3 Things WOTC Could Do For Commander
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 14 июн 2024
- We got issues in the commander format. I've got 3 ways to fix them.
Patreon
/ edhdeckbuilding
The T-shirt I'm wearing
intotheam.com/EDHDeck
promo code: EDHDeck 
Видеоклипы
Видеоклипы
the solution to 99% of problems hitting EDH is for WotC to just stop printing so many commander specific products... the format was so much healthier when there was only one set of precons a year (instead of 4 decks with every single set release). When they print nearly 500 cards a year that were specifically made for EDH, it makes it a "rotating" format, as you said... it was a healthy format when we used to pick from Standard cards, or weird twenty-years-old janky cards... In 2019, I added one or two cards in my decks per set release. Now I could switch 10 cards in every single of my deck every semester...
This is the #1 take with so much product there becomes a need to innovate and make a reason to buy
You don't like drinking from a fire hose?
Plus with the speed of releases and so many Legendary creatures in every set, coupled with a new release every month, we have no time to properly evaluate and play with new cards/commanders. We get decks built then we have to do it all over again next month. And that is regardless of the flood of pre-cons on top. There are too many cooks in the kitchen so the food is rushed and lousy.
Cards with drawbacks. They just don't make them like they used to.
Part of the problem with power creep is they are less worried about balance. why give a draw back when we can just make a card strong.
Cards with drawbacks don't sell product. It's really as simple as that. If you make only make cards that are strictly worse than those already existing, those products will gather dust in warehouses and do nothing else, because there are already better/less laborious/less frustrating options on the table.
I used to love drawback cards. You get extra power in return for downside and it is well balanced. Now we have cards like that plus upside (I'm looking at you Sheoldred The Apocalypse) so drawbacks don't work anymore. Sheoldred is very much a power crept Juzam Djinn. Hell, vanilla creatures are dead. Drawback cards are dead when something does the same thing or better with no drawbacks. And it is sad because drawbacks add so many nuances to new card designed WotC have painted themselves into a corner from.
I started brewing a merry and Pippin deck, one of my friends commented that it would be a lot better if it triggered off every artifact but once per turn wasn't great.
I love once per turn or twice per turn commanders.
@@aytakk There are still drawbacks, after a fashion. The design philosophy has just moved on from straight punishment to cards not working as well outside of their intended niche. Sort of, a card being a 2/5 the wrong context, but a 4/5 in the right context.
I think this bears mentioning when we're talking about the design philosophy. While they print a lot of powerhouse cards, there aren't nearly as many generically good cards being made anymore. Everything seems to require a context to be truly spicy.
This stands in contrast to cards from long long ago, where they did cards that were literally 0 out of 5 in or against the wrong context (case and point in every color-limited removal from the early years of Magic) and a 2-3/5 in or against the right context.
Honestly, one of the joys of deck building is finding an odd card, maybe one that wasn't particularly designed with commander in mind, but one that works well in a theme which you can APPLY to a commander or play style. Designing cards *for* the format limits the fun design space that can exist in a rotating format.
It is nice when they keep multiplayer in mind but that is the only thing about commander I think should affect the design of all cards and that will actually help all the other multiplayer formats as well. That said things like partners are cool and they should make products explicitly for commander from time to time but that is the same as needing products for modern and products for standard constructed and standard draft.
i do like the new card designs in some ways, as long as they stay fresh. stuff like dr who and fallout commander decks have those jank designs I look for. They happen to be designed for commander, but maybe not as a commander or around a specific thing the card does
Such a good point you made there, make interesting cards rather than just power creeping everything into oblivion. New design has leaned on things like: hey what if this thing that already exists costs no mana?
They're fixated on maximizing profits first, supporting the community last. How to fix it? Establish MSRP. Reduce price by eliminating foils, mythics, and art cards--these all cost more money. Then support all formats, but less often. At least Standard, Modern, Commander, and Pauper. But Hasbro corporate will never allow these changes.
Exactly, it won't get better if they keep at their profit-first model. What sells best isn't what's best for the game. Priorities would need to shift, but with Hasbro being so reliant on the financial success of WOTZ I don't see it happening.
they don’t need to eliminate foils, mythics, or art cards at all lol. do you just want them not to make any cool-looking cards? you don’t need to completely remove collector’s items to make the game more affordable.
what they need to do is not lock valuable cards to these categories and make them optional for players who want to spend more money (i.e. save mythic slots for special printings or designs, but have all the normal versions of cards be set at rare or lower).
Power Creep is what Yugioh does to keep selling new cards to people. I don’t want Magic to turn into what Yugioh has become over the last 10 years.
Yugioh is near garbage now with snake eyes
@@joelbird1950 Yup, pretty much lol
one thing I hate are handtraps, it's like playing vs mono blue everytime
One of my pet peeve about legendary creatures is that some of them don't FEEL legendary. And the fact that there is so many of them does cheapen the fact of being a legendary creature to begin with. Also I need to get me a magmatic force for my Elemental deck! Thanks for the upgrade idea!
And basically non of them have lore at this point
@@pokegard 100% this. No lore, no flavor text, no importance. What is so legendary about them?
@@shorewall I guess the word legendary for the purposes of game mechanics, but true
That's exactly what I dislike about the new cards. A lot of them aren't really legendary and all they're doing is flooding the commander list with useless cards; they need to take care of it sooner than later.
Exactly! Why did they make non-rare legendary creatures?
When I see new cards that have awesome synergy with my older cards from the 90s and early 2000s, I look forward to adding them to decks.
The time you mentioned when power creep wasn't a thing... remember that Standard was the main driving format behind magic at the time, meaning that people would buy the new cards not because they were more powerful than last year's cards, but because last year's cards were rotating out of the format.
