Good topic. I feel part of the problem is how stingy they are on pulls. I'm an older player, I remember the days of common/uncommon/rare and you got 1 rare in every pack. Some games most packs just give you bulk. In FAB you get maybe 5-7 majestics per box, maybe a legendary or marvel if you're lucky, but usually not. On the other end of the spectrum you have final fantasy TCG. They have common/rare/heroic/legendary. You get 1 hero or legendary in every pack. The non-foil card needed to play the game can be found cheap, but they still have their chase cards. Then there is SWU, similar breakdown to FFTCG. They have their showcases for chase cards, but most cards needed for play are not that expensive. I feel non-foil cards needed to play the game should not be super rare. Give me the crappy looking white boarder boarder cards that I can use legally in a deck. Make the foil alternate/extended art for collectors and investors. If you want people to play the game, they need to be able to obtain the cards. As for magic, I got back into TCGs in 2023 after not playing for years. I was really looking for something close by where I could play after work. Magic has groups everywhere so I checked them out. I saw their release cadence and noped right out of that game. I feel they are bad for the TCG industry as other companies may try to copy them.
Glad you liked it mate. I’ve started to favour these really simple PowerPoint templates after I saw a warhammer channel doing it. I think it’s great because the time you save in design lets you focus on content.
Great topic. I can't go point by point currently, but I think it's key to look at TCGs with a discerning eye. I have been let down by many sets from FaB now. This is mostly due to the dilvery of hero fantasies and the over-emphasis on limited play at the cost of constructed. DTD was a bad constructed set. HVY resulted in a good metagame, but was overall very boring design-wise. MST was meta warping and ruined the game for casuals who were loyal to their heroes. ROS was a disappointment because wizards were effectively given no new cards and mostly unfunctional heroes with gimmicky concepts, while runeblade, one of the best classes in the game, received tons of powerful, often low rarity cards which enabled strictly powerful and nuanced decks to arise. I was disappointed in Lss' ability to design a wizard hero. HNT has so far been a disappointment for me bc warrior seems to be half baked yet again, with a disinteresting gameplay loop and overarching strategy. ninja and assassins, two of three classes which have domijnated since MST, got more support that seems to make them poised to continue to dominate while many other classes are left abandoned. to me, this signals that LSS does not know how to design for the other classes in a resonant way, and the inclusion of incrediblh powerful cards like storm shelter and the flexors makes me think they are pushing sales by pumping cards that have common equivalents (shelter and sink below) up to M rarity.
@@dozrFAB yeah I think you’ve commented similar things on a few of my videos. I do agree in general. It does feel very much like peaks and troughs with fab. When the latest set comes out those heroes are better. Other heroes get left behind. I do have faith that this warrior is strong. But the class identity is kinda boring. So I’m not giving much time to Fang. Tbh though I’m happy with fab. All I think it needs are reprints to be humming along.
@@SteelfurSpeaks I am also still overall enjoying fab. I go to locals nearly every week and I enjoy staying engaged with the game. That said, I have a lot competing for my time lately, and your video struck a chord with me. I think that LSS is seriously neglecting a large swathe of their playerbase in terms of design. I think it's obvious that LSS enjoys designing assassin, runeblade, and ninja. Those classes get a ton of love through both power and interesting play patterns. I just want them to bring that same level of attention to the rest of their game because I should be able to get deep, interesting, well-designed gameplay regardless of the class or talent I buy into.
Enjoyed your Prism videos. Learning her now. Tried Boltyn but he is extremely hard into any disruption. Victor is my main and love him the most so far. Agree with most of your points.
What if LSS set a price ceiling on cards, offering LGSs copies of any card to sell for $50 MSRP? They might sell fewer boxes at first, but eventually prices of all the other cards in those sets would rise and make them worthwhile to open again. Would also save on the cost of printing and distributing all those commons that are just going to wind up in the trash. Cold-foils, alt art, and promo cards could be excluded.
@@quietmind42 in practice they wouldn’t do that, they’d just put a “masters” booster or deck out, that contained the card and some other bits. That’s how yugioh handles it which is a market James white knows quite well. Sadly you couldn’t give it to LGS as not all of them are that trustworthy and you’d find they would just sell them for market price.
