiscing about the "good-ole-days", watching the world and the things he loves change and not understanding why. Not understanding why any of this is necessary when it was already so good. Good enough for me to go on and become a major tournament grinder. Ranked top 10 in my state in planeswalker points (remember those!), going to grand prixs, rcq's and like. It was good enough for me to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the highest end bling i could find. Started collecting duals. Got a judge foil cradle. I played Magic 3 to 5 nights a week for years. Got into legacy. Commander. Cedh. Pauper. Literally all of it. All of magic, all the time. Because i absolutely fucking love tbis game. More than any other hobby ive found. More than anything beyond my friends and family, most of which play magic too. And I'm sad to say the love has slowly faded. The "magic" is all but gone in my heart. And this announcement may be the final straw for me. The game has become something else now. Is it bad? Am i gonna yuck the new generations yum? No. It's just different. It's not the game that i fell in love with. And i know I'm not the only one who feels this way. "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain" It's been real, Magic We'll stay in touch, but i cant follow you down this path
I had a similar opening to MTG, my dad gave me an Eldrazi deck and i fell in love. For many of the same reasons as you, the art, the flavor, the playstyle, and the variety of them! Them and Phyrexians roped me into MTG...I wish they could go back to them...PLEASE WIZARDS, do SOMETHING over Emrakul in the MOON... Or retcon MOM, and bring back Phyrexians....
The biggest thing that pissed me off is that they pushed back the release of thier own IP (Return to Lorwyn) for another UB set. Thier own IP is being overshadowed by Magic shilling/advertising other IP's that arnt their own.
This is just the beginning. Soon original sets won't just be pushed back but cancelled outright (that we externally will never see) or even sets that maybe WERE going to be original art and lore will be retro-fitted to a different IP WotC just acquired rights to print as a UB set. Once Hasbro and WotC sees how much UB sets make by scoping up those fanbases for cash-grabs each quarter there will no longer be original MTG art and lore as those won't 'sell' as well as the 32nd Marvel set for the 4th set of 2029 called Returning Legacy to Iron Man.
I just feel abandoned. It’s funny; I don’t consider myself an old guard player; I only started in 2019. But these days my opinion is the boomer view. It just feels like wotc is constantly misleading and lying to us with no opportunity for us to give real input. It feels like I’m being betrayed so that they can milk a new cash cow, and that sucks. I’m simply not going to play the iron man meta of any magic format, so over and out I guess. My view is this: First of all, I think the addition of new players will be massively unsustainable. People who come into the game wanting to play spider man just aren’t going to buy in the same way people do when they get invested in the world and the lore. Also, even if people don’t hard quit the minute standard legal ub hits, I think there will be a lot of slow quitting - people who don’t quit entirely but decrease the amount they play because the fundamental atmosphere of the game has changed and it’s not as fun anymore. Regular drafters will become ppl who mostly play commander, then commander players who only proxy. Also, I don’t think ub and power creep are separate issues. If anything, I think they will amplify each other. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that one ring and bowmasters are both from the same ub set. As soon as sales slow down for ub sets, wotc will pour on the power in order to keep cards selling, both for profit and to keep themselves looking good to other ip companies. But most of all, I’m certain that this won’t work in the long term. The novelty is going to wear off and exciting ips are going to run out. And when that happens, there will be no way to go back. Hell will freeze over before wotc bans every ub card in order to bring back magic as it is today. Everyone can have their opinion on whether the game is dying, but the game as we know it is going to be gone and we’re never getting it back. Mark my words: in a couple of years a significant majority of people who play now are going to wish this didn’t happen. But there won’t be anything we can do.
As someone who started the game shortly after Dom 2018 came out I feel much the same. I’ve been slowly drifting away used to attend every pre-release event or at least buy the kits and play with family but with thunder junctions purposely skipped it, played bloomburrow which was great, and then the duskmourn prerelease date just completely passed me by I knew the preview were coming out but didn’t care a whole lot. I don’t think I will ever quit the game as in sell out completely but I don’t see myself trying to keep up in the same way especially with the increase in prices and the number of products. (Will they release commander decks for all of the ub premier sets?.) Foundations looks amazing all of the classic reprints is so much of what I love about this game and the new cards feels so right with them. Will probably draft it more than most sets and might even build a set cube for it or at the very least pick up a jumpstart box or one of the pre determined 350 card start collection and use that as a basic cube. As for commander I see a lot more interest going towards PreDH both to avoid UB + power creep and also general influx of cards which will increase even more if all the standard sets get decks. I do agree that this is unsustainable for multiple reasons. What makes this worse is I don’t see them staying even at this greatly accelerated rate but increasing even further which will likely increase the damage and how fast it will occur. I don’t think this will kill the game but no matter what happens it will leave scars.
@@oldbordergeek the unspecified fate of the lorwyn set makes this feeling much more intense. As for the overarching magic ip story it feels like we will get a comic book style reboot at some point which in it’s self is a troubling sign. Not that there aren’t any good magic ip stories from this year but troubling trends. Obviously this is the complete opposite direction we are going but imagine if mtg had something like the black library.
@@ashdog9235if you started in 2018 then you are already at about the end of the anticipated life cycle of the average Magic player within the game. I've been playing since 1995. Around 2004 on the WotC mothership Maro posted a article talking about changes in Magic design like no more counterspell in Standard. In it he talked about research data showing that the average player players for a few years and then moves on to another game, despite quality of the game etc....people get board and move on.
@@dooooooonuts756 it's because he doesn't have the spine or balls to actually say what he's thinking or in too much denial to see that the room being on fire is a problem or both at this point honestly.
One argument not mentioned: If you want to see the damage that UB does to a format, look at the price of The One Ring and tell me when and how is it going to get a reprint.
The point raised at 11:07 is weird. No, Chandra isn't simulating how she functions, this is the only environment in which she could function. There is no other environment for her to simulate, as WotC and Hasbro has failed to grow the Magic IP beyond the games. Creating an equivalence here between her existing in her natural habitat and Iron Man being simulated based on external sources (which is available in a variety of media: comics, movies, video games, breakfast cereals) seems very weird.
Not really, no. Chandra's mechanical identity is a large part, if not the largest part, of what creates her identity in the minds of its players. The art on the card, and her abilities, are all the vast majority of players know her as. Magic cards are a medium.
You're correct, magic isn't dead or even dying most likely. It's only dead to me and people like me who would sooner quit than turn Dora The Explorer sideways at a standard tournament. And that sucks as somebody who loved this game for 16+ years.
If those IPs were going to make it to standard, SpongeBob would also be doing so. I’m not a fan of what’s going on, but Vince is right here. We spoke with our wallets and unfortunately whether we includes me or you is irrelevant. This change will likely lead to an increase in new players and most importantly for myself, a hopeful return to standard being top dog. If standard becomes the spotlight format alongside commander, I’m sold…as long as the gameplay is still the gameplay I’ve loved for so long.
@@danielsnyder6159 Lets stop doing this "you're doing a slippery slope fallacy" bit eh? Especially when we've seen precedent be smashed time and time again?
@@danielsnyder6159 voting with your wallet is a myth, because votes are equal but wallets are not. for every 10 players that abstain, there will come a whale that will "invest" in cards and outspend them all.
@@brianmattei7134 I’m not sure if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me because of your use of question marks and the fact that “precedent smashing” could be viewed as a positive or negative depending on what you are claiming the precedent to be. Not knocking your comment, just not sure what side of this topic you’re on. To me, the precedent is that WOTC has announced, time and time again, new UB/SL products that have sparked some form of outrage backlash or controversy due to the IP they are representing being a number of “negative” reasons. Those reasons being things like the IP itself is cringy, it’s a bad fit with the MTG universe, way they are being sold is less than desirable, mechanically unique cards forcing players to buy from the drops (remedied by adding reskinned list cards/other ways to get the product), product over saturation, etc etc…yet those products have all (for the most part) sold incredibly well, played incredibly well, look incredible good, and (again for the most part) have fit better into the MTG universe than anyone would have imagined due to their design/flavor/mechanics and whatnot being made in a very MTG fashion - this all would be the way the precedent would be smashed. On the other hand, if the precedent being smashed is that we all said “slippery slope” from basically the very first secret lair/universes beyond announcement while WOTC claimed this was not going to be forced into standard, kept to secret lairs, will have MTG-skinned “replacement cards” available, yada yada yada…now it’s going to be 1/2 of standard sets minimum and is full of mechanically unique cards that don’t have MTG reskins …uh yeah that part I’m not thrilled about nor sold on. But to be fair, if UB/SLs didn’t exist at all and they just told us they were moving to 6 standard sets per year I would also not be thrilled nor sold on the idea. It’s just too much! Or is it? I don’t know anymore. I personally love the “extended” 3-year standard rotation and how large they’ve made the standard card pool. Couple that with the much better (for the most part) approach to card design in that we are regularly seeing the powerful effects be much more niche and fit better into specific archetypes rather than the generally good stuff bombs that everyone can put into every deck (one ring cough cough) and large but diverse standard is actually looking pretty good. Whether this actually keeps the format diverse or there is now just a much longer wait until the format is “solved” is yet to be determined. So I feel like for now I have to just wait and hope that they know what they are doing, as hard as that is, and pray that if things are blatantly not working they will quickly change their strategy. I think they really need to work on their marketing approach, their timing, and the things they like to announce that sound very concrete or like promises. They (lately) have made big announcement/changes like their ban policy, extended standard with foundations lasting at least 5 years, adding UB to standard until at least 2029 or whatever it may be, and then shortly after seem to make another, and another announcement to change things again or go back on something they’ve just said. They need to slow down, change things a bit more gradually, test the waters a bit more, and hold off on any big statements that lock themselves into either an unwanted commitment to something not working for the sake of sticking to their word…or…doubling back on their own words/promises and losing more and more trust from the public. Whatever the case IMO people need to settle down with their opinions a bit and stop being so dramatic. I’ve been playing MTG since the earlier years (I’m 39 and started in 7th grade so…26ish years?) and absolutely adore the game. I love the art, the mechanics, the lore no matter how loosely connected to the game it may be, I love the competitive aspects as well as the janky fun stuff…seeing all these IPs that I don’t really care about does kinda suck butt, but I also love that there was/is lord of the rings! Bob Ross! Cowboy bebop! Warhammer! FINAL FUCKIN FANTASY! So I need to stay in the perspective that it can’t just be ok when I love the IP if it’s not also ok when I don’t…because somebody else inevitably will love it. My biggest concern is how much of it we’re getting and how far they will go. There needs to be a line we don’t cross because now things are a bit more impactful as we put them right at the top of the of the table in standard letting everything trickle down to all the other formats as well. Who knows, maybe we’ll see the first ever banning of an entire set if something they do causes such an enormous outrage - like Dora the explorer 😂. I could discuss this all day so I’m gonna stop lol. Have a good one 👍
@squid8520 You see, in English there's a rhetorical tool called hyperbole. It's when you exaggerate a situation to the point of it being ridiculous and obvious to make a point. I seem to have missed the ridiculous and obvious mark by using Dora the Explorer in standard here. You may want to consider why you didn't think that was obvious.
always remember mtg isn't the only tcg, sorcery and flesh and blood might be more to your liking, and i know they have less online support and might not be played at your lgs but that's why it's nice to bring it up, introducing it to people will make them more accessible in time (not saying that you should give up mtg, just that you might find more fun in other games if you give them a chance)
No, but you don't understand, Invasion block had some mech suits in it and that means that Magic was never actually base fantasy Also the fact that there's a difference between an Innistrad cathar and a Theros hoplite means that Spiderman fits in perfectly
Magic has literally never been "sword and sorcery" which is an actual fantasy subgenre. It's also never been really traditional western fantasy. You should just be honest and say "Change scares me". I mean why did you keep playing after Arabian Nights? or Three Kingdoms? Or Neon Dynasty? Or Strixhaven? and so on. You are whining that Magic is no longer something it never was in the first place.
@@IdlestHands It may have never been "sword and sorcery" specifically (although that feels a bit pedantic to me), but the only way you can claim that it's never been traditional fantasy is if you have an exceedingly narrow view of what traditional fantasy is.
Having an increase of Universes Beyond can only mean one of two things: 1. They will eventually run out of popular IP they are able to use, so they'll return back to previously used IP (like LotR 2). 2. They run out of popular IP, then just start scraping the barrel.
They are already scraping the barrel. All of these IPs are so oversaturated and have been experiencing massive fan-base dissolusion. Its like magic has sunken so low as to focus on this junk instead of its own worlds but also feels like these IPs have sunken so low as to try a magic set. There is a mutual lack of selfrespect that feels inherent in all UB product other than LOTR imo
There's an interesting long-term impact that Universes Beyond may have that I've not seen discussed much else where, and that's the reduced ability for WotC/Hasbro to license its own IP to other companies. Love them or hate them, Games Workshop has a massive volume of IP that they can license out to third-parties for video games, board games, television, and movies. There may come a day where GW doesn't need to make an actual profit from its tabletop range because its licensing revenues are so high. Warhammer 40K specifically is no longer a 'gaming' brand - it's a lifestyle entertainment brand. You can build, paint, play in person, play digitally, read, and, soon, watch 40K. The number of content creators producing high-quality entertainment (as in novel fictional content, not news, updates, and opinion pieces) is prodigious. The amount of lore videos, battle reports, and strategy channels is insane. WotC doesn't have that. WotC no longer has lengthy narratives that can easily be spun off into video games or tv shows. It doesn't visit planes long enough for people to explore and get attached. The last grand narrative that, for me, had any real staying power was the Guilds of Ravnica block that culminated in the War of the Spark, released in 2019. And those were 'Return to Return to' sets. I remember reading Magic novels when I was a kid, both the block cycle ones and the standalones/collection volumes (I still have 'Rath and Storm' sitting on the shelf, it being a book which mildly traumatized me as a child), hunting through used book stores to find them. The last new Magic book I purchased was Agents of Artifice in 2009, and only because of the promotional Jace card. All Magic has right now is the game itself, physically and digitally. Which means WotC/Hasbro is susceptible to massive financial swings when sales of their game fluctuate. We know that Magic is more or less holding Hasbro together. We know that when sales are high, Hasbro does well and that when sales are low, Hasbro does poorly. For me, the problem isn't that Universes Beyond is 'killing' Magic, it's that it's fostering a business mindset that is less open to investing in long-term financial stability by diversifying the ways in which people can engage with their IP. We've already seen that a few poor business choices - or a massive one like like Magic 30 - can threaten the stability of Hasbro as a whole. I don't play many video games these days, but if WotC licensed a solid MMORPG set in Ravnica where I could play as an Izzet Guild goblin, I'd be first in line. A DLC adventure in Segovia where I can win a Segovian Leviathan as a mount for the main game? Take. My. Money. But that isn't going to happen. Or at least, while there's enough nostalgia in me to move my tired, withered heart. I'm an LGS owner. Our shop was founded on Magic. We had a 40+ player prereleases just before the pandemic. We now struggle to get 8. There's a consistent cycle at the shop of new people entering the hobby, spending lots of money, and burning out after 4-6 months due to costs, the novelty of the game wearing off, or that there's just too much product coming out that they can't enjoy any one thing fully. People are spending money short-term, but there's little to no retention long-term. This is not because of Universes Beyond specifically, although it has been voiced by some of my entrenched players as an important factor in why they no longer play as much as they used to, if at all. It's an issue with the mindset and business strategies being used by WotC/Hasbro. If you don't like the gameplay of tabletop Warhammer 40K, you can still paint models. If you don't like to paint or the models are too expensive, you can always read the lore. Hate reading? Watch TTS. (Sorry. Too soon?) If you don't like the cost or direction that Magic is taking, you can always...What?
Exactly. I think this focus and the total lack of regard for the game combined are what will be the death-knell if there is one. They are banking that their rules will always be "the best" but tbh I think the cracks are showing in it. Then, some people will like "the game where you can fight gandalf with spongebob" until they no longer do, and like you said, nothing about the magic IP can keep them there.
You've described this feeling of mine in a way I couldn't. I agree with you. MtG moving more and more into UB makes people who are interested in those IPs check out MtG because of those IPs... not because of MtG. The moment the awe is gone, they aren't staying to play Magic. Even if they do, I'll wager that only an incredibly small amount of players will bother to buy another set. And if they do, they're going to buy another UB set. I think this is how WotC reasons it out and why they are going further in this direction. It doesn't change the fact it's shortterm gains over long term stability.
Gods, I am so fucking tired of Universes Beyond. Not every piece of media needs to be ground up into a flavorless grey paste and pushed down our throats. Maro says "if you don't want to play it, you don't have to" but the issue is that because this bullshit is legal in *every format* there's no place you can go where random crap from every IP under the sun isn't being played. You'll pull up to a commander pod and there's Ian Malcolm, Slicer, Old One Eye, and fucking Spongebob in the command zone. You want to sleeve up a white weenie deck for pauper, but realize that Shield Agent is a format staple and that you'll never be able to cut it in a tournament if you don't have some marvel bullcrap in your deck. You decide to play legacy, but realize that Sepiroth control is omnipresent and that your Goblin Rabblemasters and Chalices don't cut it anymore. Perhaps modern is free of it? In a way, it is because Modern gets rotated every year or two with Modern Horizons but all that means is that the churn is constant: each new UB set brings with it busted new staples that need to be played if you want to have a fighting chance. Just about the only places you have to play decks that aren't crammed with obnoxious popculture sludge are old-school and premodern. Two formats that hardly anyone plays, and which also exclude a significant portion of magic's history before it turned into a vehicle for other brands to peddle their slop. Art should have meaning. Meaning is derived from context. When you rob art of context, you rob it of meaning. I love lord of the rings. I enjoy spiderman; I just shared the original Raimi movies with my son. The into the spiderverse movies are an incredible achievement of mixed-media animation and tremendously moving. Final Fantasy 10 was a huge part of my childhood: I played for hours and hours on my playstation 2 when it came out. That doesn't mean I want to see Lulu equip webshooters and anduril and swing in, only to be blocked by a flashed-in Miles Morales who's in turn exiled by a Care Bear Stare. I think a lot of the existential angst and anger at this move from WOTC is one that's commonly repeated elsewhere: people want new stories and new ideas. Or at the very least, we want twists on old stories that make them new again. Spiderverse wasn't groundbreaking in concept, but it was a reinvisioning of a spiderman story which cast it's characters and themes in a new light. This blending together of IPs does none of that: it just smashes together disparate stories and themes in lieu of actually inventing something new, which is where the comparisons to Fortnite and Funko Pops come in. In Fortnite, there is no dread connected to a Xenomorph skin, no sense of otherworldly violation. There is only flossing. Funkopop spiderman doesn't need to learn how great power begets great responsibility, or struggle to define his own story as the entire universe tries to tell it for him. There's only a vague sense of recognition that you've seen it before, and that once upon a time it used to mean something.