Now that Commander is the main driving format behind Magic, there isn't rotation to make people buy more cards. I do think that we're experiencing some power creep as a way to make commander players continue to buy into new sets.
"Out of touch with the game?" this becomes a real possibility when you're bombarded with new sets every 3 months. I know friends who still think that they're catching up with Dr. Who and the glut that hit last summer....
Yes that was my comment on that video. I was speaking from personal experience how I felt and how I feel isn't wrong. Demo just might not be experiencing the same feeling. But regardless of feelings, if you aren't keeping up with the game, then you are by default less in tune with it. And that's ok if that's what he desires. It's his life. I was just warning him.
most of the issues can be fixed by not being a greedy company and stop firing your own employees.
1) chill with the cmdr focused cards
First thought soon as I saw the title notification
Remember they had "year of commander". It's been a really long year ...
i do think part of the issue is the EDH council. everyone knows they are designing cards for commander now. the unset should've been banned from commander and some other choice cards should've as well. i don't think we can trust the EDH council to manage the general state of commander anymore.
I guess you mean the Commander Rules Committee.
I very much agree that if they were actually making decisions, especially regarding the banlist, it could have an actual impact on how WOTZ designs cards for the format. Unfortunaly, the RC is not doing anything.
I started writing a small book on my thoughts about this...then I thought "you know what? Nevermind" Just have fun and play games.
I haven't bought a precon since the warhammer decks, but i will recognize that they are a fantastic way to get new players into the game without just getting pubstomped over and over and over. My only beef with precons is they often just put bonkers abilities on the face cards to where those decks just get tiresome seeing over and over again. I know you touch on this all the time where the designers seem obsessed with have the engine and the payoff on the same card which takes the fun of trying to put other cards in the deck to work together out and you end up with just good stuff piles. I will get back to yelling at clouds now
I don't think commander should rotate like other formats do where entire sets are obsoleted, but I do think the idea of costantly tinkering and adding to decks is a good thing. I have 6 total decks and the fun for me in each release is trying to find something new for each deck and finding a weak link that needs replacing. What's the fun of completing a deck and playing the same version of it year after year? I like my decks to gradually evolve and grow, but that's me.
Saaaammmeeee!!! I put my “PET” deck on moxfield and I have 3 unique built decks in real life. I love optimizing my pet deck and it’s Go-Shintai 5 color that deck somehow continues to grow and grow with every set in some way I love it
Brewing is perhaps more fun that playing, in my opinion. Playing is a way to get feedback to tweak the build further. No player wants Commander to rotate. The issue is that WotC is essentially forcing rotation by making cards that are 'strictly better' versions of existing effects, creating an arm's race. If you only have one or two commander decks, maybe that's ok, but when you have 10-20 or more decks, it goes from being exciting to frustrating. For every one "improved" card WotC makes, you have to wonder how many old cards become irrelevant, thus shrinking the total card pool worth drawing from and putting the emphasis on having the best cards instead of the best ideas.
@@kellysereda4961 I love your point! Just like Yu Gi Oh back in early years there was creativity now in todays standard ( not mtg standard) it’s whoever has the best card to one up a board state to the point it’s not about fun it’s about who has the best board
@@kevonarnold6384 Minor correction, but by "early Yu-Gi-Oh", do you mean "on the playground" or "at tournaments"? Because from what I've seen, the early tournaments featured *slightly* more creative deckbuilding than they do today.
@@Bubben246 I was speaking in general terms of YGO. I say that because before the pendulum era it was all about creativity in deck building then links showed up and made the game degenerate. Everyone I played with in real life or YGO online and watching legit games on RUclips had these crazy deck that took 5 minutes + for one damn turn and then make stupid boards like “negate negate can’t play can SS (special summon) board lock. Then it was copy paste decks
Eh, the legendary creature thing is something that isn't easy to address since it has implications beyond not only the format but also is something basic to the design of magic cards.... Named creatures, are always going to be legendary. No way around that. They aren't going to make named creatures that aren't legendary. This matters because they have been doing a lot of sets focused around named major characters. LotR set, there was no way to reduce the amount of legendary creatures without just straight up leaving some characters out (also they really didn't need to print like 3 versions of each character to be fair). Wilds of Eldrain, very focused on telling the story of the characters so again legendary cards. Thunder Junction, VERY heavily focused on all the mainstay magic characters cosplaying as cowboys. Sure Commander likely has some impact on them making legenday creatures more these days but I highly doubt it is as high as people think.
The second reason... legendary creatures have started getting more interesting and powerful effects that YOU DON'T WANT TO BE ABLE TO BE STACKED. Making a creature legendary is a balance lever. It means that you cannot stack that creatures effect on the field. These cards aren't only used in commander.... they are used EVERYWHERE. Now sure, vintage, modern, legacy, might not care but STANDARD is a lower power format. Looking at Thunder Junctions legendary creatures... at a glance i'm already seeing some really fucked up cards that would be busted if they weren't legendary..
You doubt that Commander is why they print so many Legendary creatures? Lol.
@@shorewall i doubt that is the main driving force behind it. I fucking literally said it plays a part.
i don’t mind them constantly releasing legendary creatures at all. if the legendary is shit, it won’t get played. it’s that simple. legendary creatures usually aren’t that strong in constructed, but if a new legendary creature is a good commander, that’s just one more potential commander you could face instead of seeing the same few decks from EDHREC’s top 100.
The only thing I felt was necessary and essential to buy has been an upgraded mana base, which I can use in every deck for the rest of my life. No one I play with is chasing the meta, this rant seems very cedh focused. You're forgetting that the consumer can also just ignore set releases (I usually miss 3-4 at a time.) and create their own fun.