@SteelfurSpeaks For sure, but it would bring the market price down, and could be offered to stores with good armory participation as incentive. I wonder if guardian mastery pack will include crown and c&c to increase supply.
Tcgs are not “predatory”. They are monopolistic. Similar to LoL and Dota. Or WoW. They are no viable alternatives thus these companies that have the monopoly can control their games without fear of losing to another. Predatory capitalism- that’s a label you can apply to anything, from gas companies to dentists to education etc etc.
@@1who4me I don’t really understand? Being a monopoly doesn’t make a company predatory but it often makes them more likely to be. That’s why governments are so set on breaking monopolies and providing competition. This isn’t really about whether something is a monopoly or not. It’s about the marketing and sales tactics used by the companies. Some of which can be classed as predatory because they attempt to create a worse product that costs more and psychologically persuade customers to purchase it.
@SteelfurSpeaks i think op's point is that tcg companies inherently create a monopoly since they are the only ones allowed to sell their game. bc of this, they can extract value from customers bc the customers have no other option if they want to participate and consume the product. monopolies directly harm their customers bc monopolies rationally choose to produce quantity of product when marginal revenue equals marginal cost. this does not maximize their revenue, but it maximizes their profit. so it is more accurate to say that tcgs are monopolies bc they are just companies that have the power to under produce supply to maximize their own bottom line, as opposed to a interchangeable product like wheat which anyonr can produce and compete for. diff tcgs are direct substitutes, so the companies get away with this, and as a consumer, asking for lss to reduce their profits so that the consumers will capture some of the deadweight loss is basically asking lss for charity (if you view it in a theoretical economic framework)
@@SteelfurSpeaksI think GW is an example of a true monopoly in terms of miniature gaming. Been buying GW minis for 20 years, spent over 10 grand and still have no viable army with all their new releases and invalidating old purchases. So to me they are both monopolistic and predatory.
Good topic. I feel part of the problem is how stingy they are on pulls. I'm an older player, I remember the days of common/uncommon/rare and you got 1 rare in every pack. Some games most packs just give you bulk. In FAB you get maybe 5-7 majestics per box, maybe a legendary or marvel if you're lucky, but usually not. On the other end of the spectrum you have final fantasy TCG. They have common/rare/heroic/legendary. You get 1 hero or legendary in every pack. The non-foil card needed to play the game can be found cheap, but they still have their chase cards. Then there is SWU, similar breakdown to FFTCG. They have their showcases for chase cards, but most cards needed for play are not that expensive.
I feel non-foil cards needed to play the game should not be super rare. Give me the crappy looking white boarder boarder cards that I can use legally in a deck. Make the foil alternate/extended art for collectors and investors. If you want people to play the game, they need to be able to obtain the cards.
As for magic, I got back into TCGs in 2023 after not playing for years. I was really looking for something close by where I could play after work. Magic has groups everywhere so I checked them out. I saw their release cadence and noped right out of that game. I feel they are bad for the TCG industry as other companies may try to copy them.
This is my favourite Steelfur video so far! Great presentation!
Glad you liked it mate. I’ve started to favour these really simple PowerPoint templates after I saw a warhammer channel doing it. I think it’s great because the time you save in design lets you focus on content.
Great topic. I can't go point by point currently, but I think it's key to look at TCGs with a discerning eye. I have been let down by many sets from FaB now. This is mostly due to the dilvery of hero fantasies and the over-emphasis on limited play at the cost of constructed. DTD was a bad constructed set. HVY resulted in a good metagame, but was overall very boring design-wise. MST was meta warping and ruined the game for casuals who were loyal to their heroes. ROS was a disappointment because wizards were effectively given no new cards and mostly unfunctional heroes with gimmicky concepts, while runeblade, one of the best classes in the game, received tons of powerful, often low rarity cards which enabled strictly powerful and nuanced decks to arise. I was disappointed in Lss' ability to design a wizard hero. HNT has so far been a disappointment for me bc warrior seems to be half baked yet again, with a disinteresting gameplay loop and overarching strategy. ninja and assassins, two of three classes which have domijnated since MST, got more support that seems to make them poised to continue to dominate while many other classes are left abandoned. to me, this signals that LSS does not know how to design for the other classes in a resonant way, and the inclusion of incrediblh powerful cards like storm shelter and the flexors makes me think they are pushing sales by pumping cards that have common equivalents (shelter and sink below) up to M rarity.