I personally don't like Universes Beyond, never have. Magic the Gathering should be about Magic the Gathering. Spiderman is cool, but I don't see him fitting in Magic. Fallout was awesome (my favorite game series, especially have a love for Fallout 1 and 2) but in Magic it feels so out of place.
I feel you there, i liked most ip's that got in with universes beyond, just mot IN mtg. Dnd and lord of the ring were fine but dr who? Fallout? Not so much?
I'm not the biggest fan of UB aside from LOTR which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I feel like even in the current state I just don't see UB cards at the rate that the internet would suggest. You'd think we're already all playing Dr Who and Fallout theme decks or something, but I don't see any of those cards in eternal 60 card formats (at least not to the degree where they stick out), and I consciously don't add them to my commander decks for flavor or theme reasons. Idk, I think this whole issue is overblown, and to the degree that I see anything sort of "out of place" it's actually magic IP, like the cutesy bloomburrow style cards (which are fine but clash heavily with the in universe stuff I tend to go for).
I'm glad other people are having fun with it and are less doom and gloom than I am, but after a week I feel just as bad or worse about the announcement. This has killed any excitement I had for the future of magic, and I'm considering just selling out and being done with MTG. Even the 'Magic IP' stuff isn't exciting me because I know I will have to engage with the UB elements, and there is no format to escape that. It's just become something I don't recognize anymore. 10+ year player and as it's a bummer, but I think I'm just done.
I did made thousands proxies for the decks I love only kept 4 decks my two modern decks and my two pet commander decks. I started playing other tcgs they are just simply more fun and balanced.
My suggestion is not to sell your collection. If you don't want to play constructed against Desperate Housewives control, like I don't, just play with your friends the way you like to. The cards we own are not going anywhere after all and we are allowed to have opinions and preferences. This game and the whole universe revolving around it has had many ups and downs, in these thirty plus years I've played it.
I am glad you're still excited about the game, but for a lot of people (myself included), the vibe, art direction, and world of the game is just as if not more important than the mechanics or how a character is represented by those mechanics. I love magic, I've been playing for ten years now. But if it was presented to me as a pop-culture crossover game, I never would have started playing it in the first place. I don't like that kind of game, and it's not what I thought I was signing up for. I don't think this is the death of Magic as a game, but it might be the death of what I like about magic. I understand you don't feel the same, but please believe that if every commander game I play has one or more universes beyond decks in the pod, there will no longer be anything left for me here. And I think that day is rapidly approaching. I know you probably didn't mean to come across this way, but I definitely felt a little bit trivialized by some what you said here. Imagine if wotc radically changed a part of the game that you *did* feel was the core appeal? What if they massively simplified the rules of the game, like making everything happen at sorcery speed for example, in order to sell more packs to newer players? Being outraged over that wouldn't be an over-reaction. And the community's response to this current change isn't an over-reaction either. Because it is a fundamental change to what draws us to this game to begin with.
And yet, magic is still selling. You are in the minority buddy. Just walk away, bitching and complaining does nothing. The rest of us will still be here.
@@moonknight2865 It's called growth in the short term. I've been around near 30 years for the story, haven't bought in 10 because of it being diminished. Let's see how well this works out for you when the community is smaller and the reason you play is sidelined for monetary reasons.
i had such major problems with this video that i feel compelled to get it out here regardless of who reads it. i think your point about this being different from "fortnite-ification" doesn't really get to the heart of why alot of people, including myself, dislike this. i know that the designers are going to give it their all in making universes beyond mechanically interesting and properly representing the concepts they're representing, that was never my issue with any of this. my issue is that this is all a capitalistic money grab that is so horrifically short sighted and is directly spitting on the flavor of what has been built up for so many years. mechanically the game will still be fine but i don't want to play a game that is more about ads for popular properties than depicting a cohesive world. this reminds me of arguments involving video games where people try to say that "graphics" and such don't matter, it's all about the gameplay over anything else. a huge part of why i get invested in games is because i love diving into all the world and feeling like i'm a part of it, i wouldn't love zelda breath of the wild so much if it was mechanically the same but was a similar ip dumping ground for example. magic's lore and world building isn't perfect by any means but i'm kinda dumbfounded how disrespectful you were to it here. sure the inspirations behind many concepts are fairly obvious but that's true for a lot of creative works and your language and tone feels like a real insult to the work put into making those concepts unique in their own way. alot of the problems cropping up with the overuse of established tropes in the past year really feel like the result of overworking the designers to some degree because all of the extra products like universes beyond are really taking up alot of resources i imagine, so i don't think it's really fair to dismiss the merits of magic's stories for that reason when it's suffering as a consequence of this whole mess. i was so excited when i learned that we had true trans characters in magic's canon and losing that feeling of excitement over what can be done with the unison of card game mechanics and original storytelling doesn't make me a snob. magic will not die as some less than astute people are saying, but what made it special to me is possibly going away which feels like a death. it especially hurts when it's in service of corporate greed to try and court people who don't have the same reverence for the game and it's history. please consider that there are more reasonable takes beyond what gets the most traction and that alot of us are hurting over this beyond that.
Yep! PK is so in the wrong with this video, I had to tap out halfway through with how much he doesn't seem to even care about something he purportedly loves.
@@oldbordergeek the wotc precisely euthanized every other format by printing commander precons. EDH had the lowest bar for entry since at least 2017, which is where I started playing. Standard turned me off because of rotation, modern turned me off after I couldn't build the deck and had pretty hard time figuring out how do I buy the entire deck easily. Commander was there. Available, easy to enter and welcoming.
So the point you make at 11:07 is I think the one I disagree with the most, although I do think you raise a lot of good points and interesting perspectives throughout the video. I'm not sure how to put this, but a Magic card that signifies other IP feels fundamentally different from a Magic card that signifies Magic IP. The card that signifies Magic can signify basically anything, it can have basically any art and basically any name and type, so long as the designers feel those things all mesh well together. A UB card can perfectly signify through mechanics, art, name, and flavor text Gandalf. But it can't *create* Gandalf. Magic, through its own IP, *creates* brand new characters, settings, and themes to explore. It may have its inspirations, and sometimes even be heavy-handed about them, but it still *creates* something. Universes Beyond can only signify that which someone else created, where "Universes Within" signifies that which was created wholesale by its own signifier. Basically, I like Magic not just as a card game, but as a way to explore something new, and LotR, Final Fantasy, and Spider-Man aren't new. They were already created, they already exist, and no matter how perfectly a Magic card may represent them, the card can only exist to signify something which wasn't created to be signified by a Magic card, and is best experienced elsewhere.
Semiotics being deployed in the service of truth here. Some will disagree, or miss the point, but this is the feature which will change the heart of the game going forwards.
Magics IP it's lore is trash, I've played since 1995 I've read a bunch of the books which are trash and the comicbooks which are less trash actually but don't really grow the lore.
To work off this concept of Smash Bros analogy; it worked so well because it was its own ruleset and playstyle that conducted itself well to incorporating all of these different IP's. Universes Beyond isn't this, as we're adapting IP's into the Magic ruleset, it's more similar to classic fighting game introducing guest characters. While it is nice to have letters of love to the UB IP's, it's like having a little sibling now. I feel that the ship has been steered by people who care about raising profits, rather than creatives trying to deliver works of art; There's still plenty of creative people working on the ship, but the captain's getting the final say.
Smash Bros only added Nintendo characters recently. The analogy he made it is spot on. We already had Arabian Nights, Portal 3 Kingdoms both not Magic IP but utilizes the Magic rule system to tell another IPs story.
I normally agree with many of your points, but for this one, I very much disagree. I don't mind that these products exist, but I have zero interest in playing a mashup of IPs as a card game, so wotc is basically now saying to people like me that constructed isn't for us - that is wild, and a pretty extreme version of "this product isn't for you". Ps: thanks for all the great content :)
Just a suggestion, but you might look into the pauper format. It's still fun, competitive MTG but most of the UB content that does see play there isn't jarringly recognizable as UB. SpongeBob's Squarest Of All Pants is going to be printed as a rare or mythic, not a common. Most of the playable commons tend to be generic enough not to be out of place on one of the real MTG planes if not outright downshifts or reprints of older cards. Plus the majority of the economic benefit goes to singles sellers (insert your favorite LGS here) who get to sell some stuff out of their otherwise untouched, unprofitable bulk commons bins as opposed to directing more money towards wizards of the hasbro while they're doing... this stuff.
If Magic is only holding on to the old guard, then it truly has no future. Coming back from Magicon, and from my lgs, my takeaway is that this is an issue for old heads like us. The kids, the gen z & alpha future of the game enjoy it. I want WotC to design for them so they have the kind of adolescence I was fortunate enough to have- playing games like Warhammer, Magic, DnD, etc.
always remember mtg isn't the only tcg, sorcery and flesh and blood are just 2 other options and there are many more, and i know they have less online support and might not be played at your lgs but that's why it's nice to bring it up, introducing it to people will make them more accessible in time (not saying that you should give up mtg, just that you might find more fun in other games if you give them a chance)
I made a lot of points in the community post which I'm not going to repeat here, but one additional thing I do want to say is that the game isn't just the ruleset. That's not unique to Magic - theme matters, in everything. The game wouldn't be the same if it was about "I turn Permanent#835 sideways in order to reduce your point total from 20 to 17", "I use Non-Permanent#71 to put Permanent#835 into your discard pile". Even if someone doesn't care about the characters, or the plot, or the lore, the theme that provides context to everything is just as important a part of the game as the ruleset. The theme going from solidly high fantasy (which it really was for the longest time, despite what some people like to pretend) to a mishmash of whatever licenses they got ahold of this month does inevitably change the way the game feels for some people. Even if the rules operate in exactly the same way they always have, throwing Spiderman up against Spongebob still makes it feel like a different game in exactly the same way that Permanent#835 being discarded by Non-Permanent#71 does. Saying that it's still essentially the same game because the rules are the same, regardless of theme, simply isn't true.
At no point did I suggest "the game would be fine with no theming and vlank cards", no one is going to agree with that. And yes, the game is changing. Its a seismic shift. Again, not refuting that. Magic is changing drastically. I just dont think it's strictly for the worse, nor as damaging as people are saying it will be.
The first expansion was using a non-Magic IP. The second expansion set was filled with robots. The third one was a mishmash of all kinds of stuff including having an Albert Einstein card. The 4th one was re-imagining Universal Monsters. The game has never been a game of just high fantasy.
Looking forward to coming back to these optimistic videos when we get The Year of Universe Beyond with zero “Magic IP” and is the highest selling year of magic ever finally driving the last nail in the coffin.
@yScribblezHD I get it. I'm not worried about Magic dying. I don't think it will. I'm worried about it being a game I don't want to play anymore, not one I can't play anymore. Would be the final nail in the coffin on my interest in magic.
@@taylon5200 well I'm one of the mono-red degens so that never stopped me, but yes, it (and Gruul Prowess which only really splashes green in BO1) absolutely have got worse. You should've seen it when Leyline of Resonance was legal, we had turn three kills, it was hilarious and I'm glad they've banned it. Screaming Nemesis can shut-down one of the main weaknesses of aggro, life gain, now too and is a 3/3 for 3 with haste to boot.
What people forget is that the original canary in the coal mine was the silver bordered My Little Pony set. We went from silver bordered to Godzilla alt arts to Secret Lair to Modern Legal to Universe Beyond is now a common release as part of the cycle. Not enough people listened or chose to ignore it for shiny new cards, but the end times are coming. One of two things happened here. 1) We've been lied to the entire time. Every time they told us not to worry, they were already working with IP holders on future licensing agreements. WotC already knew that this was the direction they were going, because it should take years to hash license agreements and to add on set developments. 2) If this is a recent change in policy, and these new Universe Beyond sets are either reskinned future set ideas or last minute additions, then I fear another Nadu and The One Ring. It worries me about the lack of testing put into cards that have to make unique UB cards feel like those characters or items. And either way, it sounds like WotC and Hasbro no longer respect us as consumers. They are already messing with D&D. And now they're hiring influencers with signed lifetime disparagement clauses. Hasbro WotC doesn't respect you, and you shouldn't pay for their product.
We all understand that the fun is in playing, but what is happening now is if you are not playing with the most efficient newest cards, even at just FNM, you are either wasting your time or getting unsolicited advice on what you should play. Our choices have been taken from us in favor of the almighty dollar. The lack of enthusiasm at the announcements in Vegas should be a big indicator of that to you, and even those on the panel. It went over like a wet fart. No matter how many new dollars roll in the old dollars that got them here will fade away, and the fun parts about “The Gathering” are now tainted because many feel they should not have to engage with the newest cards just to be in the stores for a casual (read casual REL) event, but do not feel welcome in a place where everyone is in lockstep with every gaslit message from corporate about the next big thing. There should be a space for everyone, but now there isn’t. The focus is solely on the new and only the new.
I'm not so naive as to think Magic's dead, but it is true that Magic's priorities are now significantly different than what I would want them to be as a Vorthos. Universes Beyond makes me enjoy the game less, and that's been true since it started. I've continued to play when my friends use the cards, but as someone who likes to, for lack of a better term, roleplay in my Commander deck building and for whom Magic's own universe was the primary driver in my enthusiasm for the game for close to 30 years now, I always have less fun when those cards are involved. And now, I won't even be able to hop into Pioneer/Explorer as a palette cleanser This initiative is going to be successful in terms of sales and growing the game, but it's not really somewhere I'm comfortable following Magic. I'll be spending my hobby money elsewhere going forward, aside from maybe some singles here and there to tweak my existing decks if I find that I still want to play-I've been mulling that last part over for the last week, and I really don't know where I sit with it. But I do know I've got all the cards for a new deck I was excited to build sitting on my desk, with sleeves ready to go...and I just don't have the enthusiasm needed to bother even sleeving it up. Maybe with time I'll come back around, but I don't think I've ever been this discouraged about the game before
@@PleasantKenobi Fair, but I find it hard to believe Spongebob is going to engage with the mechanics either. It's going to be a Spongebob vinyl wrap around Magic cards. Or maybe Spongebob got real dark later on or something. It's not like this is Adventure Time, which has plenty of violence, conflict and death and I could see working pretty well.
It is now Funko pop the gathering because there is no limit to what they will commodify. They do not care about the integrity of the setting of high fantasy story and gameplay at all anymore. Now we are forced to put up with SpongeBob doing a Tokyo drift across a my little pony. The game is turning into one big reference, a meme. And like all memes, one day it’s not gonna be funny anymore. Hopefully when that day comes there will be enough players left that were loyal to the original formula that made the game popular in the first place.
Don’t piss on my back and tell me that it’s raining. Just because what makes mtg good has more to do with the mechanics and the design rather than art, story, themes, and flavour doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be better if all of these were good and had a consistent identity.
13:00 Ok, that's not remotely the same thing. Straight up importing things is not remotely the same as an original creation that has a vague resemblance to something else or some inspiration. Saying they aren't "new" because they use some trope is just plain nonsense, and when it comes to a game's identity a creation that fits and belongs to the cannon universe it's set in while drawing inspiration from elsewhere is an entirely different beast from an IP that doesn't belong.
Any time people are crying about a card game, they are overreacting. It's a game, relax. I'm not talking about you btw. I'm talking about the people that straight up believe the game is dead and are making death threats because they personally don't like the changes.
@@imnotacat5299 a game or story can matter dearly to people and anger is a natural reaction to hurt and or fear so i would not say they always are overreacting, they surely are reacting to a thing changing in a way no competitor is moving toward and seems to lose the original story of the game that was already quite in bad shape if we're honest
You can chart his response to UB and it lines up pretty well with Maro's, always moving the goalposts as things get worse and it always has to be the consumer who's wrong and making a big deal out of nothing. Gotta toe that line
@@grandpretredesalpagas4665Again, go back and look at who I'm talking about. If a card game has that much value that you are trying to justify people making death threats, then you need to reevaluate your priorities.