People like new stuff, people like to get involved with the community. You can't do that if you ignore new releases. Novelty is good, it's just not good in its current form.
agree. i think the power creep argument is insanely overblown by most people. unless you’re playing cedh, your deck is going to be good for a very long time even without constantly updating it with the latest cards (which aren’t even staples, mind you).
@@guico33peruse new cards at your leisure. you don’t need to keep up with every new card in every new set. if you want to play with new cards, then do so. if you don’t, that’s perfectly fine, too. you can engage with the game however you want. you have complete freedom. people act like they’re being forced to buy every new card, when that’s truly not the case. the most you’ll ever need to invest in a game is literally just asking someone to read their card if you don’t know what it does. you don’t need to memorize every single new card to shuffle up and play.
100% agree with these 3 things, especially the last.
WOTC is doing the solution with the increased perçons. There are more players than ever. Buying the singles you for a decent deck can be costly. Precons open up strategies that could be otherwise: energy and multi color eldrazi.
Back in the day I would wait a year for one good white card, while other colors got a lot more.
Great points, well said. I also hate that commander is becoming a rotating format.
What is the definition your using for a rotating format?
The interesting thing is in a way this set might make EDH a less competitive format. It does two things. It raises the power ceiling and it levels the power ceiling. If every high power deck has the same cards, competitive becomes even more boring, which encourages people to try lower power games, and at lower power it becomes easier to say how powerful your deck is because it comes down to do you have the MH combos and cards or not?
Its not a good thing but it's an interesting thought
Hit the nail on the head with all of these points. Calling it a rotating format really sums it up. There are now "go-to" decks in commander wherein you find a list online, buy the cards, and pilot the same experience every game. The joy of Commander, for me at least, is building decks that I want to build and switching every game for a different play style and result.
The sad thing is WotC probably knows most of this already, but I worry that they're under so much pressure from their parent company to cash in their reliable brand for money right now that they'll make the game worse in only a few years' time.
I think that saying "stop printing commander cards" its faulty thinking. Every card ends up in the commander format. And strong cards printed in other format might end up being commander staples
Commander IS the problem. They destroyed the format by printing hundreds of legendary creatures that are the same value engine, plus they printed dozens of cards that might as well write "for EDH use" next to the card type. Instead of following their regular set schedule that had a couple of legendary creatures + the annual Commander deck releases, they flooded the market with cards that go unnoticed and are forgotten within 2 months because people don't even have time to play with them.
Commander used to be the format where people went treasure hunting for unique and gimmicky cards. Now, it's all about synergies and optimization. They might as well announce that this is Standard from now on, since a good chunk of the cards played is from the last 2-3 years.
I dont know if you actually played in the mid 90s, but yeah power creep was ALWAYS a thing. the player base just wasnt griping about it as much until there were much more notable examples that exacerbated pre-existing issues. power creep itself is never the problem, it just highlights current problems and makes those problems feel worse. The current mtg problem of course is the breakneck pace of releases.
Brawl on arena has a problem, too. It’s alchemy. It has ruined the format on arena…
isn’t alchemy opt-in? can’t you choose to play the normal version of formats? from my understanding, alchemy isn’t even that popular
I have a ton of old EDH decks and half the time I’m buying new lands. I think it’s fun that I’m usually running commanders that others aren’t and my friends enjoy playing! Odds and ends rather than the most optimal or powerful possible choice every time
I miss the Invitational too! Amusingly, Jens Thoren (who designed Solemn Simulacrum) submitted it as a 2UG card with the same text. Design made it an artifact because it was due to come out in Mirrodin, which had no gold cards and (of course) a ton of artifacts, and it helped that the card got better as a result. One of the few Invitational cards that got buffed in Design!
year on and year off of commander stuff would be cool, I am exhausted and I dont get to play as much as I used to BUT when I do play its always new cards I gotta read because I refuse to read through every new set.
Winners of Magic tournaments sadly aren't designing cards anymore. WotC says it was really difficult to integrate the player's ideas and ongoing feedback to get it just right with their design process, mostly delays waiting to hear back from the player. So now they have several pre designed cards that they show the player and they get to pick one to put their likeness on.
That is sad. Honestly sounds like a bad excuse. One card a year designed by a pro-player and they can't make it work? Sure it's gonna need adjustments, but they design literally thousands of new cards every year.
@@guico33yeah it seems like cope lol. they should just have a deadline to submit a design for the winner. i feel like devoting a couple people to correspond with the winner wouldn’t be that much of a stretch. i highly doubt the process of designing one card per year would or should be as taxing as they’re making it seem
I 100% agree with your three points. I wouldn't have thought about the first one, but the other two would have been my first thoughts as well.
Just a fun fact Solemn Simulacrum was supposed to be a simic elf wizard but they changed the design to fit the artifact theme of Mirrodin
The biggest issue ever for commander was when wizards found out it existed and was popular and made product for it. The best part of a fan made format is how it can grind against the official rules and means of play. Nothing i hate more than any and every card with the word "commander" on the card. Screw command tower, eminence, or even things like background.
I agree with the first point. But command tower was a good card and should have been the only land card for commander. Eminence isn’t bad at all. I don’t know why people complain about it. Partner and partner with is great, But backgrounds should go.
What's wrong with Backgrounds?
@@otterfire4712 for me too much acknowledgment of the commander format in the text box. For me and I know this is only me. But EDH should be a format and it shouldn’t be acknowledged in the game itself. It breaks the immersion imo.
If we go into how magic is supposed to feel as we play then
As a “wizard” who casts spells we should just be slinging spells and the format we are using shouldn’t be part of our spells.
I wouldn’t like it if cards have pauper, standard, etc.. in the text box either.
Creatures should just be creatures and commander key words shouldn’t be in the cards.
Idk if that makes sense.
@@fernandostar3507 I mean, Standard is acknowledged by the symbol in the text box, as is Pauper and Modern.
I was under the impression that we are the commanders in the format with the units and spells in our deck aid in our efforts to win in the free for all battle.
Having partner and background creates some flexibility in color combinations and strategies that you can employ. Similar to deck building in other formats. I think acknowledging the format is fine in that context since you're no longer just some wizard or Planeswalker, you are a leader so having extra exclusive mechanics to the format differentiates it further from the other formats where you aren't commanding an army.
I like the support they gave commander at the start well I should say the support for brawl and that's how it should've stayed thats where we got arcane Signet and a few others. Backgrounds are neat but yes the rest is definitely annoying. Wizards please move back to standard
I agree with you on "stop printing for commander". Can you imagine the stupidity of making a card that says "1&G, 2/2 creature: If you're playing Pioneer format, this creature enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter"? More and more these days, I'm enjoying building and playing PrEDH.
I like the precons with every set and the continuous printing of new commanders. I enjoy breaking my decks apart and rebuilding in fun new ways. If you want to play your deck from 10 years ago thats something you can work out with a rule zero convo about power levels. I can't rule zero my own custom cards i rely on new product from WotC.
agree. people who gripe about new commanders are making a fuss over nothing. cards from ten years ago are still perfectly fine to play with, and even better than new cards in many cases. i mean, can you think of a new card that could replace something like rhystic study? all printing new commanders does is give players more options. as long as the new cards are fun and unique without being too generic or overpowered, there’s no issue.
The problem with your point 1 is the huge extra effort this requires. With the current burnout.fueled design cycles they must be working with, it is much easier to "just" make more powerful cards of similar effects. Sitting down with individual magic players or having a design back and forth with the community is extremely time consuming. I work in a small creative startup and we love to have our community be involved in what we do, but even we can't do it sometimes, just because it would take much longer and more resources than our design cycles allow for.
Realistically, these invitational and community cards are there so that the community and invested players feel included and for that purpose the extra effort those take are worth it. Scaling those community designs up at the current design volume feels very unrealistic.
Well obviously WOTZ is making a lot of profit-driven decisions.
But the problem is, it's starting to feel more and more detrimental to the game.
It really feel likes their priority is money, and only after they have decided on what is going to be the most profitable, they think of how it will impact the game.
But some business decisions are just bad for the game.
I stopped buying new cards in 2016 before Kaladesh.
I just play with the cards I grew up loving.
What I love about commander is you can play decks with old and budget cards and still compete. Removal is the great equaliser plus ramp and card draw are plentiful now. Cards that were (and are) too slow for tournament play outside limited are often great in commander. Solemn Simulacrum is a great example as it was way too slow for Mirrodin/Type 2 at the time but it is perfect for commander. I agree, more interesting cards are better than simply power crept or complexity crept cards.
Thanks for the morning vid in my first hour of work
Slowing down the rate of legendary creatures would be a big help.
I mean, making a creature legendary doesn't take too much away from it. It may overwhelm you but really only because of FOMO that you're overlooking a certain commander.
Like, looking at Modern Horizons, I wouldn't say it's overloaded with potential commanders. It's got a couple of reprints and yes, there ARE some new 3-color commanders that a pretty specific BUT it seens like a farcry from, say Baldur's Gate (which birthed a surprising amount of now very popular commanders).
I think the problem with a lot of new legendaries was that they were super specific and just unplayable in the 99 or any other format because you HAVE to build a deck around them. I think that's where the exasperation came from, when you opened a booster and there's yet another 3-colored legendary creature with 8 lines of text on it and it does something really powerful but only if you build a deck around it.
Contrast that experience with opening something like a "Laelia, the Blade Reforged", which ALSO has a bunch of text on it and certainly you can build a commander deck with her at the helm (and run a bunch of red impulse-draw spells) BUT she is actually completely playable and strong in the 99 of any deck with red in it. And I think that's the way to go. Sure once in a while, make a cool and unique commander design, but ... these can be restricted to the actuall commander products and for mainsets stick to mono-colored legendaries with strong effects that can go into any number of decks instead of yelling "make me a deck!!" at you.
i don’t mind them releasing a lot of legendary creatures at all. that’s pretty much a non-issue at worst imo. it doesn’t make sense people complain about power creep, yet they’re fine with playing against the same few commanders from EDHREC’s top 100 list. what they need to do is release less unplayable legendary creatures (i.e. creatures that might work in the 99, but aren’t good or playable as commanders).
yeah, there’s a lot of legendary creatures, and they could probably slow down a little bit (especially with the bullshit mono-color legends that no one is playing), but more legends = more options = more creativity.
at the end of the day, i’d rather have what we have now than have to play commander back when everyone was still using the original five elder dragons.
i hate the "precons every set" idea a lot. i used to play competitive yugioh and as a yugioh player, we got like 2-3 structure decks every year. and it was a BIG deal. because whenever they would release one, they were generally VERY powerful and would see if not competitive play, some rogue strategies would be able to get some top cuts at tournaments with even the underwhelming structure decks. some of them would be so strong in fact, some of them had to get hit on the forbidden and limited lists. ever since i started playing magic there have been so many precons that i cant even tell you what the best card in each one is, yet i can still do that for you with all the yugioh structure decks from 2013 to 2021. a solution to this is to maybe instead of 4 precons every set, just do 2 precons every universes beyond set and 1 precon per the major set.
I have to disagree with Universes Beyond being limited to two decks, because I'm not sure there's a way to properly hit enough of the different possible themes in the design space of two decks.
Power-creep is also related to Commander not being a competitive format, so WOTZ can design much more loosely than they do for other formats.