“Magic is about to have more success than Yu-Gi-Oh” First off, that’s not true. Currently MTG is struggling and declining in Asian territories, especially Japan. Every month and quarter its profits and sales move further down the chart. Final Fantasy may give it a boost, but most of these new universes are not properties the Japanese or other Asian territories care about. As such it grows domestically, but world wide Magic is beginning to salt the earth. Alternatively, you mention “yu-Gi-Oh’s mechanics could not support crossovers like this” Yet if we look at Yu-Gi-Oh, it has super heroes, magicians, aliens, decks based on food, decks based on V-Tubers, decks that are based on Eldorado and making zombies of gold, decks based on Star Wars, decks based on sports, decks for just about anything. As an example, let’s compare those DR. Who cards to Yu-Gi-Oh’s Dr. Who inspired deck “Time Thieves” they all have abilities based both on stealing, but also “jumping through time” by banishing themselves until another turn, essentially traveling to the future, as well as referencing cards that were going to be played by “stealing” cards from the top of your opponent’s deck. What’s the major difference between these two? Magic does not own Dr. Who, meanwhile Yu-Gi-Oh owns all the Time Thieves, both the cards and the characters. As such unlike Dr/ Who which can;t ever interact meaningfully, the Time Thieves are part of a larger lore relating to the S-Force, a group of cops who travel time and space to punish reality bending criminals. Alongside the time thrives there are multiple card groups who are also criminals the S-Force hunt, each of which have their own time space based mechanics. Now here’s the thing, MTG may be milking the west dry by using these crossovers, but if there’s no substance within the main game anymore (this year we’ll be having racing sets and revisits) then what do all those players who buy a box of Spider-Man and then leave have to stick around for? Japan is a good test for this, because Fallout and Assassin’s Creed and Dr. Who are not popular in Japan, and the sales are declining, because now there’s nothing to tell other people about in the card shop about why they should care about Magic as an IP. Maybe if Wizards made a new game like Weiss Schwartz or Union Arena just for crossover, it wouldn’t be an issue, but they didn’t, and it is. Alternatively, Yu-Gi-Oh is the 2nd best selling card game in Japan (behind Pokemon, duh) and one of the big 3 in the west, and probably the most played competitive cardgame world wide. While the anime contributes, a lot of this is thanks to the worlds they all built up. Does Yu-Gi-Oh have Spider-Man? No, but they’ve made a bunch of different super heroes and villains that they all own. Last year Konami showcased “Yu-Gi-Oh Chronicles” a short trailer showing many different stories within the Yu-Gi-Oh lore animated in various styles, with the announcement that Konami now has it’s own animation studio, and may start making TV series and specials based on the IPs they own and have created over 25 years. Now imagine if Magic, another series with a multiverse did the same thing, give people a rich reason to care about Magic, as a pose to rolling over and letting Sponge-Bob do the heavy lifting. Which is better for fans, and which has a better long term future? You can roll over and say “This is how it is” if you like, but why not look across the isle and say “This is how it should be” Just some food for thought.
@ Sales data out of Japan is released monthly. If you look at the most recent sales report MTG ranked 8th in overall sales in Japan. I can’t post a link because YT will delete my comment, but directly from the chart of September 2024 1. Pokemon, 2. Yu-Gi-Oh, 3. One Piece, 4. Duel Masters, 5. Hololive OCG, 6. Weiss Schwartz, 7. Battle Spirits, and then MTG in 8th. While it did best out Vanguard, Shadowverse Evolve, and a few new smaller new card games, it’s still been sinking, and while this is a month between two major sets (technically Duskmourn did release in September, but we can ignore that since not everyone buys on release day), the previous position MTG held was 6th. Given how much product is released and how hard Wizards JP works to push MTG (anime trailers, Japanese art, commercials, dedicated manga, and magazine advertisements) the steady decline of sales has not been spelling out any good signs. Keep in mind too competition is growing, a Gundam TCG is on the way. Furthermore as Hasbro makes MTG more American centralized this may spell trouble for overseas product entirely. Part of why Final Fantasy was chosen is likely to try and help with the Japanese market, however with Weiss Schwartz and Union Arena taking so many strong Japanese IPs Magic may not be able to survive if the rest of the products have the problems they’ve been having, and if the crossover sets continue to be franchises that are only popular in America, Europe, and some parts of Central/South America. Without as much focus on its own world to offer or characters to care about, there’s not much to offer Japan or other parts of Asia who are spoiled for choice. P.S. Check out DifferentFight’s channel, every quarter he does sales and cultural breakdowns of the TCG market in Japan. Highly informative and well made content.
It's all rosy once you're able to pay 1k for your meta deck that will be soft rotated out every 3 to 6 months. Then again, the cardmarket and TCGPlayer prices for Yubel Fiendsmith or Fire Kings Snake-Eyes are only estimates, and when you're in Japan your game is basically wholly subsidized by the TCG and its pricing. The whole process of how Konami brings cards to the West is disgusting. And yes, there was and is discourse around "if the TCG is worth it". Other than that, it's all fine and dandy.
I’m well beyond the line. Sick of it. Stopped playing paper a year ago. This is the nail in the coffin. It isn’t the game I even want to play. It’s just like playing advertisements. No!
It's a ridiculous fantasy that they're going to balance it in standard. This will lead to increasingly bad card design and increased bans. They're going to make each new IP the most pushed to appeal to the bandwagon buyers who can't stand to see their pet IP lose to an IP they don't like. Then when the next one comes out they'll mass ban the OP stuff from the last one or power-creep it with the new IP. It's exaclty what happens with IP crossovers in video games, the event items are tuned to be OP and nerfed in the next season. They aren't going to errata everything so it's either bans or power-creep.
@@AaronOneal-e7h Ever since Commander? Friend, one of the original moonshot dreams from the Magic design team was to design cards from Lord of the Rings, back before WotC ever had the time or money to try and work that IP mess out. Magic: the Gathering was originally supposed to be one of many similar games under the Deckmaster brand (fun fact; this is why Deckmaster is on the back of all Magic cards). Magic only ever continued printing itself because it ended up being so surprisingly popular. In essence, this is Hasbro corporate looking into the past of Magic's pipe dreams and making it a reality, in a sort of monkey's paw kind of sense.
I think you've misunderstood the Funko Pop comparison. It's not that the cards themselves are funko pops, it's that this trajectory aims to turn Magic: the Gathering into a Funko Pop mold. Rather than a game that supports and is supported by an original fantasy, it becomes just a rule set and card frame which serves as a vector to propagate existing IPs and ideas. Even the main sets become a place to slap known characters into different outfits and situations. Make sure you get your Daretti - Greaser Outfit Edition too!
I find myself disagreeing with a lot of your points here. Your description of Magic's story, like Phyrexia, just being a tropey amalgamation of different sources... that's genre writing, that's the creative process you're describing. Magic isn't "unique", it was genre writing doing a good job of worldbuilding for quite some time, and while it didn't nail the narrative most of the time for me, the fiction and creativity as a whole inspired people. Brandon Sanderson was inspired by this stuff and has a book empire based on good genre writing, Tolkien's whole world was an amalgamation of myths, so people trying to downplay the story as one of their points are just admitting they never understood how this worked to begin with. It was my whole reason for participating in the game for as long as I did, near 30 years, which was just as valid as people wanting tournament play. It's fine, Magic is a game of many parts to engage with, but hearing the eternal "the story was never good" and its many remixes like this is one is what gets us here. I won't be around to lament the mechanical degradation and format-busting new cards in the future because people keep hacking away at peoples' reasons for playing being invalid - "here's why you shouldn't be disappointed in the game, story never mattered" is shrinking the community. It'll be just you when your reason for playing gets stripped for parts.
Vorthos is one of the big player profiles. Quite a few people care about how magic does it's lore. A universes beyond set can never really tell it's own story. All they are allowed to do is retell an existing one.
"I'm remaining cautiously optimistic." * Sigh * * Removes glasses * You know...I used to buy comic books on a weekly basis. And I distinctly remember, back in 2010/2011, when DC Comics was ramping up to do its "New 52" reboot. Everyone was justly angry/anxious about their beloved fictional universe ending and being replaced. DC, of course, rushed to do damage control. Insisting that the obvious reboot was NOT a reboot, but just a relaunch. It was a lie. Just a direct, overt falsehood. It was a reboot. The old DCU was dead, and would remain dead for the foreseeable future. (Half a decade, as it turned out). But I was young and less cynical at the time, so I consciously embraced a cautiously optimistic view. As such, I bought a ton of New 52 issues, greatly expanding the number of issues I bought on a weekly basis. This tapered off quickly - many of those #1 issues didn't grab me. Nonetheless, I gave some series way more slack at the time - stuck with them longer - than in retrospect I really should have. It took far too long to fully internalize how awful the New 52 was, in aggregate. Plenty of gems in there, but plenty of duds. And not nearly worth what was lost, or the total disruption of an entire line of creatives working to tell long-form stories with beloved characters. (Many of whom died unceremonious metatextual deaths, never to be revived). The New 52 was a formative experience for me. It laid a brick in the wall that would form my hatred for Capitalism, and a seething contempt for corporations. It taught me never to trust a company at their word. Because they have little to lose from lying to their customers, and more money and control to gain. And if a company is willing to lie to peoples' faces about something so low-stakes as a decades-old superhero universe going away, how readily will they lie about something that actually matters? The New 52 isn't THE reason I'm anti-capitalist. Rather, it opened my eyes at a time when I was conservative and pro-capitalist. Allowing me to see corporations and their owners for what they really are: ravenous, black-hearted ghouls with no souls. I cannot remain cautiously optimistic about Universes Beyond. I've been burned before. I know better than to give a little ounce of credit to a soulless corporation.
You aren't giving the credit to the soul-less corporation, but instead, to the creatives who shepherd and direct the game. Lord of the Rings is what we get, when Wizards are working in full swing. And I am ok with that.
"Young and less cynical" bugs me a little. Why do we just accept that with age comes cynicism? It doesn't have to. You can choose to engage with things that make you happy, and reject that which doesn't. The power is ultimately in your hands, regardless of what some faceless corporation decides.
The New 52 - you mean that thing that didn't last forever, that ended up being just one more half-baked reboot thrown on the pile of half-baked DC reboots, and that didn't prevent the artists and writers to do great things since it happenned? Seriously, apart from boneheaded story decisions for some characters, New 52 didn't really matter all that much, just like DC Rebirth or Crisis on Infinite Earth didn't. "Continuity" in superhero comics is and has always been a paper-thin farce. Read the good stories, ignore the bad ones, and don't worry so much about the "canon". The New 52 is not just the least if capitalist sins, it's barely a sin.
@@maidenless_tarnished Fingers crossed it'll be at least more in the vein of early Marvel Swimsuit issues and not later ones, or gods forbid Zenescope.
@@Malidala isn't that just secret lairs tho. They already got anime art hatsune miku cards. Anime art rakdos in a swimsuit is just around the corner lol
I don't think the argument about how magic's stories are unoriginal is a good one because storytelling is mostly about how to take common tropes, themes, and story points and turning them into something of your own which magic has been doing before they removed sets block. Magic has been using flavor and cards mechanics together to bring Magic cards to life for a while now and that is what a lot of people who play the game casually resonate with and bringing up competitive people into a discussion about the "soul" of magic doesn't even make sense since many of them just play what will make them win more games as they are mechanics focused.
The more it sinks in, the more I actually feel depressed. Not just "bummed, but I'll deal with it," rather "thinking about this future makes me feel like I'm holding back tears..." Sounds dramatic, but it feels like a lifelong friend is moving overseas & won't be returning. Maybe every once in a while, we can get on a video call & reminisce, but the friendship we had is simply no more.
How much of this would have gone better if the UB sets were like Alchemy? An expansion to the current Standard pool as a separate format instead of just BEING in Standard?
Maybe I'm off with this, but I'm hearing way more: "This won't kill the game, but it won't be the game I like" than "this is going to kill the game" right now. That could be more dangerous for the gane because rather than angry about a change the community feels tired and sad. When the community is angry at least they're passsionate about it. Could be wrong, hope I am.
This feels exactly like the addition of Hats in Team Fortress 2, and the subsequent repeated jumping of the shark trying to squeeze money out of the playerbase.
At least tf2 hats are solely cosmetics, and 99% of the times you are at a disadvantage if you use them since they make you more noticeable (we don't talk about the green pyro). This stuff is borderline mandatory if you want to play competitive. You could say that tf2 also has a pay entry for comp since you need all the weapons to have all the options, but you can get every non-reskin weapon for like 3$ in total on third party sites, so I still prefer it over what wizzy is doing
@@noszelias TF2 is absurdly over monetized and it irreversibly damaged the cohesive art style and aesthetic the game once had as they kept pushing the envelope and creating new ways to spend money. While the different planes of Magic the Gathering may have always had very different themes and genres, what remained unchanged was a cohesive style that everything stuck to. I think we are definitely losing that in the same way the style of TF2 was corrupted by the constant addition of more and more outrageous and goofy hats and particle effects.
Funnily that was around the moment I started to quit tf2 as well... I mean I kept playing for maybe a year or two, but the hats were sort of the gutshot that slowly bled my enthusiasm out. But then I know that for some people that era was the golden age. So this is the end of an era and the start of a new one. Brighter, less unique... Who knows. My advice would be to keep a few cards or decks that mean something to you and sell/donate the rest while they're still worth anything.
I think the video that James Stephanie Sterling did on Multiversus really hits on what makes this shift in Magic feel really bad. Eventually the breaking down of borders between the universes of Magic and Universes Beyond will create a thing that doesn't have any of the specialness of either component. It isn't the "death" of Magic, its the changing of Magic to a different thing that a lot of players don't enjoy because it feels so radically different in it's tonality.
I agree. Eventually UB will be so common that the 'original' art and lore that made MTG will just be considered 'meh' to most who buy into the multiversus stuff. Those people will control the buying power of MTG and WotC will see those non-UB sets sell less. As they see the sales aren't as good as the next IP from a frothing fanbase they can capture expect more original sets to be delayed or just completely removed from ever being printed again in MTG. Eventually we will just have this crazy clash of every IP you can possibly imagine and to some, maybe even many, its extremely jarring when you enjoy a certain medium because it USED to have a cohesion in lore and art style that was high fantasy with magic, swords, and medieval era feeling. WotC is a company, they could care less about the sanctity of legacy MTG. Whatever makes the shareholders more money they will do it and toss aside any originality in the process. They already lied about UB ever being a core requirement and here we are 4 years later. Who is to say 4 more years from now they reprint every reserve list card as some wacky UB card tarnishing some of the most historic cards like the Black lotus to now be the "Infinity Gauntlet" from Marvel Avengers (I'm not against reprints, but the idea it takes other IPs to make them reprint is sad)... I hate this direction MTG is headed.
My problem with UB is that some executive somewhere will spend a morning on google and decide that their IP needs a "one ring". either a ridiculous chase card or just a broken power level, and wizards will relent and give it to them. before you know it every mega-corp with an "nerdy" IP has a vested interest in fucking our gameplay over
What about currently where psychic cyberpunk jellyfish are battling 1920s goblin gangsters along with vampires riding on mesoamerican dinosaurs? Any discussion about the "integrity" of the setting always feels incredibly disingenuous
I'm mainly an Arena player, but standard being in a good place now doesn't mean it'll stay that way. To me the format is already strained by having an extra year's worth of sets, especially in addition to the too short gaps between releases as we've seen with bloomburrow and duskmorn. As I see it, six sets per year, with low likelyhood of being mechanically cohesive, would honestly be too much to keep up with both in terms of collecting and playing. And that's not even to say the UB sets have an imperative of viability such that newcomers won't have their preffered IP be uncompetetive or unplayable as they release. Be free to correct me, but the incentives for UB modern sets being pushed seem the same as with standard, only starting on a lower level therefore bringing the issue to standard as the price for mitigating somewhat for modern and commander.
They'll keep working on whatever's successful - and with the right IP, UB will continue to outperform Magic IP sets. Especially when Magic IP itself is watered down with far too many outside references that are no longer subtle. In the long-run I still wonder if this is sustainable, what's retention like? what are the conversion rates of newcomers brought in via an external IP? what happens when other corporations want a bigger slice of the profits?
It depends on your definition of successful. If we wanna talk from a cynical money making point of view, UB sets might sell more, but a large chunk of the profits needs to be paid back to the owner of the IP as royalties, which makes in-universe sets just as, if not more profitable, even if they move less product. I'd like Wizards to promote their internal IP more for sure, but I don't see them ever doing away with original sets in favor of UB sets fully. It doesn't make sense financially.
Also, if they are going from the gate to get other stupidly popular nerd IPs, then UB will outsell original IP. Then, they focus less on it. Then, when they run out of stupidly successful IPs and only have their neglected IP, what next?
As I am watching this video I am typing my collection into Moxfield on my other monitor, I am selling out of the game fully. It's fine if everyone else want's to play Popculture Mashup: The Card Game, but it simply isn't for me, I am not even slightly interested. I love Warhammer 40k, I love Doctor Who, I am really nothing short of a Tolkien fanatic. This does not mean I want them in my Magic. Just because two things are good does not mean I want them blended together. If this is the direction Magic is going (And really I knew this was the direction from the day the Walking Deck Secret Lair was revealed and I should have probably just sold out of the game right then) then I won't be going along. I'm sure it will pick up many new players who just love Spongebob or whatever, but it is going to lose people as well.
14:00 This is a good point, inasmuch as Magic lore being a collection of other tropes and similar content. I hadn't thought about it that way before. However, it's also worth pointing out that the interest of players in those tropes came from seeing how the characters of magic navigated or subverted those tropes, and how they changed as a result. It's made me realize that maybe that's my problem with the new Universes Beyond Expansions: The fact that they're inherently stagnant by neccesity. They feel to me more like still capsules or snowglobes than something actually in motion at all. The copyright holders would never allow something new or lore disruptive to happen in a side product. The sets will be the same familiar world as any other IP crossover that the given IP would participate in. Of course, I'll also admit that this would have been a lot stronger of a take if the tropes of the main Magic story were a lot less surface level than they have been in modern sets. When they weren't as shallow as just "Detectives" or "Fairy Tales" or similar. Maybe this is more an indictment of the move away from block style set releases than anything else. Regardless of my take, still an insightful video.