I’m curious if WOTC continues on this trend and keeps printing power crept cards, will you keep making spoiler videos/set release videos? The spoiler videos don’t seem to be your favorite, but I understand you probably feel obligated to make them.
Power creep has always been a thing, the only difference to now from let's say 10-15 years ago is it's way more blatant and severe.
WotC has basically shoved 20years worth of power creep into 5 years
@@ammonaustin9081 The curve is much, much steeper than that. Every set of the past 12 months is much more powerful than every set older than 24 months, excluding maybe the first few sets depending on definitions.
Which is precisely the problem. A low power-creep is welcomed for the format to keep growing.
Also, as much as it might be frowned upon by select members of the second hand market, a commander health set where commonly used or sought after cards that are high in price due to a lack of reprints are reprinted, maybe with more special arts and a limited selection of medium value new cards are added, maybe have precons made that reflect some of commanders history as a format, delve through the archives to find underutilized cards that have high potential in commander and put them in the set to get the word out, create some new more political cards where the power isnt all in one player's hands.
The current custom card policy is to have the World Champion (?) pick from a selection of existing rares or mythics, still in design, and be able to tweak it somewhat. Then they get their face added to it. This was because people were terrible at producing balanced, interesting cards when asked to for the invitationals.
A couple other things WotC could do is to either/or
1) go back to some of the original commander sealed products and re design them. A big problem with the original ones was that they built around 1 of 3 potential commanders, so that really reduces the decks effectiveness. If they re designed these decks and re sold them but with 1 or 2 commanders, like the modern ones, that could be a way for WotC to make money AND “fix” the older commander sets.
2) (and this is a direct opposition to your last point, but hear me out) WotC could go into EDH lists and do precons of popular (or unpopular) commanders. Literally use deck lists (within $$$ limits, obviously) that already exist but get some more precons out there
Both of those ways can still make money by selling sealed products that wizards DOES NOT HAVE TO invest in (I.e., no, or few new cards). Use existing stock. Too many new cards, too often. I would LOVE to see a better Oloro deck, or a precons built around some goofy ass ninja that has 5 decks on edh.
Just a thought of how to “fix” some of the issues without having WotC lose a ton of money.
redesigning old commander decks is an awesome idea. i’d love it if they did that, especially for older decks that are borderline impossible to get now that weren’t even constructed that well
@eebbaa5560 I have some of the original ones and they just don't hold up today (with some exceptions, Nekusar being a notable one). I feel like a "modernized" version of these decks could do quite well, and little cost to WoTC as well. New cards and re package, but don't have to make any new cards for them
@@Vohtwomax i agree but i’m almost positive that the most they’d ever do is just reprint them with alternate art for the commanders or something and sell them as a collector’s item at a markup lol.
honestly, just adding cards from the past few years and updating the manabases and maybe adding some new art would be more than enough, but they’d rather just pump out universes beyond slop, so i doubt they’d ever do something like this tbh.
@eebbaa5560 oh for sure. It's a pipe dream haha. I don't think they would do it, even though it actually makes them the most amount of money. Very little investment and almost 100% return.
Just think it's a cool idea
They're at like 4 or 5 "story" sets per year, that's perfect for a SINGLE yearly Commander release with ONE precon for each story set to showcase characters or themes from that set. Keeps the flavor and design space that I do like from the set based Commander products while still scaling back to manageable levels.
This is what happens when you only care about the bottom line and not the product.
What I love most about MTG is updating my decks with the new tech. Playing the game is second finding new or old cards that are perfect for my deck is a bit of a rush then seeing it payoff in the moment is a blast.
The biggest problem with EDH is that there's no room for experimentation and fun with the current release schedule. Cards are coming out so fast that the meta always feels like it's in flux and I'm behind. I don't even get a chance to play with what I have. I've built decks that I've never used because I haven't had enough time to play them. If I can't experiment, there's no ability to find what I enjoy, or to tweak my decks because another power crept commander is going to come out in a few months that makes my deck irrelevant. I used to pour over set spoilers looking for the exact right cards for my decks, and now I'm so burned out on new product that I have no idea what's even being printed. I'm debating moving to PrEDH, or just focusing on other things, because this just isn't fun anymore and feels abusive.
I don't think your first video was a hot take but I think there is a certain amount of pressure on us as players to stay competitive. Especially at some tables where people can afford to keep updating their decks while others can't. I know you said the issue isn't money oriented but it can cause a problem when the more expensive versions are just better.
It's actually amazing how more than any other tcg magic managed to avoid power creep for so long. A testament to how good the design used to be, and I think fundamentally a misunderstanding of what magic players even want.
Not sure why everyone complains about you having your own takes and suggestions on cards and the format as a whole. Questioning things is healthy, it's good for the format, it gives people additional insight into the game as a whole, and it gives alternate opinions that some people agree with and some don't, so it keeps ALL your viewers engaged. If you simply made videos based solely on what 10 viewers always liked, then that would be stale for the rest of us, and you would get bored yourself and would stop making content. Let the viewers disagree as much as they want, and if some unsubscribe because they think you're complaining too much, oh nooooo, too bad for them. Have I always agreed with everything you've said? Of course not, but it's YOUR channel, and I agree with most of what you say, and cards you like, so I find value in it. Those that don't, go away and find another channel that ONLY has the exact same opinions as you so you don't get triggered and you can be happy in your bubble. As for me, I like the discussions and debates, and I have found that my opinion on cards and play styles has often changed or updated simply because I was looking at something the wrong way, or missing something entirely. Demo, keep doing all that you are doing. Pretty sure it adds value for all of us, as well as being entertaining.