The thing is, it really isn't, or hasn't always been, a mashup of tropes anymore than anything else. The Borg from Star Trek don't have a god they worship or send out sleeper agents to infiltrate worlds. The Eldrazi are hinted at having a purpose in recycling planes and behave in unique ways. Sure, the last year's worth of sets has felt like just magic characters trying out different genres, but there was a time when, even if the designers started with something like greek mythos, they put in the time and effort to make it unique, make it their own. Much of the lore and worlds draw inspiration from different tropes and genres, but so does everything. A lot of modern fantasy can trace roots back to Tolkien, but even he wasn't unique, drawing a lot of inspiration from a guy named William Morris. That doesn't cheapen his works at all or make them derivative, so Vince's argument rings hollow for me here.
It definitely feels like as UB has ramped up, and the product release schedule has accelerated, the thing that has suffered are the lore and characters of core Magic sets. Alongside really mechanically interesting takes on Doctor Who characters we were getting cheap, surface level "Detectives" and "Cowboys". There just hasn't been a lot of heart and soul being put into Magic proper at the same time as UB gets expansive and interesting treatments. All that to say I can't imagine increasing UB is going to be doing any favors, and the ongoing neglect of Magic proper is the real shame in all of this, regardless of how well-designed or fun the UB sets might be. The point for me isn't "UB can be fun", which, sure. The point is "what are we losing?"
"I don't think this is the end o magic" sure, the game will draw all those brainless Marvel fans that will buy anything as long there's a spider man logo on it, the game will survive, as for the IP magic, this one is definitely dead, but hey who cares about all those cool old worlds we used to see, remember Alara? Yeah it was just a bunch of tropes mashed together, Lorwyn? Yeah push it to the next year. Seriously Vince saying eldrazi is just a "trope" of eldritch horror is beyond insulting to those who carefully crafted those worlds, they sure we're inspired by the genre but there's nothing like eldrazi in current day media. Magic allowed visions of so many worlds, so many different weird niches and now even in its own cannon is it still trying to grab that Marvel/star Wars Pie. Even when it relied on tropes mtg worlds had it's own twists and uniqueness, it was a safe haven from the trends of the world but now it's just this husk of a universe made just to appease the already well served fans of other more famous IPS, it's beyond sad that it's all sacrificed for the sake of money. At this point wotc can just put AI into everything and people like you will be "at least the game will survive".
The love and care an artists put into work only counts if it’s done for universes beyond bro get with the program, who cares about the tropes in innistrad or for the eldrazi. Let’s get something unique like spiderman or transformers
@@PleasantKenobioh, please - do continue. In fact, why don’t you make a video about elitism, gatekeeping, and toxic fandom in Magic! It’s going to go over *so well* with all the actual fans of the corpse of this game you’re gleefully dancing on. I’m sure you’ll get loads of Walking Dead, Spider-Man, and Jurassic Park fans in here coming to your defense. But, as long as they come here to like, share, and subscribe, everything is all good for you, right?
Universes Beyond...what? Beyond what? Magic! I get it. It's for players beyond those interested in the MTG universe as such. It's perfect for casualness of commander. It's all there, from proxies to alters already. But standard? UB being practically inescapable? Man....I mean....premodern is still there I guess. I'm just sad. And Prof has had a spot on take on this topic for me. From the ministry of silly hats in spirit (karlov manor/thunder j.) to literal Monty Python and now full on mash-up bonanza you can't opt out of. Having something for everyone is nice. But forcing everything on everyone...man....
I don't know, I get your point and even if I'm a relativly old player, I'm not quitting... But between the power creep, the ammount of releases and the dilution of the Magic lore, I feel... Detached, alienated. The stories with the gatewatch saga, Bolas, Phyrexia and the Eldrazi were lucklaster and rushed because there was no way to explore them well without a block system for releases and secondary products like books, shows, games... I don't know where I'm going with this, this are some personal feelings and toughts more then a well presented argument.
As a relatively new player (tried the game a few times last decade, fully bought in during Brothers War), it just feels like they're always holding back and always making it hard for themselves. WotC is not doing anything objectively wrong or logically inconsistent or profoundly unacceptable, they just keep screwing around and taking actions or inaction that make people question if they understand what I bought the game for, to the extent that it matters. They're not killing the game, they just don't get me (or a lot of players I know) and it's fine for me to say that I feel. Magic isn't going anywhere, my playgroup and I will just ignore this stuff and everything is gonna be fine, but yeah, I dunno, I think it's good to speak up. Maybe what we need to do is to start putting forward our constructive vision for the game instead, every Universes Beyond complaining thread we should just say "I would buy two booster boxes of Dominaria Remastered 2." or "I'm so hyped for Lorwyn in TWO years, I can't wait!" and maybe they'll listen. Telling them we don't want something after they announce it isn't working.
I normally really love your stuff but just to briefly say, without even getting into the arguments really. A huge amount of what you say is based on "Well...Mark Rosewater said..." respectfully why do you give a damn what Maro says anymore? He's someone between Not in the loop/Corporate mouthpiece to actively lying. The usual rebuttal is "yeah well he said that a long time ago, opinions change man" well fine sure a few years ago he said that they'd never be in standard. Then we heard "dont worry about balance problems guys, we've been planning this announcement for YEARS and all the sets were designed with this change in mind" something is...cranky there. The other part is "They wont remove Magic IP entirely" well why not? Is the justification for these UB sets not that "they make biggly money" in that case, why ever make a real magic set again. If all the crossover products sell gangbusters, why bother with a bloomburrow or duskmourn which are great sets with cool art and so on but they dont make LOTR money.
Ya'll were SOOOOOO EXCITED for the walking dead and Lord of the Rings, but plenty of folks were standing around the edges of this thing, telling the rest straight up, "This is how it begins". Slippery slope my arse it was a cliff and WOTC jumped off it chasing after $$$. This was inevitable the moment Hasbro realized they could dip into other 'IP' and make a killing without having to actually own those characters or do literally anything to develop them. Why work so hard at designing new sets and cards when you can just cut-and-paste from Marvel?
@@PleasantKenobi My problem with your take throughout this video is that you acknowledge the slippery slope and yet downplay all the negatives. The doomers that were called idiots and fools before turned out to be right. "The end of Magic" has always been a dramatizationon, on that we agree, but the spirit of the game will die long before the actual product does and we are watching that happen now. This "Fortnitification" is the death of that spirit. Your take is so rose tinted it almost comes across as condescending.
I’ve recently completely 180’d from Magic to Flesh and Blood and I didn’t realize how much copium I was on with Magic. Don’t get me wrong, I do still enjoy Magic as a game and I honestly LOVE the IP when they actually decide to use it. But I’m so sick of Universes Beyond that having another game to jump into made me realize how bad Magic really has gotten. Anyone feeling this way, if you haven’t tried FaB, I’m sure your local store has at least one other person interested in it. Pick up a blitz deck and give it a try! :)
It's not just that it's hitting Standard, though, it's that they are making so damn much of it. Especially since, as Duskmourne shows, even half of the Magic-IP sets might not be Magic.
if nothing else, it's heartening to see just how many people agree on how utterly ridiculous and pathetic what has been done to magic is. i would be far more depressed if everyone around me were cheering and i was alone with these many, many frustrations.
They are alienating their loyal customers in favour of short term profits. The turnaround could be catastrophic for Wizards. At least I will always have my cube.
The problem with making everything legal everywhere is , you cant just enjoy a 1-off. You /have/ to enjoy Spider man AND Final Fantasy AND whatever comes next. If you don't, it'll push you out of those formats faster than anything else. This is the first year in my mtg playing life I'm not interested in picking up a single set.
One of my biggest concerns is UB sets having way overturned cards to make them necessary to remain competitive, since Wizards will have to prove they can move product to get future deals from other IPs
Oh right. These external IPs probably do have licenses and such. Nothing says scarcity like a set that cannot be reprinted due to expired license agreements.
The contribution that flavour and theme make to a game can be kind of... slippery, and hard to appreciate. But imagine if MTG's game pieces were merely coloured cardboard with no art, no keywords or game terms hinting at magic, just pure rules. Or, imagine if a 40K game was played with only unpainted obelisks and shapes of different sizes, rather than models. The creative aspects of a game are not secondary. Drawing you into the fantasy of the game universe is a very big part of each game's entire attraction. You cast an edict to kill that creature, and your gaunts ate those marines. MTG is on the road to phasing out its "IP" from its own game. I feel confident in saying that MTG's universe within is an important part of the attraction of the game, and I guess we're now part of an experiment to find out how important it was. It might be fine, or it might be fatal, but it seems like an insane thing to even try.
Didnt PK say something along the lines of "I dont want to aee pokachu riding flittershy into battle while holding the one ring. It isnt MAGIC" towards the beginning of the universes beyond releases? Like, you can change your mind on how you feel, but when you say you always lowkey loved UB, that feels kinda disingenuous.
It is, he’s a shill… this is why his opinion and TCC’s shouldn’t matter anymore because they’re hypocrites and will say anything people want them to to gain public favor
the main problem is that they're game pieces, and now legal in the most basic format, standard. so if you want to play the game from here on, you will have to keep up with all the various IPs they put out, even ones you absolutely don't give a crap about, or face losing to, let's say, The Spot over and over again.
corollary: in order to counter The Spot, above, you'll need Pinkie Pie to eat a Big Mac and wear Balenciaga shoes that aren't even horseshoes. so now you've got three more IPs that you have to invest in, all of which are effectively just brand references, in order to win a game and gain up to 8 more packs of advertisements-disguised-as-a-game. yeah, I'm done, again. Got back in to play with my kids, really, really not looking forward to this.
I mean, isn't this just how the game works anyways? Let's say I'm a standard player and I really enjoyed March of the Machines but I don't like cowboys and detectives and silly horror movie references. I'm "forced" to keep up with sets I'm not interested in so that I don't get my ass kicked by a ghost buster or Oko in a cowboy hat.
to be fair even if magic becomes more successful due to these crossovers, it won't be magic's success but Spongebobs and don't you forget it. Magic as an IP is dead and now it has taken the new form of a billboard ad but now it's only a matter of time before magic is replaced by another game no matter how impossible that may sound to you, things change and spongebob is the proof.
This is like if Metallica announced they’d only be releasing Garage Days style albums and half their live sets going forward would be off of those cover albums. Some people would say “well, they haven’t written anything good since 91 anyway”. Some people are devastated they’ll probably not be able to hear anything off the first four records live 5 years from now. And some people just want to hear James sing “Baby Shark” and “Espresso”.
12:05 It's Wizards of the Coast, the "inventors" of Dungeons and Dragons. A lot of those "stale tropes" were introduced or at least popularized by WotC itself before they became said tropes.
I think the difference in reaction to finding out we will know MSRP and finding out the future of the game is very telling. I may be remembering this wrong, but arent people usually excited when they show next year's release schedule?
If PK and Prof release a video on the same topic on the same day, is it just a sawed-in-half episode of Dies to Removal?
I'd like to think so.
I miss 'Dies to Removal'.
Yes. Yes it is
It is a split card.
Dies // Removal
We must stitch them together into one mega video, creating a video version of Frankenstein's Monster. Dies to Removal lives!
I think the problem is all the other IPs they are bringing in still have place where you can experience just those IPs. Magic no longer does.
Arguably Magic itself was a bad place to experience it own IP. Which has been comically badly managed.
This describes how I feel about the game. Thank you so much.
Exactly!
Basically, it's down to building a Cube if you don't want to play with outside IP. At this point I'm just going to maintain my cubes and EDH decks and not bother with anything else.
The amount of online pissing and moaning about bloomburrow, a setting that follows the rules of mtg, really shows the either mtg is too big and can't please everyone or that you genuinely don't know what you want.
@@Medowokha-bp5lq Pissing and moaning is almost the entirety of Magic's internet footprint anymore. Personally, I loved Bloomburrow (enough to make a set cube)
I think 13:04 is the most cynical take I hear over and over again from UB defenders. That magic's story or flavor has never been a selling point.
But is was why it was unique. No other card game has a spice8rack or a rhystic studies. UB has me moving to yugioh, and they lose their mind over even the implication of a story among a few cards with no written text at all.
Like "the eldrazi take inspiration from other works of literature" like everything ever written?
What's funny is yes, magic's flavor has been a selling point. I remember the armada Comics that followed lore, the novels that came in fatpacks, or the sets themselves having story elements as a big deal.
The invasion block where the phyrexians were finally in dominaria, urza became corrupted and yawgmoth was defeated? That was all a selling point as much as if not more than kicker or the Volvers.
New Phyrexia? War of the spark? huge story events where we'd see the events and results in the cards.
Dominaria had me excited because Darigaaz made a return.
Now it's just wait for batman meta to hit commander and counter it with daffy's rabbit season.
Also the same reason why many were pissed at how writers made an impressively awful job with the latest important story bits of magic and how they set up an extremely cool concept (phyrexia invading a bunch of planes) for them to just do basically shit nothing with it. Or Garruk being cursed for ages just returning to form in an afternoon. The story and lore has a ton of potential and they waste it continously. This UB direction seams like they just gave up, decided it was too much of a hustle and they couldn't make it work so just screw it and go with the easy path.
I think people are also missing that with 6 standard releases a year now we are going from a standard that used to be at most 7 sets to now a standard that will be 18 sets plus foundations. How the heck WotC will get people to buy the latest sets without some power creep is beyond me. They are backing themselves into a corner with this cadence until every set has to have some power crept chase card or be essential Standard Horizons.
I was happy with faeries and Dimir finally back on the menu for standard, and then they said they will have 6 standard sets a year and half of them being UB (which I hate).... All the entusiasm I had to start playing paper magic again went into the trash
It can be done and Wizards has been particularly good with design as of late, my biggest issue is that it's just too much all the time.
@@_Ve_98players have consistently hated standard and preferred larger card pool formats. Pushing Standard to what is essentially the size of old Extended makes sense, Extended was popular but players didn't play it because it was a second rotating format that was also secondary in tournament support from WotC that kept players from picking it up.
@@TheEvolver311 no? standard has historically been the MOST popular format. Smaller card pools make cheaper and more accessible formats.
Numbers must go upppp 💰
Being told by the official face of the game that we shouldn’t be upset by this is the most obnoxious part - ‘you lost, get over it’ is a deliberate failure to address anyone’s issues and complaints.
If I want to spend time in the Marvel universe, I can go to comics or films or games, and soon I can also go to MTG. If I want to spend time in the LotR universe or the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, I can go to films and books and games and all sorts, and I can also go to MTG. If I want to spend time in the Magic universe, I can go to hell because it is now a second-class citizen in its own game.
MTG just being just a card game is one of WotC's biggest failures. Especially when held up to something like Pokemon, which is a full franchise of different media.
When you get there tell the big, red horny guy I said hi and he still owes me $10.
@@EpicMEF or better yet, yugioh. Sure yugioh tecnically didn't start as a card game but everyone knows yugioh as a card game. And Yugioh's anime has continued to be extreemely well known and influential in pop culture even 20 years later. Magic should have something simular (sure they are trying to make a Netflix series but that thing's production has been absolute Hell)
Your username says it all
When I sit down to enjoy my spare time I'd appreciate if it wasn't a giant advertisement.
Not looking forward to This Set Sponsored By Raid Shadow Legends?
I started playing in 2014 when a buddy gave me a monogreen deck and taught me how to play. I immediately fell in love with Kalonian Tusker. It was a vanilla 3/3 for GG. Unplayable outside of draft these day. But the beast was captivating! The artwork was amazing imo. Distinctly high fantasy, resembling something i knew, like a rhino or a dinosaur, but simultaneously unlike anything id ever seen. Even the shade of green used in the border was really nice to me.
And what was Kalonia? Was it a place? Was it a people? I wanted to know more. The flavor text was amazing too. "All this time, i thought WE were tracking IT." It was so much fun stomping my friends 1 and 2 drops with that overstatted bad boi, until he got stonewall by a vanilla 4/4 and I had to figure how to deal with that. I was hooked so fast, it wasnt even funny. Bought the Jace vs. Vraska planeswalker duel deck the next day so id have my own cards to play with. And Planeswalkers! How fucking cool were these guys! Blew my mind after playing with the vanilla green dudes. They had their own flavor, personalities, origin stories, their own unique spells they could cast with their loyalty abilities. It was literally the coolest thing i had ever seen.
And it was Magic. Just Magic.
Magic through and through that pulled me in. No gimmicks. No adds. It wasn't trying to be anything else. It wasn't LIKE anything else. It didn't need to be.
The artwork captivated me, the worldbuilding and lore enthralled me, and the gameplay was cerebral and thought provoking in a way I'd never experienced.
I might just be a boomer now i guess. The proverbial old man shaking his fist at the clouds, reminiscing about the "good-ole-days", watching the world and the things he loves change and not understanding why. Not understanding why any of this is necessary when it was already so good. Good enough for me to go on and become a major tournament grinder. Ranked top 10 in my state in planeswalker points (remember those!), going to grand prixs, rcq's and like. It was good enough for me to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the highest end bling i could find. Started collecting duals. Got a judge foil cradle. I played Magic 3 to 5 nights a week for years. Got into legacy. Commander. Cedh. Pauper. Literally all of it. All of magic, all the time.
Because i absolutely fucking love tbis game. More than any other hobby ive found. More than anything beyond my friends and family, most of which play magic too.
And I'm sad to say the love has slowly faded. The "magic" is all but gone in my heart. And this announcement may be the final straw for me. The game has become something else now.
Is it bad? Am i gonna yuck the new generations yum? No. It's just different. It's not the game that i fell in love with.
And i know I'm not the only one who feels this way.
"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"
It's been real, Magic
We'll stay in touch, but i cant follow you down this path
I had a similar opening to MTG, my dad gave me an Eldrazi deck and i fell in love. For many of the same reasons as you, the art, the flavor, the playstyle, and the variety of them! Them and Phyrexians roped me into MTG...I wish they could go back to them...PLEASE WIZARDS, do SOMETHING over Emrakul in the MOON...
Or retcon MOM, and bring back Phyrexians....
The biggest thing that pissed me off is that they pushed back the release of thier own IP (Return to Lorwyn) for another UB set. Thier own IP is being overshadowed by Magic shilling/advertising other IP's that arnt their own.
This is just the beginning. Soon original sets won't just be pushed back but cancelled outright (that we externally will never see) or even sets that maybe WERE going to be original art and lore will be retro-fitted to a different IP WotC just acquired rights to print as a UB set.
Once Hasbro and WotC sees how much UB sets make by scoping up those fanbases for cash-grabs each quarter there will no longer be original MTG art and lore as those won't 'sell' as well as the 32nd Marvel set for the 4th set of 2029 called Returning Legacy to Iron Man.
I just feel abandoned. It’s funny; I don’t consider myself an old guard player; I only started in 2019. But these days my opinion is the boomer view. It just feels like wotc is constantly misleading and lying to us with no opportunity for us to give real input. It feels like I’m being betrayed so that they can milk a new cash cow, and that sucks. I’m simply not going to play the iron man meta of any magic format, so over and out I guess. My view is this:
First of all, I think the addition of new players will be massively unsustainable. People who come into the game wanting to play spider man just aren’t going to buy in the same way people do when they get invested in the world and the lore. Also, even if people don’t hard quit the minute standard legal ub hits, I think there will be a lot of slow quitting - people who don’t quit entirely but decrease the amount they play because the fundamental atmosphere of the game has changed and it’s not as fun anymore. Regular drafters will become ppl who mostly play commander, then commander players who only proxy.
Also, I don’t think ub and power creep are separate issues. If anything, I think they will amplify each other. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that one ring and bowmasters are both from the same ub set. As soon as sales slow down for ub sets, wotc will pour on the power in order to keep cards selling, both for profit and to keep themselves looking good to other ip companies.
But most of all, I’m certain that this won’t work in the long term. The novelty is going to wear off and exciting ips are going to run out. And when that happens, there will be no way to go back. Hell will freeze over before wotc bans every ub card in order to bring back magic as it is today. Everyone can have their opinion on whether the game is dying, but the game as we know it is going to be gone and we’re never getting it back. Mark my words: in a couple of years a significant majority of people who play now are going to wish this didn’t happen. But there won’t be anything we can do.
i like to play old stuff. but i fear... the stories just ended. we wont get anymore updates on our old heroes and planes.
As someone who started the game shortly after Dom 2018 came out I feel much the same. I’ve been slowly drifting away used to attend every pre-release event or at least buy the kits and play with family but with thunder junctions purposely skipped it, played bloomburrow which was great, and then the duskmourn prerelease date just completely passed me by I knew the preview were coming out but didn’t care a whole lot. I don’t think I will ever quit the game as in sell out completely but I don’t see myself trying to keep up in the same way especially with the increase in prices and the number of products. (Will they release commander decks for all of the ub premier sets?.)
Foundations looks amazing all of the classic reprints is so much of what I love about this game and the new cards feels so right with them. Will probably draft it more than most sets and might even build a set cube for it or at the very least pick up a jumpstart box or one of the pre determined 350 card start collection and use that as a basic cube.
As for commander I see a lot more interest going towards PreDH both to avoid UB + power creep and also general influx of cards which will increase even more if all the standard sets get decks.
I do agree that this is unsustainable for multiple reasons.
What makes this worse is I don’t see them staying even at this greatly accelerated rate but increasing even further which will likely increase the damage and how fast it will occur. I don’t think this will kill the game but no matter what happens it will leave scars.
@@oldbordergeek the unspecified fate of the lorwyn set makes this feeling much more intense. As for the overarching magic ip story it feels like we will get a comic book style reboot at some point which in it’s self is a troubling sign. Not that there aren’t any good magic ip stories from this year but troubling trends.
Obviously this is the complete opposite direction we are going but imagine if mtg had something like the black library.
@@ashdog9235if you started in 2018 then you are already at about the end of the anticipated life cycle of the average Magic player within the game.
I've been playing since 1995. Around 2004 on the WotC mothership Maro posted a article talking about changes in Magic design like no more counterspell in Standard. In it he talked about research data showing that the average player players for a few years and then moves on to another game, despite quality of the game etc....people get board and move on.
Real "this is fine" while the room is on fire vibes here
I mean, not unpredictable since content creators tie their income to the room on fire...
@@dooooooonuts756 it's because he doesn't have the spine or balls to actually say what he's thinking or in too much denial to see that the room being on fire is a problem or both at this point honestly.
"He must be lying because he disagrees with me!!!!" Why even bother watching the channel if you assume he's lying?
@@IdlestHands I have bad news for you about content creators
Vince has always been a huge cheerleader for the UB takeover, so it’s no surprise at all he’s loving these new changes.
One argument not mentioned:
If you want to see the damage that UB does to a format, look at the price of The One Ring and tell me when and how is it going to get a reprint.
It could get a reprint in a Modern Horizons set.
@@funkydiscogod does Hasbro have permission from the Tolkien estate to use their IP whenever they want? (no)
They could do a functional magic ip reprint if they don’t still have the rights to print the one ring
@@DommyXMommy ... which will cause Magic decks to have 8 copies of The One Ring if they wish to stay competitive.
@@josephrygaard not if they do what the did with Universes Within reprints.
The point raised at 11:07 is weird. No, Chandra isn't simulating how she functions, this is the only environment in which she could function. There is no other environment for her to simulate, as WotC and Hasbro has failed to grow the Magic IP beyond the games. Creating an equivalence here between her existing in her natural habitat and Iron Man being simulated based on external sources (which is available in a variety of media: comics, movies, video games, breakfast cereals) seems very weird.
Not really, no. Chandra's mechanical identity is a large part, if not the largest part, of what creates her identity in the minds of its players.
The art on the card, and her abilities, are all the vast majority of players know her as.
Magic cards are a medium.
You're correct, magic isn't dead or even dying most likely. It's only dead to me and people like me who would sooner quit than turn Dora The Explorer sideways at a standard tournament. And that sucks as somebody who loved this game for 16+ years.
If those IPs were going to make it to standard, SpongeBob would also be doing so. I’m not a fan of what’s going on, but Vince is right here. We spoke with our wallets and unfortunately whether we includes me or you is irrelevant. This change will likely lead to an increase in new players and most importantly for myself, a hopeful return to standard being top dog. If standard becomes the spotlight format alongside commander, I’m sold…as long as the gameplay is still the gameplay I’ve loved for so long.
@@danielsnyder6159 Lets stop doing this "you're doing a slippery slope fallacy" bit eh? Especially when we've seen precedent be smashed time and time again?
@@danielsnyder6159 voting with your wallet is a myth, because votes are equal but wallets are not. for every 10 players that abstain, there will come a whale that will "invest" in cards and outspend them all.
@@brianmattei7134 I’m not sure if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me because of your use of question marks and the fact that “precedent smashing” could be viewed as a positive or negative depending on what you are claiming the precedent to be. Not knocking your comment, just not sure what side of this topic you’re on.
To me, the precedent is that WOTC has announced, time and time again, new UB/SL products that have sparked some form of outrage backlash or controversy due to the IP they are representing being a number of “negative” reasons. Those reasons being things like the IP itself is cringy, it’s a bad fit with the MTG universe, way they are being sold is less than desirable, mechanically unique cards forcing players to buy from the drops (remedied by adding reskinned list cards/other ways to get the product), product over saturation, etc etc…yet those products have all (for the most part) sold incredibly well, played incredibly well, look incredible good, and (again for the most part) have fit better into the MTG universe than anyone would have imagined due to their design/flavor/mechanics and whatnot being made in a very MTG fashion - this all would be the way the precedent would be smashed.
On the other hand, if the precedent being smashed is that we all said “slippery slope” from basically the very first secret lair/universes beyond announcement while WOTC claimed this was not going to be forced into standard, kept to secret lairs, will have MTG-skinned “replacement cards” available, yada yada yada…now it’s going to be 1/2 of standard sets minimum and is full of mechanically unique cards that don’t have MTG reskins …uh yeah that part I’m not thrilled about nor sold on. But to be fair, if UB/SLs didn’t exist at all and they just told us they were moving to 6 standard sets per year I would also not be thrilled nor sold on the idea. It’s just too much! Or is it? I don’t know anymore. I personally love the “extended” 3-year standard rotation and how large they’ve made the standard card pool. Couple that with the much better (for the most part) approach to card design in that we are regularly seeing the powerful effects be much more niche and fit better into specific archetypes rather than the generally good stuff bombs that everyone can put into every deck (one ring cough cough) and large but diverse standard is actually looking pretty good. Whether this actually keeps the format diverse or there is now just a much longer wait until the format is “solved” is yet to be determined.
So I feel like for now I have to just wait and hope that they know what they are doing, as hard as that is, and pray that if things are blatantly not working they will quickly change their strategy. I think they really need to work on their marketing approach, their timing, and the things they like to announce that sound very concrete or like promises. They (lately) have made big announcement/changes like their ban policy, extended standard with foundations lasting at least 5 years, adding UB to standard until at least 2029 or whatever it may be, and then shortly after seem to make another, and another announcement to change things again or go back on something they’ve just said. They need to slow down, change things a bit more gradually, test the waters a bit more, and hold off on any big statements that lock themselves into either an unwanted commitment to something not working for the sake of sticking to their word…or…doubling back on their own words/promises and losing more and more trust from the public.
Whatever the case IMO people need to settle down with their opinions a bit and stop being so dramatic. I’ve been playing MTG since the earlier years (I’m 39 and started in 7th grade so…26ish years?) and absolutely adore the game. I love the art, the mechanics, the lore no matter how loosely connected to the game it may be, I love the competitive aspects as well as the janky fun stuff…seeing all these IPs that I don’t really care about does kinda suck butt, but I also love that there was/is lord of the rings! Bob Ross! Cowboy bebop! Warhammer! FINAL FUCKIN FANTASY! So I need to stay in the perspective that it can’t just be ok when I love the IP if it’s not also ok when I don’t…because somebody else inevitably will love it. My biggest concern is how much of it we’re getting and how far they will go. There needs to be a line we don’t cross because now things are a bit more impactful as we put them right at the top of the of the table in standard letting everything trickle down to all the other formats as well. Who knows, maybe we’ll see the first ever banning of an entire set if something they do causes such an enormous outrage - like Dora the explorer 😂. I could discuss this all day so I’m gonna stop lol. Have a good one 👍
@squid8520 You see, in English there's a rhetorical tool called hyperbole. It's when you exaggerate a situation to the point of it being ridiculous and obvious to make a point. I seem to have missed the ridiculous and obvious mark by using Dora the Explorer in standard here. You may want to consider why you didn't think that was obvious.
Personally I want my sword and sorcery game to be about sword and sorcery
always remember mtg isn't the only tcg, sorcery and flesh and blood might be more to your liking, and i know they have less online support and might not be played at your lgs but that's why it's nice to bring it up, introducing it to people will make them more accessible in time (not saying that you should give up mtg, just that you might find more fun in other games if you give them a chance)
No, but you don't understand, Invasion block had some mech suits in it and that means that Magic was never actually base fantasy
Also the fact that there's a difference between an Innistrad cathar and a Theros hoplite means that Spiderman fits in perfectly
Magic has literally never been "sword and sorcery" which is an actual fantasy subgenre. It's also never been really traditional western fantasy. You should just be honest and say "Change scares me". I mean why did you keep playing after Arabian Nights? or Three Kingdoms? Or Neon Dynasty? Or Strixhaven? and so on. You are whining that Magic is no longer something it never was in the first place.
@@IdlestHandsbecause they didn’t pay any attention to the mtg lore or identity until they decided to get offended 😂
@@IdlestHands It may have never been "sword and sorcery" specifically (although that feels a bit pedantic to me), but the only way you can claim that it's never been traditional fantasy is if you have an exceedingly narrow view of what traditional fantasy is.
Having an increase of Universes Beyond can only mean one of two things:
1. They will eventually run out of popular IP they are able to use, so they'll return back to previously used IP (like LotR 2).
2. They run out of popular IP, then just start scraping the barrel.
This is a fear I also have.
They are already scraping the barrel. All of these IPs are so oversaturated and have been experiencing massive fan-base dissolusion. Its like magic has sunken so low as to focus on this junk instead of its own worlds but also feels like these IPs have sunken so low as to try a magic set. There is a mutual lack of selfrespect that feels inherent in all UB product other than LOTR imo
@@antoniodittman5820 this comment deserves a standing ovation
Or it stays popular, the MTG netflilx show bombs and they switch over completely to UB.
There is borderline infinite IP to use.Every video game, every movie - they can keep going.
There's an interesting long-term impact that Universes Beyond may have that I've not seen discussed much else where, and that's the reduced ability for WotC/Hasbro to license its own IP to other companies. Love them or hate them, Games Workshop has a massive volume of IP that they can license out to third-parties for video games, board games, television, and movies. There may come a day where GW doesn't need to make an actual profit from its tabletop range because its licensing revenues are so high. Warhammer 40K specifically is no longer a 'gaming' brand - it's a lifestyle entertainment brand. You can build, paint, play in person, play digitally, read, and, soon, watch 40K. The number of content creators producing high-quality entertainment (as in novel fictional content, not news, updates, and opinion pieces) is prodigious. The amount of lore videos, battle reports, and strategy channels is insane.
WotC doesn't have that. WotC no longer has lengthy narratives that can easily be spun off into video games or tv shows. It doesn't visit planes long enough for people to explore and get attached. The last grand narrative that, for me, had any real staying power was the Guilds of Ravnica block that culminated in the War of the Spark, released in 2019. And those were 'Return to Return to' sets. I remember reading Magic novels when I was a kid, both the block cycle ones and the standalones/collection volumes (I still have 'Rath and Storm' sitting on the shelf, it being a book which mildly traumatized me as a child), hunting through used book stores to find them. The last new Magic book I purchased was Agents of Artifice in 2009, and only because of the promotional Jace card.
All Magic has right now is the game itself, physically and digitally. Which means WotC/Hasbro is susceptible to massive financial swings when sales of their game fluctuate. We know that Magic is more or less holding Hasbro together. We know that when sales are high, Hasbro does well and that when sales are low, Hasbro does poorly.
For me, the problem isn't that Universes Beyond is 'killing' Magic, it's that it's fostering a business mindset that is less open to investing in long-term financial stability by diversifying the ways in which people can engage with their IP. We've already seen that a few poor business choices - or a massive one like like Magic 30 - can threaten the stability of Hasbro as a whole.
I don't play many video games these days, but if WotC licensed a solid MMORPG set in Ravnica where I could play as an Izzet Guild goblin, I'd be first in line. A DLC adventure in Segovia where I can win a Segovian Leviathan as a mount for the main game? Take. My. Money.
But that isn't going to happen. Or at least, while there's enough nostalgia in me to move my tired, withered heart.
I'm an LGS owner. Our shop was founded on Magic. We had a 40+ player prereleases just before the pandemic. We now struggle to get 8. There's a consistent cycle at the shop of new people entering the hobby, spending lots of money, and burning out after 4-6 months due to costs, the novelty of the game wearing off, or that there's just too much product coming out that they can't enjoy any one thing fully. People are spending money short-term, but there's little to no retention long-term. This is not because of Universes Beyond specifically, although it has been voiced by some of my entrenched players as an important factor in why they no longer play as much as they used to, if at all. It's an issue with the mindset and business strategies being used by WotC/Hasbro.
If you don't like the gameplay of tabletop Warhammer 40K, you can still paint models. If you don't like to paint or the models are too expensive, you can always read the lore. Hate reading? Watch TTS. (Sorry. Too soon?)
If you don't like the cost or direction that Magic is taking, you can always...What?
Exactly. I think this focus and the total lack of regard for the game combined are what will be the death-knell if there is one. They are banking that their rules will always be "the best" but tbh I think the cracks are showing in it. Then, some people will like "the game where you can fight gandalf with spongebob" until they no longer do, and like you said, nothing about the magic IP can keep them there.
You've described this feeling of mine in a way I couldn't. I agree with you. MtG moving more and more into UB makes people who are interested in those IPs check out MtG because of those IPs... not because of MtG. The moment the awe is gone, they aren't staying to play Magic. Even if they do, I'll wager that only an incredibly small amount of players will bother to buy another set. And if they do, they're going to buy another UB set. I think this is how WotC reasons it out and why they are going further in this direction.
It doesn't change the fact it's shortterm gains over long term stability.
Magic has always had trash lore that is why they tried to reboot it in Timespiral and hope everyone forgets about Urza being a eugenicists etc..
Gods, I am so fucking tired of Universes Beyond. Not every piece of media needs to be ground up into a flavorless grey paste and pushed down our throats. Maro says "if you don't want to play it, you don't have to" but the issue is that because this bullshit is legal in *every format* there's no place you can go where random crap from every IP under the sun isn't being played.
You'll pull up to a commander pod and there's Ian Malcolm, Slicer, Old One Eye, and fucking Spongebob in the command zone. You want to sleeve up a white weenie deck for pauper, but realize that Shield Agent is a format staple and that you'll never be able to cut it in a tournament if you don't have some marvel bullcrap in your deck. You decide to play legacy, but realize that Sepiroth control is omnipresent and that your Goblin Rabblemasters and Chalices don't cut it anymore. Perhaps modern is free of it? In a way, it is because Modern gets rotated every year or two with Modern Horizons but all that means is that the churn is constant: each new UB set brings with it busted new staples that need to be played if you want to have a fighting chance.