Hello. Long time listener, first time commenter here. My tact is to try to only buy one of each staple. Then as they replace cards in my best decks, the other cards trickle down to my less serious decks. My playgroup is my brother, nephew, child and their friends. I know I can buy them a card as a gift because if they have it in their best deck, they'll slot it in the next deck. I win't be super frustrated when they power creep teferi's protection. It will just go in my next best white deck. I get more variety to my play. I'm able to play at a wider variety of power levels. I made some exceptions to this rule on MH3. I picked up 2 Brainsurges and 2 of a cheap mana rock. But their cheep and I still have a deck playing quick study that will appreciate the brainsurge when it moves down the ranks.
one of each staple is a good policy. i've been doing that for awhile
I agree with the stuff you said but cmon mate you did bring up price in your last video because youre point about the power creep is that per deck you would HAVE to buy a set amount of upgrade because of the cards status as auto includes and better versions of what youre running meaning you have to fork out every set. Maybe you didnt mean to make that point but you did
The solution existed: PreDH. Didn‘t get enough traction and of course people like new things.
Back then I took a hiatus and missed Onslaught and Mirrodin-Block plus two core sets. Now I‘d miss half the cards ever existing in the whole game during that same timeframe.
"Do what they were doing before" - I heard they have reduced proper testing and will deal with busted cards with the ban lists; I cannot confirm. Additionally, have they ever had so many sets coming out each year? It seems like they are pumping out new sets faster than I can change my underwear and perhaps the need for constant variety is driving designers towards Powercreep to generate interest in the new set? Just speculating.
great video
I think one thing they could do to slow down power creep and such would be to print a few sets in a row that focus on support specifically for less powerful creatures types, themes, and mechanics, but I think its unlikely to see idk bears, dogs, and mutate cards taking spots away from more dragons, wizards, and zombies much for a while.
(If anyone actually reads this wall of text, I salute you and please disagree with me)
I honestly don't think that MH3 had that many 'auto includes' but rather provided more options or variants of preixisting cards. As someone who plays decks in the $50 budget range to also playing CEDH, I think MH3 was a healthy set for the format. In my opinion, commander is always going to be a format where the power ceiling is MUCH higher than what people typically play. Just look at an average cedh deck in comparison to the same commander built for casual on moxfield. They probably only share about 20 cards MAX. I think my issue with the previous video was that it felt to centered around casual edh, with things like "people don't ramp in modern" being pretty far from true. While I definitely see the rate of powerful cards being printed as potentially an issue, i think that most of these cards are less "auto includes" and more "auto considers" or auto sideboards. I sympathize with the gripes that a lot of people have with commander getting too much attention from Wizards, but I think there is a balance to consider because of how diverse commander is as a format. As a cedh player, I got a couple cards for some of my decks, but even those are contentious, which to me feels healthy. For my casual decks, I honestly saw nothing in this set that blew my mind apart from maybe Ulamog.
I think the commander precons are understandable. Most of the cards in them should be reprints not new cards. It makes sense to try to print four commanders with each set release. The problem is forty commanders in each set, not the four commander precons. The bigger issue is putting so many new cards I. The precons. The precons should be showcasing the new set cards in commander and reprinting cards that need to get more in supply because they are staples.
I broadly agree about power creep, how it feels like it's accelerating and how demotivating it can be to see new cards become obsolete relatively quickly. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that in MH3, as was the case with the other 2 Modern Horizons sets, one of the set's big themes involves calling back to cards from Magic's history, ala Flametongue Yearling, Force of Negation etc. I can see looking at the flare cycle and rolling your eyes because they're free versions of cards we know already, but at the same time, I dunno, in this set that's kinda the joke.
Yeah, MH3 in itself isn't a particularly problematic set. But with so many new sets and cards a year, it's hard to deny there's a trend.
I have a friend who mostly stopped playing Magic 8 or 10 years ago, I visited them recently and played my new Caesar deck against their Intet deck and their Jeleva deck played by another friend who’s no longer into the game. We had a great game, Caesar is very low to the ground and just trying to keep his engine running compared to these old decks built around getting off big, flashy spells. I squeaked out a win at the end, but Intet and its decade-old list very much held up.
Power creep is real and annoying, but a lot of what I see the past year or two in Magic is flexibility creep: cards are being power crept by “this spell but it can do something else instead” or “this spell or a land” more than “strictly stronger effect.” I think that doesn’t feel quite as bad in commander play and can be more optional to engage with, but it’s fair to say the sheer quantity of that is an issue.
I played Magic sporadically 99-2013 from childhood to out of college and tried a little commander at the end of that, then came back to the game in 2020 right as the commander focus ramped up.
I stopped buying cards 2 years ago, m30 was the final straw. They do not deserve my money anymore.
Sure a company needs to make money, but they should never strife to make ALL the money. never put growth before quality.
I think something thats been becoming more and more problematic is the increase in cards that are made for commander that perform their entire function strongly on their own, and become overwhelming when combined with other effects that boost them, for a minor effect this is fine, when done with major effects it is bad for the casual side of the game, especially when tables cant agree on a power level
I think an interesting balance would be a commander product once a year, and then with each set a cheaper priced precon that was built around a story beat character from that set made entirely of reprints
That sounds great. And honestly there are so many ideas that would make it better that what we have now.
But if it reduces profits for WOTZ, it likely is never gonna see the light of day.
#1 is something yk they’re not taking into account. I hear so many creators saying that to many commanders are coming out that are just basic, boring and actual interesting commanders are being missed! Idk what company would go against feedback from the people that are buying their product!
I'm all for the evolution of the game and can see a lot of my decks going stale, but as someone who loves brewing, change is very welcome.
I'm all for the power creep too, I'm sure they were running out of ceiling for new designs without us all rolling our eyes at because it's just another disguised version of another card.
That being said we still end up with people rolling their eyes at something.