Just about the only places you have to play decks that aren't crammed with obnoxious popculture sludge are old-school and premodern. Two formats that hardly anyone plays, and which also exclude a significant portion of magic's history before it turned into a vehicle for other brands to peddle their slop.
Art should have meaning. Meaning is derived from context. When you rob art of context, you rob it of meaning. I love lord of the rings. I enjoy spiderman; I just shared the original Raimi movies with my son. The into the spiderverse movies are an incredible achievement of mixed-media animation and tremendously moving. Final Fantasy 10 was a huge part of my childhood: I played for hours and hours on my playstation 2 when it came out. That doesn't mean I want to see Lulu equip webshooters and anduril and swing in, only to be blocked by a flashed-in Miles Morales who's in turn exiled by a Care Bear Stare.
I think a lot of the existential angst and anger at this move from WOTC is one that's commonly repeated elsewhere: people want new stories and new ideas. Or at the very least, we want twists on old stories that make them new again. Spiderverse wasn't groundbreaking in concept, but it was a reinvisioning of a spiderman story which cast it's characters and themes in a new light. This blending together of IPs does none of that: it just smashes together disparate stories and themes in lieu of actually inventing something new, which is where the comparisons to Fortnite and Funko Pops come in. In Fortnite, there is no dread connected to a Xenomorph skin, no sense of otherworldly violation. There is only flossing. Funkopop spiderman doesn't need to learn how great power begets great responsibility, or struggle to define his own story as the entire universe tries to tell it for him. There's only a vague sense of recognition that you've seen it before, and that once upon a time it used to mean something.
I personally don't like Universes Beyond, never have. Magic the Gathering should be about Magic the Gathering. Spiderman is cool, but I don't see him fitting in Magic. Fallout was awesome (my favorite game series, especially have a love for Fallout 1 and 2) but in Magic it feels so out of place.
Personally, I don't mind it occasionally, but this is definitely way too much of it.
Fallout is my one of my top 3 properties ever. I revile the UB cards.
I feel you there, i liked most ip's that got in with universes beyond, just mot IN mtg. Dnd and lord of the ring were fine but dr who? Fallout? Not so much?
I'm not the biggest fan of UB aside from LOTR which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I feel like even in the current state I just don't see UB cards at the rate that the internet would suggest. You'd think we're already all playing Dr Who and Fallout theme decks or something, but I don't see any of those cards in eternal 60 card formats (at least not to the degree where they stick out), and I consciously don't add them to my commander decks for flavor or theme reasons. Idk, I think this whole issue is overblown, and to the degree that I see anything sort of "out of place" it's actually magic IP, like the cutesy bloomburrow style cards (which are fine but clash heavily with the in universe stuff I tend to go for).
@@yScribblezHD You bring up good points. Maybe the UB will mostly stay in the "just collecting" scene. We will see.
I'm glad other people are having fun with it and are less doom and gloom than I am, but after a week I feel just as bad or worse about the announcement. This has killed any excitement I had for the future of magic, and I'm considering just selling out and being done with MTG. Even the 'Magic IP' stuff isn't exciting me because I know I will have to engage with the UB elements, and there is no format to escape that. It's just become something I don't recognize anymore. 10+ year player and as it's a bummer, but I think I'm just done.
30+ year player here, and I feel the same way.
I did made thousands proxies for the decks I love only kept 4 decks my two modern decks and my two pet commander decks. I started playing other tcgs they are just simply more fun and balanced.
My suggestion is not to sell your collection. If you don't want to play constructed against Desperate Housewives control, like I don't, just play with your friends the way you like to. The cards we own are not going anywhere after all and we are allowed to have opinions and preferences. This game and the whole universe revolving around it has had many ups and downs, in these thirty plus years I've played it.
i would advise against completely selling out, and pre-modern is a thing, but ya.........
I feel exactly the same way.
Designing your game for people who don't care that much sounds amazing and i'm glad it works so well.
I am glad you're still excited about the game, but for a lot of people (myself included), the vibe, art direction, and world of the game is just as if not more important than the mechanics or how a character is represented by those mechanics. I love magic, I've been playing for ten years now. But if it was presented to me as a pop-culture crossover game, I never would have started playing it in the first place. I don't like that kind of game, and it's not what I thought I was signing up for. I don't think this is the death of Magic as a game, but it might be the death of what I like about magic. I understand you don't feel the same, but please believe that if every commander game I play has one or more universes beyond decks in the pod, there will no longer be anything left for me here. And I think that day is rapidly approaching.
I know you probably didn't mean to come across this way, but I definitely felt a little bit trivialized by some what you said here. Imagine if wotc radically changed a part of the game that you *did* feel was the core appeal? What if they massively simplified the rules of the game, like making everything happen at sorcery speed for example, in order to sell more packs to newer players? Being outraged over that wouldn't be an over-reaction. And the community's response to this current change isn't an over-reaction either. Because it is a fundamental change to what draws us to this game to begin with.
Thank you
Couldn't agree more
And yet, magic is still selling. You are in the minority buddy. Just walk away, bitching and complaining does nothing. The rest of us will still be here.
@@moonknight2865 It's called growth in the short term. I've been around near 30 years for the story, haven't bought in 10 because of it being diminished. Let's see how well this works out for you when the community is smaller and the reason you play is sidelined for monetary reasons.
Magic has a certain aesthetic that I love, and UB just shatters it. The only thing im looking forward to in 2025 is Tarkir. The rest of it blows.
i had such major problems with this video that i feel compelled to get it out here regardless of who reads it.
i think your point about this being different from "fortnite-ification" doesn't really get to the heart of why alot of people, including myself, dislike this. i know that the designers are going to give it their all in making universes beyond mechanically interesting and properly representing the concepts they're representing, that was never my issue with any of this. my issue is that this is all a capitalistic money grab that is so horrifically short sighted and is directly spitting on the flavor of what has been built up for so many years.
mechanically the game will still be fine but i don't want to play a game that is more about ads for popular properties than depicting a cohesive world. this reminds me of arguments involving video games where people try to say that "graphics" and such don't matter, it's all about the gameplay over anything else. a huge part of why i get invested in games is because i love diving into all the world and feeling like i'm a part of it, i wouldn't love zelda breath of the wild so much if it was mechanically the same but was a similar ip dumping ground for example.
magic's lore and world building isn't perfect by any means but i'm kinda dumbfounded how disrespectful you were to it here. sure the inspirations behind many concepts are fairly obvious but that's true for a lot of creative works and your language and tone feels like a real insult to the work put into making those concepts unique in their own way. alot of the problems cropping up with the overuse of established tropes in the past year really feel like the result of overworking the designers to some degree because all of the extra products like universes beyond are really taking up alot of resources i imagine, so i don't think it's really fair to dismiss the merits of magic's stories for that reason when it's suffering as a consequence of this whole mess.
i was so excited when i learned that we had true trans characters in magic's canon and losing that feeling of excitement over what can be done with the unison of card game mechanics and original storytelling doesn't make me a snob. magic will not die as some less than astute people are saying, but what made it special to me is possibly going away which feels like a death. it especially hurts when it's in service of corporate greed to try and court people who don't have the same reverence for the game and it's history. please consider that there are more reasonable takes beyond what gets the most traction and that alot of us are hurting over this beyond that.
I'm 100% with you.
Agree wholeheartedly, I couldn't have said it better myself
💯
Yep! PK is so in the wrong with this video, I had to tap out halfway through with how much he doesn't seem to even care about something he purportedly loves.
“Magic and edh are dead, long live universes beyond and commander!” -Hasbro Shareholder
edh is a monster that killed normal mtg
@@oldbordergeek the wotc precisely euthanized every other format by printing commander precons. EDH had the lowest bar for entry since at least 2017, which is where I started playing. Standard turned me off because of rotation, modern turned me off after I couldn't build the deck and had pretty hard time figuring out how do I buy the entire deck easily. Commander was there. Available, easy to enter and welcoming.
So the point you make at 11:07 is I think the one I disagree with the most, although I do think you raise a lot of good points and interesting perspectives throughout the video.
I'm not sure how to put this, but a Magic card that signifies other IP feels fundamentally different from a Magic card that signifies Magic IP. The card that signifies Magic can signify basically anything, it can have basically any art and basically any name and type, so long as the designers feel those things all mesh well together. A UB card can perfectly signify through mechanics, art, name, and flavor text Gandalf. But it can't *create* Gandalf.
Magic, through its own IP, *creates* brand new characters, settings, and themes to explore. It may have its inspirations, and sometimes even be heavy-handed about them, but it still *creates* something. Universes Beyond can only signify that which someone else created, where "Universes Within" signifies that which was created wholesale by its own signifier.
Basically, I like Magic not just as a card game, but as a way to explore something new, and LotR, Final Fantasy, and Spider-Man aren't new. They were already created, they already exist, and no matter how perfectly a Magic card may represent them, the card can only exist to signify something which wasn't created to be signified by a Magic card, and is best experienced elsewhere.
Semiotics being deployed in the service of truth here. Some will disagree, or miss the point, but this is the feature which will change the heart of the game going forwards.
@@meh.5645 Lacan-pilled
Magics IP it's lore is trash, I've played since 1995 I've read a bunch of the books which are trash and the comicbooks which are less trash actually but don't really grow the lore.
@@TheEvolver311 you did not understand the point OP was making. Read it a few more times.
To work off this concept of Smash Bros analogy; it worked so well because it was its own ruleset and playstyle that conducted itself well to incorporating all of these different IP's. Universes Beyond isn't this, as we're adapting IP's into the Magic ruleset, it's more similar to classic fighting game introducing guest characters. While it is nice to have letters of love to the UB IP's, it's like having a little sibling now. I feel that the ship has been steered by people who care about raising profits, rather than creatives trying to deliver works of art; There's still plenty of creative people working on the ship, but the captain's getting the final say.
Smash Bros only added Nintendo characters recently. The analogy he made it is spot on. We already had Arabian Nights, Portal 3 Kingdoms both not Magic IP but utilizes the Magic rule system to tell another IPs story.
MTG stands for "Media The Gathering"
Yeah, and FNM stands for "Fuck! No money!"
I normally agree with many of your points, but for this one, I very much disagree.
I don't mind that these products exist, but I have zero interest in playing a mashup of IPs as a card game, so wotc is basically now saying to people like me that constructed isn't for us - that is wild, and a pretty extreme version of "this product isn't for you".
Ps: thanks for all the great content :)
It's going to be brutally jarring for many because they are soft abandoning a lot ofnthe old guard.
Just a suggestion, but you might look into the pauper format. It's still fun, competitive MTG but most of the UB content that does see play there isn't jarringly recognizable as UB. SpongeBob's Squarest Of All Pants is going to be printed as a rare or mythic, not a common. Most of the playable commons tend to be generic enough not to be out of place on one of the real MTG planes if not outright downshifts or reprints of older cards. Plus the majority of the economic benefit goes to singles sellers (insert your favorite LGS here) who get to sell some stuff out of their otherwise untouched, unprofitable bulk commons bins as opposed to directing more money towards wizards of the hasbro while they're doing... this stuff.
If Magic is only holding on to the old guard, then it truly has no future. Coming back from Magicon, and from my lgs, my takeaway is that this is an issue for old heads like us. The kids, the gen z & alpha future of the game enjoy it. I want WotC to design for them so they have the kind of adolescence I was fortunate enough to have- playing games like Warhammer, Magic, DnD, etc.
@@aaron.k. Wow. That is a very considerate way to look at this. I think I'll try adopting this view, or at least use it to soften the blow.
always remember mtg isn't the only tcg, sorcery and flesh and blood are just 2 other options and there are many more, and i know they have less online support and might not be played at your lgs but that's why it's nice to bring it up, introducing it to people will make them more accessible in time (not saying that you should give up mtg, just that you might find more fun in other games if you give them a chance)
I made a lot of points in the community post which I'm not going to repeat here, but one additional thing I do want to say is that the game isn't just the ruleset. That's not unique to Magic - theme matters, in everything. The game wouldn't be the same if it was about "I turn Permanent#835 sideways in order to reduce your point total from 20 to 17", "I use Non-Permanent#71 to put Permanent#835 into your discard pile". Even if someone doesn't care about the characters, or the plot, or the lore, the theme that provides context to everything is just as important a part of the game as the ruleset. The theme going from solidly high fantasy (which it really was for the longest time, despite what some people like to pretend) to a mishmash of whatever licenses they got ahold of this month does inevitably change the way the game feels for some people. Even if the rules operate in exactly the same way they always have, throwing Spiderman up against Spongebob still makes it feel like a different game in exactly the same way that Permanent#835 being discarded by Non-Permanent#71 does. Saying that it's still essentially the same game because the rules are the same, regardless of theme, simply isn't true.
At no point did I suggest "the game would be fine with no theming and vlank cards", no one is going to agree with that.
And yes, the game is changing. Its a seismic shift. Again, not refuting that.
Magic is changing drastically.
I just dont think it's strictly for the worse, nor as damaging as people are saying it will be.
@@PleasantKenobi That is not what OP is saying at all, how did you miss their point entirely
This makes no sense
@@PleasantKenobiWhere did you pull that point from?
The first expansion was using a non-Magic IP.
The second expansion set was filled with robots.
The third one was a mishmash of all kinds of stuff including having an Albert Einstein card.
The 4th one was re-imagining Universal Monsters.
The game has never been a game of just high fantasy.
I guess I'll commit to never buying a Universes Product of any kind ever again. I'm doing my part.
Looking forward to coming back to these optimistic videos when we get The Year of Universe Beyond with zero “Magic IP” and is the highest selling year of magic ever finally driving the last nail in the coffin.
The funny thing is, I'm not really keen for that. Either way, I hope you plan to come back when Magic is alive and well in a couple years. :)
This scenario is nearly assured as long as UB sets keep selling as well as MaRo & pals cheerily proclaim they are.
There's something so fascinating "highest selling year" and "final nail in the coffin" being used in this way.
@yScribblezHD I get it. I'm not worried about Magic dying. I don't think it will. I'm worried about it being a game I don't want to play anymore, not one I can't play anymore. Would be the final nail in the coffin on my interest in magic.
I needed an excuse to quit BO1 Standard anyway
Mono red was mine months ago. Guessing its still a problem if not worse lmao.
@@taylon5200 well I'm one of the mono-red degens so that never stopped me, but yes, it (and Gruul Prowess which only really splashes green in BO1) absolutely have got worse. You should've seen it when Leyline of Resonance was legal, we had turn three kills, it was hilarious and I'm glad they've banned it. Screaming Nemesis can shut-down one of the main weaknesses of aggro, life gain, now too and is a 3/3 for 3 with haste to boot.
What people forget is that the original canary in the coal mine was the silver bordered My Little Pony set. We went from silver bordered to Godzilla alt arts to Secret Lair to Modern Legal to Universe Beyond is now a common release as part of the cycle. Not enough people listened or chose to ignore it for shiny new cards, but the end times are coming.
One of two things happened here.
1) We've been lied to the entire time. Every time they told us not to worry, they were already working with IP holders on future licensing agreements. WotC already knew that this was the direction they were going, because it should take years to hash license agreements and to add on set developments.
2) If this is a recent change in policy, and these new Universe Beyond sets are either reskinned future set ideas or last minute additions, then I fear another Nadu and The One Ring. It worries me about the lack of testing put into cards that have to make unique UB cards feel like those characters or items.
And either way, it sounds like WotC and Hasbro no longer respect us as consumers. They are already messing with D&D. And now they're hiring influencers with signed lifetime disparagement clauses. Hasbro WotC doesn't respect you, and you shouldn't pay for their product.
We all understand that the fun is in playing, but what is happening now is if you are not playing with the most efficient newest cards, even at just FNM, you are either wasting your time or getting unsolicited advice on what you should play. Our choices have been taken from us in favor of the almighty dollar. The lack of enthusiasm at the announcements in Vegas should be a big indicator of that to you, and even those on the panel. It went over like a wet fart.
No matter how many new dollars roll in the old dollars that got them here will fade away, and the fun parts about “The Gathering” are now tainted because many feel they should not have to engage with the newest cards just to be in the stores for a casual (read casual REL) event, but do not feel welcome in a place where everyone is in lockstep with every gaslit message from corporate about the next big thing. There should be a space for everyone, but now there isn’t. The focus is solely on the new and only the new.
I'm not so naive as to think Magic's dead, but it is true that Magic's priorities are now significantly different than what I would want them to be as a Vorthos. Universes Beyond makes me enjoy the game less, and that's been true since it started. I've continued to play when my friends use the cards, but as someone who likes to, for lack of a better term, roleplay in my Commander deck building and for whom Magic's own universe was the primary driver in my enthusiasm for the game for close to 30 years now, I always have less fun when those cards are involved. And now, I won't even be able to hop into Pioneer/Explorer as a palette cleanser
This initiative is going to be successful in terms of sales and growing the game, but it's not really somewhere I'm comfortable following Magic. I'll be spending my hobby money elsewhere going forward, aside from maybe some singles here and there to tweak my existing decks if I find that I still want to play-I've been mulling that last part over for the last week, and I really don't know where I sit with it. But I do know I've got all the cards for a new deck I was excited to build sitting on my desk, with sleeves ready to go...and I just don't have the enthusiasm needed to bother even sleeving it up. Maybe with time I'll come back around, but I don't think I've ever been this discouraged about the game before
Hasbro made Magic into Monopoly (literally every IP has a Monopoly at this point I think), which, honestly we all should have seen coming.
Monopoly doesn't engage with the properties in any depth.
@@PleasantKenobi Fair, but I find it hard to believe Spongebob is going to engage with the mechanics either. It's going to be a Spongebob vinyl wrap around Magic cards.
Or maybe Spongebob got real dark later on or something. It's not like this is Adventure Time, which has plenty of violence, conflict and death and I could see working pretty well.
It is now Funko pop the gathering because there is no limit to what they will commodify. They do not care about the integrity of the setting of high fantasy story and gameplay at all anymore. Now we are forced to put up with SpongeBob doing a Tokyo drift across a my little pony. The game is turning into one big reference, a meme. And like all memes, one day it’s not gonna be funny anymore. Hopefully when that day comes there will be enough players left that were loyal to the original formula that made the game popular in the first place.
Just wait until they do a UB with actual memes.
Recreational McNuke would become an actual card.
*lmao, bottom text*
Why can't we just have a crossover format? Why do I have to be forced to play SpongeBob vs Venom in my modern game?
Because the line needs to go up for their true costumers: shareholders.
Don’t piss on my back and tell me that it’s raining. Just because what makes mtg good has more to do with the mechanics and the design rather than art, story, themes, and flavour doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be better if all of these were good and had a consistent identity.
13:00 Ok, that's not remotely the same thing. Straight up importing things is not remotely the same as an original creation that has a vague resemblance to something else or some inspiration. Saying they aren't "new" because they use some trope is just plain nonsense, and when it comes to a game's identity a creation that fits and belongs to the cannon universe it's set in while drawing inspiration from elsewhere is an entirely different beast from an IP that doesn't belong.
Guy who has consistently underestimated how far they would go suggests people who have been vindicated are overreacting.
Any time people are crying about a card game, they are overreacting. It's a game, relax.
I'm not talking about you btw. I'm talking about the people that straight up believe the game is dead and are making death threats because they personally don't like the changes.
@@imnotacat5299 a game or story can matter dearly to people and anger is a natural reaction to hurt and or fear so i would not say they always are overreacting, they surely are reacting to a thing changing in a way no competitor is moving toward and seems to lose the original story of the game that was already quite in bad shape if we're honest
I like PK but I think he sometimes likes to be a contrarian
You can chart his response to UB and it lines up pretty well with Maro's, always moving the goalposts as things get worse and it always has to be the consumer who's wrong and making a big deal out of nothing. Gotta toe that line
@@grandpretredesalpagas4665Again, go back and look at who I'm talking about.
If a card game has that much value that you are trying to justify people making death threats, then you need to reevaluate your priorities.
“Magic is about to have more success than Yu-Gi-Oh”
First off, that’s not true. Currently MTG is struggling and declining in Asian territories, especially Japan. Every month and quarter its profits and sales move further down the chart. Final Fantasy may give it a boost, but most of these new universes are not properties the Japanese or other Asian territories care about. As such it grows domestically, but world wide Magic is beginning to salt the earth.
Alternatively, you mention “yu-Gi-Oh’s mechanics could not support crossovers like this” Yet if we look at Yu-Gi-Oh, it has super heroes, magicians, aliens, decks based on food, decks based on V-Tubers, decks that are based on Eldorado and making zombies of gold, decks based on Star Wars, decks based on sports, decks for just about anything. As an example, let’s compare those DR. Who cards to Yu-Gi-Oh’s Dr. Who inspired deck “Time Thieves” they all have abilities based both on stealing, but also “jumping through time” by banishing themselves until another turn, essentially traveling to the future, as well as referencing cards that were going to be played by “stealing” cards from the top of your opponent’s deck. What’s the major difference between these two? Magic does not own Dr. Who, meanwhile Yu-Gi-Oh owns all the Time Thieves, both the cards and the characters. As such unlike Dr/ Who which can;t ever interact meaningfully, the Time Thieves are part of a larger lore relating to the S-Force, a group of cops who travel time and space to punish reality bending criminals. Alongside the time thrives there are multiple card groups who are also criminals the S-Force hunt, each of which have their own time space based mechanics.
Now here’s the thing, MTG may be milking the west dry by using these crossovers, but if there’s no substance within the main game anymore (this year we’ll be having racing sets and revisits) then what do all those players who buy a box of Spider-Man and then leave have to stick around for? Japan is a good test for this, because Fallout and Assassin’s Creed and Dr. Who are not popular in Japan, and the sales are declining, because now there’s nothing to tell other people about in the card shop about why they should care about Magic as an IP. Maybe if Wizards made a new game like Weiss Schwartz or Union Arena just for crossover, it wouldn’t be an issue, but they didn’t, and it is. Alternatively, Yu-Gi-Oh is the 2nd best selling card game in Japan (behind Pokemon, duh) and one of the big 3 in the west, and probably the most played competitive cardgame world wide. While the anime contributes, a lot of this is thanks to the worlds they all built up. Does Yu-Gi-Oh have Spider-Man? No, but they’ve made a bunch of different super heroes and villains that they all own. Last year Konami showcased “Yu-Gi-Oh Chronicles” a short trailer showing many different stories within the Yu-Gi-Oh lore animated in various styles, with the announcement that Konami now has it’s own animation studio, and may start making TV series and specials based on the IPs they own and have created over 25 years. Now imagine if Magic, another series with a multiverse did the same thing, give people a rich reason to care about Magic, as a pose to rolling over and letting Sponge-Bob do the heavy lifting.
Which is better for fans, and which has a better long term future? You can roll over and say “This is how it is” if you like, but why not look across the isle and say “This is how it should be” Just some food for thought.
What charts are you referring to?
@
Sales data out of Japan is released monthly. If you look at the most recent sales report MTG ranked 8th in overall sales in Japan. I can’t post a link because YT will delete my comment, but directly from the chart of September 2024 1. Pokemon, 2. Yu-Gi-Oh, 3. One Piece, 4. Duel Masters, 5. Hololive OCG, 6. Weiss Schwartz, 7. Battle Spirits, and then MTG in 8th.
While it did best out Vanguard, Shadowverse Evolve, and a few new smaller new card games, it’s still been sinking, and while this is a month between two major sets (technically Duskmourn did release in September, but we can ignore that since not everyone buys on release day), the previous position MTG held was 6th. Given how much product is released and how hard Wizards JP works to push MTG (anime trailers, Japanese art, commercials, dedicated manga, and magazine advertisements) the steady decline of sales has not been spelling out any good signs. Keep in mind too competition is growing, a Gundam TCG is on the way. Furthermore as Hasbro makes MTG more American centralized this may spell trouble for overseas product entirely. Part of why Final Fantasy was chosen is likely to try and help with the Japanese market, however with Weiss Schwartz and Union Arena taking so many strong Japanese IPs Magic may not be able to survive if the rest of the products have the problems they’ve been having, and if the crossover sets continue to be franchises that are only popular in America, Europe, and some parts of Central/South America.
Without as much focus on its own world to offer or characters to care about, there’s not much to offer Japan or other parts of Asia who are spoiled for choice.
P.S. Check out DifferentFight’s channel, every quarter he does sales and cultural breakdowns of the TCG market in Japan. Highly informative and well made content.
It's all rosy once you're able to pay 1k for your meta deck that will be soft rotated out every 3 to 6 months. Then again, the cardmarket and TCGPlayer prices for Yubel Fiendsmith or Fire Kings Snake-Eyes are only estimates, and when you're in Japan your game is basically wholly subsidized by the TCG and its pricing.
The whole process of how Konami brings cards to the West is disgusting. And yes, there was and is discourse around "if the TCG is worth it".
Other than that, it's all fine and dandy.
@
What does that have to do with any of my discussion of sales figures and use of IPs?
Dr Who is to blame for Time Thieves existing? wow truly the British must be stopped.
I’m well beyond the line. Sick of it. Stopped playing paper a year ago. This is the nail in the coffin. It isn’t the game I even want to play. It’s just like playing advertisements. No!
It's a ridiculous fantasy that they're going to balance it in standard. This will lead to increasingly bad card design and increased bans.
They're going to make each new IP the most pushed to appeal to the bandwagon buyers who can't stand to see their pet IP lose to an IP they don't like. Then when the next one comes out they'll mass ban the OP stuff from the last one or power-creep it with the new IP. It's exaclty what happens with IP crossovers in video games, the event items are tuned to be OP and nerfed in the next season. They aren't going to errata everything so it's either bans or power-creep.
I really do feel at this point that this has always been the plan.
It was. Ever since Commander took over this was always the point.
@@AaronOneal-e7h Ever since Commander? Friend, one of the original moonshot dreams from the Magic design team was to design cards from Lord of the Rings, back before WotC ever had the time or money to try and work that IP mess out.
Magic: the Gathering was originally supposed to be one of many similar games under the Deckmaster brand (fun fact; this is why Deckmaster is on the back of all Magic cards). Magic only ever continued printing itself because it ended up being so surprisingly popular.
In essence, this is Hasbro corporate looking into the past of Magic's pipe dreams and making it a reality, in a sort of monkey's paw kind of sense.
I think you've misunderstood the Funko Pop comparison. It's not that the cards themselves are funko pops, it's that this trajectory aims to turn Magic: the Gathering into a Funko Pop mold. Rather than a game that supports and is supported by an original fantasy, it becomes just a rule set and card frame which serves as a vector to propagate existing IPs and ideas. Even the main sets become a place to slap known characters into different outfits and situations. Make sure you get your Daretti - Greaser Outfit Edition too!
I find myself disagreeing with a lot of your points here.
Your description of Magic's story, like Phyrexia, just being a tropey amalgamation of different sources... that's genre writing, that's the creative process you're describing. Magic isn't "unique", it was genre writing doing a good job of worldbuilding for quite some time, and while it didn't nail the narrative most of the time for me, the fiction and creativity as a whole inspired people. Brandon Sanderson was inspired by this stuff and has a book empire based on good genre writing, Tolkien's whole world was an amalgamation of myths, so people trying to downplay the story as one of their points are just admitting they never understood how this worked to begin with. It was my whole reason for participating in the game for as long as I did, near 30 years, which was just as valid as people wanting tournament play.
It's fine, Magic is a game of many parts to engage with, but hearing the eternal "the story was never good" and its many remixes like this is one is what gets us here. I won't be around to lament the mechanical degradation and format-busting new cards in the future because people keep hacking away at peoples' reasons for playing being invalid - "here's why you shouldn't be disappointed in the game, story never mattered" is shrinking the community. It'll be just you when your reason for playing gets stripped for parts.
Vorthos is one of the big player profiles. Quite a few people care about how magic does it's lore.
A universes beyond set can never really tell it's own story. All they are allowed to do is retell an existing one.
I dont enjoy cross overs in most things
"I'm remaining cautiously optimistic."
* Sigh *
* Removes glasses *
You know...I used to buy comic books on a weekly basis. And I distinctly remember, back in 2010/2011, when DC Comics was ramping up to do its "New 52" reboot. Everyone was justly angry/anxious about their beloved fictional universe ending and being replaced. DC, of course, rushed to do damage control. Insisting that the obvious reboot was NOT a reboot, but just a relaunch.
It was a lie. Just a direct, overt falsehood. It was a reboot. The old DCU was dead, and would remain dead for the foreseeable future. (Half a decade, as it turned out).
But I was young and less cynical at the time, so I consciously embraced a cautiously optimistic view. As such, I bought a ton of New 52 issues, greatly expanding the number of issues I bought on a weekly basis. This tapered off quickly - many of those #1 issues didn't grab me. Nonetheless, I gave some series way more slack at the time - stuck with them longer - than in retrospect I really should have. It took far too long to fully internalize how awful the New 52 was, in aggregate. Plenty of gems in there, but plenty of duds. And not nearly worth what was lost, or the total disruption of an entire line of creatives working to tell long-form stories with beloved characters. (Many of whom died unceremonious metatextual deaths, never to be revived).
The New 52 was a formative experience for me. It laid a brick in the wall that would form my hatred for Capitalism, and a seething contempt for corporations. It taught me never to trust a company at their word. Because they have little to lose from lying to their customers, and more money and control to gain. And if a company is willing to lie to peoples' faces about something so low-stakes as a decades-old superhero universe going away, how readily will they lie about something that actually matters?
The New 52 isn't THE reason I'm anti-capitalist. Rather, it opened my eyes at a time when I was conservative and pro-capitalist. Allowing me to see corporations and their owners for what they really are: ravenous, black-hearted ghouls with no souls.
I cannot remain cautiously optimistic about Universes Beyond. I've been burned before. I know better than to give a little ounce of credit to a soulless corporation.
You aren't giving the credit to the soul-less corporation, but instead, to the creatives who shepherd and direct the game. Lord of the Rings is what we get, when Wizards are working in full swing. And I am ok with that.
put your glasses back on. goofy comment.
well-put
"Young and less cynical" bugs me a little. Why do we just accept that with age comes cynicism? It doesn't have to. You can choose to engage with things that make you happy, and reject that which doesn't. The power is ultimately in your hands, regardless of what some faceless corporation decides.
The New 52 - you mean that thing that didn't last forever, that ended up being just one more half-baked reboot thrown on the pile of half-baked DC reboots, and that didn't prevent the artists and writers to do great things since it happenned?
Seriously, apart from boneheaded story decisions for some characters, New 52 didn't really matter all that much, just like DC Rebirth or Crisis on Infinite Earth didn't. "Continuity" in superhero comics is and has always been a paper-thin farce. Read the good stories, ignore the bad ones, and don't worry so much about the "canon". The New 52 is not just the least if capitalist sins, it's barely a sin.
Mtg quickly becoming Weiss Schwarz. Weiss Schwarz: The Gathering
Please don't give WotC the idea of doing limited edition swimsuit versions of cards.
@Malidala slippery slope with the anime cards they're already putting out lol
@@maidenless_tarnished Fingers crossed it'll be at least more in the vein of early Marvel Swimsuit issues and not later ones, or gods forbid Zenescope.
@@Malidala isn't that just secret lairs tho. They already got anime art hatsune miku cards. Anime art rakdos in a swimsuit is just around the corner lol
@@MalidalaOMG! Anime version of Angel Elspeth in a bikini swimming among the clouds sounds amazing!
…
I’m only half serious. 😅🤣
I don't think the argument about how magic's stories are unoriginal is a good one because storytelling is mostly about how to take common tropes, themes, and story points and turning them into something of your own which magic has been doing before they removed sets block. Magic has been using flavor and cards mechanics together to bring Magic cards to life for a while now and that is what a lot of people who play the game casually resonate with and bringing up competitive people into a discussion about the "soul" of magic doesn't even make sense since many of them just play what will make them win more games as they are mechanics focused.
The more it sinks in, the more I actually feel depressed.
Not just "bummed, but I'll deal with it," rather "thinking about this future makes me feel like I'm holding back tears..."
Sounds dramatic, but it feels like a lifelong friend is moving overseas & won't be returning. Maybe every once in a while, we can get on a video call & reminisce, but the friendship we had is simply no more.
Oh, Vince... it's been real, but I'm kinda done.
I'm out unfortunately, premodern is the place for me now.
How much of this would have gone better if the UB sets were like Alchemy? An expansion to the current Standard pool as a separate format instead of just BEING in Standard?
UB shoulda been silver bordered
@@TheKingNaesala Maybe if we bought the Unsets more it would have been...
Universes Beyond won't kill MtG. It does make it clear that the game I loved has left me behind. I'm not angry, but I am sad.
You just wait for them to do Harry Potter or other IPs that people find problematic. It's gonna go off.
Not all Universes Beyond are created equal.
They already did. It was Strixhaven but while making it they lost the license to the ip and had to change all the names
Maybe I'm off with this, but I'm hearing way more: "This won't kill the game, but it won't be the game I like" than "this is going to kill the game" right now. That could be more dangerous for the gane because rather than angry about a change the community feels tired and sad. When the community is angry at least they're passsionate about it. Could be wrong, hope I am.
UB just feels the same as WB executives having S Squad be a live service
This feels exactly like the addition of Hats in Team Fortress 2, and the subsequent repeated jumping of the shark trying to squeeze money out of the playerbase.
At least tf2 hats are solely cosmetics, and 99% of the times you are at a disadvantage if you use them since they make you more noticeable (we don't talk about the green pyro). This stuff is borderline mandatory if you want to play competitive.
You could say that tf2 also has a pay entry for comp since you need all the weapons to have all the options, but you can get every non-reskin weapon for like 3$ in total on third party sites, so I still prefer it over what wizzy is doing
@@noszelias TF2 is absurdly over monetized and it irreversibly damaged the cohesive art style and aesthetic the game once had as they kept pushing the envelope and creating new ways to spend money. While the different planes of Magic the Gathering may have always had very different themes and genres, what remained unchanged was a cohesive style that everything stuck to. I think we are definitely losing that in the same way the style of TF2 was corrupted by the constant addition of more and more outrageous and goofy hats and particle effects.
Funnily that was around the moment I started to quit tf2 as well... I mean I kept playing for maybe a year or two, but the hats were sort of the gutshot that slowly bled my enthusiasm out. But then I know that for some people that era was the golden age. So this is the end of an era and the start of a new one. Brighter, less unique... Who knows. My advice would be to keep a few cards or decks that mean something to you and sell/donate the rest while they're still worth anything.
Don’t piss down my neck and tell me it’s raining. Or as they call it at WotC, “community relations.”
I think the video that James Stephanie Sterling did on Multiversus really hits on what makes this shift in Magic feel really bad. Eventually the breaking down of borders between the universes of Magic and Universes Beyond will create a thing that doesn't have any of the specialness of either component. It isn't the "death" of Magic, its the changing of Magic to a different thing that a lot of players don't enjoy because it feels so radically different in it's tonality.