OK, I just finished a game of Commander where my friend and I played LOTR Precons and one person played the Mothman Fallout person. I'm not officially afraid power creep is going to ruin the game and i don't know what to think.
Seperate the format in high and low power (no cedh is not what i mean, they got themself sorted out) with seperate banlists, so the lower powered one can have bans due to powerlevel.
Also, i am talking for those of us who DONT have a regular playgroup or often even an lgs, and have to make do with online platforms or spelltable.
What about the fox creatures in MH3?
I'm just going to vote with my wallet, and hold off until the spooky set this year or the other sets I want next year. However, I'm still trying to get caught up on Baldur's Gate.
I want to argue that ARE PRINTING interesting cards: they are in the precons: mostly cards that are niche but some of them are broad enough.
- suggests you to look at cards made in the precon the last year, you will be surprised.
The world champions dont really get to design the cards, i saw an interview with PVDDR. Wizards showed him some prototype ideas and he chosed one
Totally agree. I'd like to see cards that pick up on old ideas and creature types that didn't get enough love at the time, or that couldn't compete anymore in today's meta.
For me power creep is only okay if the power crept card was weak with an interesting mechanic
I think the root of the problem with the commander format is the players of the format. There are so many new players coming into commander with hyper competitive mindsets because their local LGS is only holding commander events.
The spirit of interesting decks that do neat things or decks that are filled with cards a player loves is dying. It's because the majority of Magic players only care about winning and how to crush their opponents. Magic players have lost sight of enjoying the game they are playing and only can seem to have fun when they are dominating their play group.
Wizards of the Coast has just done the corporate thing of looking at play statistics and sales. Then they make cards that will sell. Catering to the masses of new players leaving the old vanguard of player to rot in a sea of power creep.
I've only got into MTG in 2014 with some of my favorite cards Sunblade Elf, Flamespeaker Adept, and Sigiled Starfish.
While I have greatly improved as a deck builder since I started, the only goal I ever go into a game of commander game with is; I hope I can show off what my deck can do. I am the minority and the other players of the game will eventually break the final straw and make me leave the game.
Back in 7th,8th,9th era wotc would people vote on certain reprints online I miss that.
A friend of mine has the ability to buy all the nice cards and new sets and I literally can’t beat him anymore because he’s got all the best cards 😢sad that the power creep has gotten to a spot where my decks from a year ago can’t keep up
I would really enjoy watching a video where you offer solutions to improve the format. Not necessarily create a new format but maybe some limitations that could be implemented to keep EDH casual. I would really hate for my favorite game to turn into Yugioh (turn 1 solitaire wins) in the next few years.
Got to the end of the video where you offer a solution for wizards but I don't think that will happen so it's up to us to draw the line
@@nelsikegaming The commander RC could do something to balance WOTC's vision, but currently they're doing nothing.
@@guico33 I have a feeling the RC and WoTC are in cahoots. $$$$
@@guico33 I have a feeling WoTC and the RC are in cahoots. $$$$
@@guico33 I have a feeling WoTC and the RC are in on it. $$$$
You hit the Demo! the best would be stop printing for edh but that's too much money lost so they won' 😢
The other solution of exploring new designing espace is the other way, but requires more effort per card so less cards per year
Yeah I've never cared for the power-creep, my favorite cards are always goofy mechanics and flavorful art... my favorite cards in MH3 are the Landscapes and Wight of the Reliquary. My favorite cards in OTJ are the 5 filter lands and 5 fast lands getting western art. :') I don't think any of them are very powerful other than Spirebluff Canal was very sought after for awhile.
I'll probably get the MDFCs in MH3, but only 1 of each... I don't like having multiples of a card/art throughout my commander decks, even in keeping to the spirit of singleton I try to make sure none of my basic-land art is repeated. xD
I have to agree with the powercreep is going to happen a, 30 year old game that actually been consistent is bound to happen and comparing the first few years isn’t very good because game balancing is 100% what they had to do.
i play commander since I'm 12 im 24 now, and the game is like it has anxiety now. i miss like demo said i played gave guru of spores and roon of the hidden realm when i started and it was interesting and fun to checl janky things but today it's feels like anxietymander .
Your solutions basically ask WotC to refuse money.
They could find a way to balance profits and making sure to better the game. But yeah it doesn't look like it is their priority.
I think it was okay until they realised they could make the game mainstream. Which in itself isn't a bad thing, but it tends to foster business decisions that negatively impact the game.
Their idea of a better game is different from the players. They probably think all their moves are good for profits and the game. You really can’t expect these companies to not prioritize profit. It is what they are made to do.
The argument that power creep is a new phenomenon is kind of silly right? It may be going faster than ever before- but the history of magic is a line going consistently up- especially in non-rotating formats
I see it similar to music/bands. A band can never expand/change their sound and people say, "it's all the same." On the contrary, they can try new sounds or even genres and now people say, "they changed from what they were. I don't like it." The consumer base overall is never going to agree and shows the flaw in systems we've been shacked into. In the grand scheme of life, absolutely none of these products matter or improve humanity as a whole. Whoops. That wasn't meant to go existential...
A great alternative for players sick of power creep, Treasure tokens, and 99% of OP pay-to-win cards is the Premodern format, a player-supported traditional 60-card format completely outside WotC control. Premodern includes all cards published in MtG sets starting from 4th Edition/Ice Age through 7th Edition/Scourge, basically all cards originally printed in retro frames. Premodern has a short 32-card ban list, which excludes OP cards like Force of Will, Vampiric Tutor, and Necropotence. It is of particular appeal to players fond of vintage cards who can't afford to invest in the dual lands/power 9 cards required for Legacy and Vintage formats, and includes non-tournament printings like World Championship Decks. Premodern is remarkably competitive within its historic domain free of overpriced, overpowered, and overhyped modern magic cards.