I agree. Eventually UB will be so common that the 'original' art and lore that made MTG will just be considered 'meh' to most who buy into the multiversus stuff. Those people will control the buying power of MTG and WotC will see those non-UB sets sell less. As they see the sales aren't as good as the next IP from a frothing fanbase they can capture expect more original sets to be delayed or just completely removed from ever being printed again in MTG. Eventually we will just have this crazy clash of every IP you can possibly imagine and to some, maybe even many, its extremely jarring when you enjoy a certain medium because it USED to have a cohesion in lore and art style that was high fantasy with magic, swords, and medieval era feeling.
WotC is a company, they could care less about the sanctity of legacy MTG. Whatever makes the shareholders more money they will do it and toss aside any originality in the process. They already lied about UB ever being a core requirement and here we are 4 years later. Who is to say 4 more years from now they reprint every reserve list card as some wacky UB card tarnishing some of the most historic cards like the Black lotus to now be the "Infinity Gauntlet" from Marvel Avengers (I'm not against reprints, but the idea it takes other IPs to make them reprint is sad)... I hate this direction MTG is headed.
My problem with UB is that some executive somewhere will spend a morning on google and decide that their IP needs a "one ring". either a ridiculous chase card or just a broken power level, and wizards will relent and give it to them. before you know it every mega-corp with an "nerdy" IP has a vested interest in fucking our gameplay over
In five years, Foundations 2 will be the only ‘MtG IP’ with every other release across that cycle being some UB theme.
I think that's the plan: MTG will be the core set, while other IPs are the expansion sets.
Get back to me when Peter Parker has to battle a possessed luke skywalker in the disneyland portion of duskmourn
What about currently where psychic cyberpunk jellyfish are battling 1920s goblin gangsters along with vampires riding on mesoamerican dinosaurs? Any discussion about the "integrity" of the setting always feels incredibly disingenuous
I'm mainly an Arena player, but standard being in a good place now doesn't mean it'll stay that way. To me the format is already strained by having an extra year's worth of sets, especially in addition to the too short gaps between releases as we've seen with bloomburrow and duskmorn. As I see it, six sets per year, with low likelyhood of being mechanically cohesive, would honestly be too much to keep up with both in terms of collecting and playing. And that's not even to say the UB sets have an imperative of viability such that newcomers won't have their preffered IP be uncompetetive or unplayable as they release. Be free to correct me, but the incentives for UB modern sets being pushed seem the same as with standard, only starting on a lower level therefore bringing the issue to standard as the price for mitigating somewhat for modern and commander.
They'll keep working on whatever's successful - and with the right IP, UB will continue to outperform Magic IP sets.
Especially when Magic IP itself is watered down with far too many outside references that are no longer subtle.
In the long-run I still wonder if this is sustainable, what's retention like? what are the conversion rates of newcomers brought in via an external IP? what happens when other corporations want a bigger slice of the profits?
It depends on your definition of successful. If we wanna talk from a cynical money making point of view, UB sets might sell more, but a large chunk of the profits needs to be paid back to the owner of the IP as royalties, which makes in-universe sets just as, if not more profitable, even if they move less product. I'd like Wizards to promote their internal IP more for sure, but I don't see them ever doing away with original sets in favor of UB sets fully. It doesn't make sense financially.
Also, if they are going from the gate to get other stupidly popular nerd IPs, then UB will outsell original IP. Then, they focus less on it. Then, when they run out of stupidly successful IPs and only have their neglected IP, what next?
"the slippery slope happened, and that's a good thing"
You're finally showing your true colors.
As I am watching this video I am typing my collection into Moxfield on my other monitor, I am selling out of the game fully.
It's fine if everyone else want's to play Popculture Mashup: The Card Game, but it simply isn't for me, I am not even slightly interested.
I love Warhammer 40k, I love Doctor Who, I am really nothing short of a Tolkien fanatic. This does not mean I want them in my Magic. Just because two things are good does not mean I want them blended together.
If this is the direction Magic is going (And really I knew this was the direction from the day the Walking Deck Secret Lair was revealed and I should have probably just sold out of the game right then) then I won't be going along. I'm sure it will pick up many new players who just love Spongebob or whatever, but it is going to lose people as well.
14:00 This is a good point, inasmuch as Magic lore being a collection of other tropes and similar content. I hadn't thought about it that way before. However, it's also worth pointing out that the interest of players in those tropes came from seeing how the characters of magic navigated or subverted those tropes, and how they changed as a result. It's made me realize that maybe that's my problem with the new Universes Beyond Expansions: The fact that they're inherently stagnant by neccesity. They feel to me more like still capsules or snowglobes than something actually in motion at all. The copyright holders would never allow something new or lore disruptive to happen in a side product. The sets will be the same familiar world as any other IP crossover that the given IP would participate in.
Of course, I'll also admit that this would have been a lot stronger of a take if the tropes of the main Magic story were a lot less surface level than they have been in modern sets. When they weren't as shallow as just "Detectives" or "Fairy Tales" or similar. Maybe this is more an indictment of the move away from block style set releases than anything else.
Regardless of my take, still an insightful video.
The thing is, it really isn't, or hasn't always been, a mashup of tropes anymore than anything else. The Borg from Star Trek don't have a god they worship or send out sleeper agents to infiltrate worlds. The Eldrazi are hinted at having a purpose in recycling planes and behave in unique ways. Sure, the last year's worth of sets has felt like just magic characters trying out different genres, but there was a time when, even if the designers started with something like greek mythos, they put in the time and effort to make it unique, make it their own. Much of the lore and worlds draw inspiration from different tropes and genres, but so does everything. A lot of modern fantasy can trace roots back to Tolkien, but even he wasn't unique, drawing a lot of inspiration from a guy named William Morris. That doesn't cheapen his works at all or make them derivative, so Vince's argument rings hollow for me here.
It definitely feels like as UB has ramped up, and the product release schedule has accelerated, the thing that has suffered are the lore and characters of core Magic sets. Alongside really mechanically interesting takes on Doctor Who characters we were getting cheap, surface level "Detectives" and "Cowboys". There just hasn't been a lot of heart and soul being put into Magic proper at the same time as UB gets expansive and interesting treatments. All that to say I can't imagine increasing UB is going to be doing any favors, and the ongoing neglect of Magic proper is the real shame in all of this, regardless of how well-designed or fun the UB sets might be.
The point for me isn't "UB can be fun", which, sure. The point is "what are we losing?"
"I don't think this is the end o magic" sure, the game will draw all those brainless Marvel fans that will buy anything as long there's a spider man logo on it, the game will survive, as for the IP magic, this one is definitely dead, but hey who cares about all those cool old worlds we used to see, remember Alara? Yeah it was just a bunch of tropes mashed together, Lorwyn? Yeah push it to the next year. Seriously Vince saying eldrazi is just a "trope" of eldritch horror is beyond insulting to those who carefully crafted those worlds, they sure we're inspired by the genre but there's nothing like eldrazi in current day media. Magic allowed visions of so many worlds, so many different weird niches and now even in its own cannon is it still trying to grab that Marvel/star Wars Pie. Even when it relied on tropes mtg worlds had it's own twists and uniqueness, it was a safe haven from the trends of the world but now it's just this husk of a universe made just to appease the already well served fans of other more famous IPS, it's beyond sad that it's all sacrificed for the sake of money. At this point wotc can just put AI into everything and people like you will be "at least the game will survive".
You see, I didnt talk about this enough - but the elitism here fucking stinks.
Stop it
The love and care an artists put into work only counts if it’s done for universes beyond bro get with the program, who cares about the tropes in innistrad or for the eldrazi. Let’s get something unique like spiderman or transformers
@@PleasantKenobisir, I regret to inform you that you might be the elite in this socioeconomic context
@@PleasantKenobicall it whatever you want, let people rant there's literally nothing else to do.
@@PleasantKenobioh, please - do continue. In fact, why don’t you make a video about elitism, gatekeeping, and toxic fandom in Magic!
It’s going to go over *so well* with all the actual fans of the corpse of this game you’re gleefully dancing on.
I’m sure you’ll get loads of Walking Dead, Spider-Man, and Jurassic Park fans in here coming to your defense. But, as long as they come here to like, share, and subscribe, everything is all good for you, right?
Universes Beyond...what? Beyond what? Magic! I get it. It's for players beyond those interested in the MTG universe as such. It's perfect for casualness of commander. It's all there, from proxies to alters already. But standard? UB being practically inescapable? Man....I mean....premodern is still there I guess. I'm just sad. And Prof has had a spot on take on this topic for me. From the ministry of silly hats in spirit (karlov manor/thunder j.) to literal Monty Python and now full on mash-up bonanza you can't opt out of. Having something for everyone is nice. But forcing everything on everyone...man....
I don't know, I get your point and even if I'm a relativly old player, I'm not quitting...
But between the power creep, the ammount of releases and the dilution of the Magic lore, I feel...
Detached, alienated.
The stories with the gatewatch saga, Bolas, Phyrexia and the Eldrazi were lucklaster and rushed because there was no way to explore them well without a block system for releases and secondary products like books, shows, games...
I don't know where I'm going with this, this are some personal feelings and toughts more then a well presented argument.
Appreciate you sharing, and I absolutely feel some of that sentiment. Seismic changes leave you feeling... lost.
As a relatively new player (tried the game a few times last decade, fully bought in during Brothers War), it just feels like they're always holding back and always making it hard for themselves. WotC is not doing anything objectively wrong or logically inconsistent or profoundly unacceptable, they just keep screwing around and taking actions or inaction that make people question if they understand what I bought the game for, to the extent that it matters. They're not killing the game, they just don't get me (or a lot of players I know) and it's fine for me to say that I feel.
Magic isn't going anywhere, my playgroup and I will just ignore this stuff and everything is gonna be fine, but yeah, I dunno, I think it's good to speak up. Maybe what we need to do is to start putting forward our constructive vision for the game instead, every Universes Beyond complaining thread we should just say "I would buy two booster boxes of Dominaria Remastered 2." or "I'm so hyped for Lorwyn in TWO years, I can't wait!" and maybe they'll listen. Telling them we don't want something after they announce it isn't working.
If I wanted to play Weiss Schwarz, that game already exists. I'm not super interested in MTG becoming the Fortnite of card games
Vince: its not the end of the world
Everyone who bought LotR telling WotC this is what they want: its the end of the world.
I normally really love your stuff but just to briefly say, without even getting into the arguments really. A huge amount of what you say is based on "Well...Mark Rosewater said..." respectfully why do you give a damn what Maro says anymore? He's someone between Not in the loop/Corporate mouthpiece to actively lying. The usual rebuttal is "yeah well he said that a long time ago, opinions change man" well fine sure a few years ago he said that they'd never be in standard. Then we heard "dont worry about balance problems guys, we've been planning this announcement for YEARS and all the sets were designed with this change in mind" something is...cranky there.
The other part is "They wont remove Magic IP entirely" well why not? Is the justification for these UB sets not that "they make biggly money" in that case, why ever make a real magic set again. If all the crossover products sell gangbusters, why bother with a bloomburrow or duskmourn which are great sets with cool art and so on but they dont make LOTR money.
Ya'll were SOOOOOO EXCITED for the walking dead and Lord of the Rings, but plenty of folks were standing around the edges of this thing, telling the rest straight up, "This is how it begins". Slippery slope my arse it was a cliff and WOTC jumped off it chasing after $$$. This was inevitable the moment Hasbro realized they could dip into other 'IP' and make a killing without having to actually own those characters or do literally anything to develop them. Why work so hard at designing new sets and cards when you can just cut-and-paste from Marvel?
Do you think your opinion would be different if this wasn't your job? You literally have to have a degree of cope to do this.
Perhaps, but I still wouldn't be quitting the game over this. Its not my preferred route, but its not the end of days either.
@@PleasantKenobiyes it is. And you are paid to deny it
I used to think mtg cards where designer's pieces of art. Now they are starting to look like soulsless ads for me
One of the worst takes I’ve heard. I signed up to play MTG not Media the Gathering.
I'm sure you will survive, in spite of all the dramatics.
@@PleasantKenobi Easy to say when you have to be ok with it, MTG content is your livelihood, you don’t have a choice but to be ok with it.
@@PleasantKenobi My problem with your take throughout this video is that you acknowledge the slippery slope and yet downplay all the negatives. The doomers that were called idiots and fools before turned out to be right. "The end of Magic" has always been a dramatizationon, on that we agree, but the spirit of the game will die long before the actual product does and we are watching that happen now. This "Fortnitification" is the death of that spirit.
Your take is so rose tinted it almost comes across as condescending.
I’ve recently completely 180’d from Magic to Flesh and Blood and I didn’t realize how much copium I was on with Magic.
Don’t get me wrong, I do still enjoy Magic as a game and I honestly LOVE the IP when they actually decide to use it. But I’m so sick of Universes Beyond that having another game to jump into made me realize how bad Magic really has gotten.
Anyone feeling this way, if you haven’t tried FaB, I’m sure your local store has at least one other person interested in it. Pick up a blitz deck and give it a try! :)
It's Mash-up the gathering now. Really funny how your tune is changing now that its hitting standard
How so? Care to unpack the comedy?
@@PleasantKenobiI think he's trying to call you a hypocrite sir.
It's not just that it's hitting Standard, though, it's that they are making so damn much of it.
Especially since, as Duskmourne shows, even half of the Magic-IP sets might not be Magic.
"Mash-Up: The Gathering" goes incredibly fucking hard actually
if nothing else, it's heartening to see just how many people agree on how utterly ridiculous and pathetic what has been done to magic is. i would be far more depressed if everyone around me were cheering and i was alone with these many, many frustrations.
They are alienating their loyal customers in favour of short term profits. The turnaround could be catastrophic for Wizards. At least I will always have my cube.
The problem with making everything legal everywhere is , you cant just enjoy a 1-off. You /have/ to enjoy Spider man AND Final Fantasy AND whatever comes next. If you don't, it'll push you out of those formats faster than anything else. This is the first year in my mtg playing life I'm not interested in picking up a single set.
They kicked my faeries to 2026... so yeah, me neither u.u🧚
One of my biggest concerns is UB sets having way overturned cards to make them necessary to remain competitive, since Wizards will have to prove they can move product to get future deals from other IPs
Oh right. These external IPs probably do have licenses and such. Nothing says scarcity like a set that cannot be reprinted due to expired license agreements.
The contribution that flavour and theme make to a game can be kind of... slippery, and hard to appreciate. But imagine if MTG's game pieces were merely coloured cardboard with no art, no keywords or game terms hinting at magic, just pure rules. Or, imagine if a 40K game was played with only unpainted obelisks and shapes of different sizes, rather than models.
The creative aspects of a game are not secondary. Drawing you into the fantasy of the game universe is a very big part of each game's entire attraction. You cast an edict to kill that creature, and your gaunts ate those marines.
MTG is on the road to phasing out its "IP" from its own game. I feel confident in saying that MTG's universe within is an important part of the attraction of the game, and I guess we're now part of an experiment to find out how important it was. It might be fine, or it might be fatal, but it seems like an insane thing to even try.
Didnt PK say something along the lines of "I dont want to aee pokachu riding flittershy into battle while holding the one ring. It isnt MAGIC" towards the beginning of the universes beyond releases?
Like, you can change your mind on how you feel, but when you say you always lowkey loved UB, that feels kinda disingenuous.
It is, he’s a shill… this is why his opinion and TCC’s shouldn’t matter anymore because they’re hypocrites and will say anything people want them to to gain public favor
But think of how exciting this is for shareholders :D.
Truly the underrepresented people here. The way to handle this news is to buy (or short) Hasbro shares, depending on your expectations.
"Where ambition meets industry, passion is poisoned by greed."
- flavortext of Blackcleave Cliffs
I stopped playing over UB and MTG’s constant monetisation. I feel super happy about that.
I stopped buying new Magic after I noticed them cramming Transformers cards into my "Brother's War" packs.
Looks like I made the right decision.
the main problem is that they're game pieces, and now legal in the most basic format, standard. so if you want to play the game from here on, you will have to keep up with all the various IPs they put out, even ones you absolutely don't give a crap about, or face losing to, let's say, The Spot over and over again.
corollary: in order to counter The Spot, above, you'll need Pinkie Pie to eat a Big Mac and wear Balenciaga shoes that aren't even horseshoes.
so now you've got three more IPs that you have to invest in, all of which are effectively just brand references, in order to win a game and gain up to 8 more packs of advertisements-disguised-as-a-game.
yeah, I'm done, again. Got back in to play with my kids, really, really not looking forward to this.
I mean, isn't this just how the game works anyways? Let's say I'm a standard player and I really enjoyed March of the Machines but I don't like cowboys and detectives and silly horror movie references. I'm "forced" to keep up with sets I'm not interested in so that I don't get my ass kicked by a ghost buster or Oko in a cowboy hat.
to be fair even if magic becomes more successful due to these crossovers, it won't be magic's success but Spongebobs and don't you forget it. Magic as an IP is dead and now it has taken the new form of a billboard ad but now it's only a matter of time before magic is replaced by another game no matter how impossible that may sound to you, things change and spongebob is the proof.
This is like if Metallica announced they’d only be releasing Garage Days style albums and half their live sets going forward would be off of those cover albums.
Some people would say “well, they haven’t written anything good since 91 anyway”.
Some people are devastated they’ll probably not be able to hear anything off the first four records live 5 years from now.
And some people just want to hear James sing “Baby Shark” and “Espresso”.
my biggest issue is that with 6 standard sets the game just gets super expensive.... more than it was prior
12:05
It's Wizards of the Coast, the "inventors" of Dungeons and Dragons. A lot of those "stale tropes" were introduced or at least popularized by WotC itself before they became said tropes.
By TSR prior to D&D acquisition by Wizards, maybe.
I think the difference in reaction to finding out we will know MSRP and finding out the future of the game is very telling. I may be remembering this wrong, but arent people usually excited when they show next year's release schedule?