I disagree with the notion that for-commander designs is an issue. All of the banned cards bar 1(?) - All cards, if we count only those which provably warped the format - and a large majority of the cards that commonly come up in discussions on what to ban, were not printed specifically for commander. The only banned card from a for-commander product was from the first, very experimental edition of precons.
The way I see it, the issue isn't with products designed specifically for Commander, but with the sheer volume of it coming out. With only a yearly release of precons and a smattering of cards clearly meant for Commander, in standard sets, they didn't need to revisit the same themes as often, so any power creep was less noticable. Now, with them having to crank out 4+ times that amount of content for the Commander every year, they have to rehash themes and strategies a lot more often, so some power creep is going to happen, it's unavoidable. The only way to completely avoid power creep is to only ever reprint the same cards over and over, and that isn't in their, or indeed in our, interests.
Of course, they make a few chase cards with each set to push sales of product, but I still don't agree with the notion that this is forcing a rotation of any sort. I have plenty of pre-precon commanders that I've played and sparsely upgraded for years, and they still have a high degree of agency in mid-to-high powered games to this day. It's more down to how you build your decks than what cards you use. If you run enough lands, enough interaction and other "utilities", and don't overload of value engines, payoff cards and secondary and tertiary strategies, your decks will still hum, for years to come.
Sure, some of the legendaries made these days are incredibly powerful - Just as some were back in the day. Yet again, reference to the banned list, and the fact that most high-powered and competitive staples, to this day, weren't designed with commander in mind.
And you're invalidating your own argument by saying both that "Who would play this less efficient but more open-ended card when there are more efficient, precise cards" and "People are playing these interesting cards instead of the powercrept cards because they are interesting", in the same breath. Which way is it? Is there a rotation or not. Honestly, more than anything, this is about the culture within the player base, not about what cards are being printed. As always, we've had Timmy's, Johnnies and Spikes. Spikes will forsake the open-ended cards for raw efficiency. Simple fact of life. What can be done about this is to foster your playgroup. If someone doesn't fit the intended vibe of the group, you just have to manage that.
When you have 10+ decks, it's so daunting every time a product comes out. I feel like they are constantly printing for every archetype and always pushing older less efficient things out of the meta and out of the edhrec data. It's really scary honestly. I'd have to be playing commander 3+ times a week to really keep up w newer versions of utility pieces. And at least 5 games a week on a bunch of decks to actually see if the changes are effective/desirable. I'm 36, if I play 1 game a week I'm happy. So I'm at an impasse, like why should I spend 100 bucks or more each month to keep min/maxing all of my 13 decks on the chance that I can play and also draw those cards. What a game haha😂
I don't buy pack, I'm just a returning mtg paper players. When I quit playing 24 years ago commander was not even there. I buy single that are interresting to me. Since I missed alot cards when I was not playing mtg, the commander precon helped me rebuild my collection so I disagree with your point. As long wotc dont sell 2 packs of beta 35th anniversary for 2000.00$ gold border/non tournament legal, I'm fine ;)
I’d prefer for them to soft boost old jank than merely create power creep
The difference is those cards aren't MUST HAVES, they're just neat options in an ever growing sea of other neat options. They don't sell sets and drive up profits, powerhouse cards and strictly better cards do.
I wonder if there’s a connection between their half-assed approach to world-building / lore…and the lack of focused/interesting cards.🤔
i honestly am more upset about the lore and flavor of the game lacking in recent years.
@@edhdeckbuilding Let's face it, it's all about profits. WOTZ found out that new and better cards will sell better than anything else, so other aspects of MTG have become very secondary.
What about focusing on story and flavor? Bloom burrow is the most hyped set of the year. We have seen very few spoilers so we do t have a good gauge on how power crept it is, but it’s the most hyped. That’s because it’s cute af and the flavor is so inviting. Murders and Markov Manor /s flopped because the story wand flavor was trash. Very few people were hyped for cowboy magic because the flavor was trash. Gimme flavor wotc!
Bloomburrow doesn't have great flavor. It is cute in a very maintstream way. How do antropomorphic animals make sense in the MTG lore? Guess what, they don't.
It's the same thing WOTZ did with their ravnica detective game and their western movie imitation. It's just that the imagery of Blomburrow is slightly more anchored in the typical fantasy imagery than the 2 previous lore disasters they came up with.
It's just much easier when it's visually striking to make people swallow the pill, even though there is no quality lore to back it up.
Read up about the story of the original Mirrodin block for instance, and you'll realize how shallow Bloomburrow feel.
@@guico33 "Great" isn't particularly descriptive, so I'll reword it to use more precise language. Bloomburrow has an aesthetic that more mtg players enjoy and connect with, likely because it's cute and more fantasy related than other recent sets like you mentioned. Regarding the story, I got back into magic back in like 2014 because the story was great and it made me want to buy cards and play. Opening cards for characters I liked and story points that were cool was so cool.
I don't know anything about the Bloomburrow story specifically, but I agree that the mtg story has been trash for a long time. I don't care about the characters or what's going on in the story at all, so my main interest right now is the game pieces which feels dry and hollow.
I'm probably a minority on this however I feel as though WOTC needs to create better incentives for players to play Commander at their LGS. Prize support maybe? Unfortunately WOTC has a strict policy when it comes to the use of proxy cards in official Paper Magic tournaments. Yes there's cEDH however it's too fast to be enjoyed the way players want to enjoy the game.
Commander tournaments at LGSs would be nice however it takes too long compared to other formats but by WOTC allowing the use of proxy cards that players are unable to afford for the real versions would eliminate a barrier of entry for players to enjoy the game. It might feel like cheating but this is a problem when class warfare dictates who plays and who doesn't.