@@dozrFAB yeah I think you’ve commented similar things on a few of my videos. I do agree in general. It does feel very much like peaks and troughs with fab. When the latest set comes out those heroes are better. Other heroes get left behind.
I do have faith that this warrior is strong. But the class identity is kinda boring. So I’m not giving much time to Fang.
Tbh though I’m happy with fab. All I think it needs are reprints to be humming along.
@@SteelfurSpeaks I am also still overall enjoying fab. I go to locals nearly every week and I enjoy staying engaged with the game. That said, I have a lot competing for my time lately, and your video struck a chord with me. I think that LSS is seriously neglecting a large swathe of their playerbase in terms of design. I think it's obvious that LSS enjoys designing assassin, runeblade, and ninja. Those classes get a ton of love through both power and interesting play patterns. I just want them to bring that same level of attention to the rest of their game because I should be able to get deep, interesting, well-designed gameplay regardless of the class or talent I buy into.
@@dozrFAB yeah I do agree that assassin and runeblade just seem to get better designs.
Though some class identities seem to be “simple”
Enjoyed your Prism videos. Learning her now. Tried Boltyn but he is extremely hard into any disruption. Victor is my main and love him the most so far. Agree with most of your points.
@JohnSmith-ul2ce Thank you!
What if LSS set a price ceiling on cards, offering LGSs copies of any card to sell for $50 MSRP? They might sell fewer boxes at first, but eventually prices of all the other cards in those sets would rise and make them worthwhile to open again. Would also save on the cost of printing and distributing all those commons that are just going to wind up in the trash. Cold-foils, alt art, and promo cards could be excluded.
@@quietmind42 in practice they wouldn’t do that, they’d just put a “masters” booster or deck out, that contained the card and some other bits. That’s how yugioh handles it which is a market James white knows quite well.
Sadly you couldn’t give it to LGS as not all of them are that trustworthy and you’d find they would just sell them for market price.
@SteelfurSpeaks For sure, but it would bring the market price down, and could be offered to stores with good armory participation as incentive.
I wonder if guardian mastery pack will include crown and c&c to increase supply.
Tcgs are not “predatory”. They are monopolistic. Similar to LoL and Dota. Or WoW. They are no viable alternatives thus these companies that have the monopoly can control their games without fear of losing to another. Predatory capitalism- that’s a label you can apply to anything, from gas companies to dentists to education etc etc.
@@1who4me I don’t really understand? Being a monopoly doesn’t make a company predatory but it often makes them more likely to be. That’s why governments are so set on breaking monopolies and providing competition.
This isn’t really about whether something is a monopoly or not. It’s about the marketing and sales tactics used by the companies. Some of which can be classed as predatory because they attempt to create a worse product that costs more and psychologically persuade customers to purchase it.
@SteelfurSpeaks i think op's point is that tcg companies inherently create a monopoly since they are the only ones allowed to sell their game. bc of this, they can extract value from customers bc the customers have no other option if they want to participate and consume the product. monopolies directly harm their customers bc monopolies rationally choose to produce quantity of product when marginal revenue equals marginal cost. this does not maximize their revenue, but it maximizes their profit. so it is more accurate to say that tcgs are monopolies bc they are just companies that have the power to under produce supply to maximize their own bottom line, as opposed to a interchangeable product like wheat which anyonr can produce and compete for. diff tcgs are direct substitutes, so the companies get away with this, and as a consumer, asking for lss to reduce their profits so that the consumers will capture some of the deadweight loss is basically asking lss for charity (if you view it in a theoretical economic framework)
@@SteelfurSpeaksI think GW is an example of a true monopoly in terms of miniature gaming. Been buying GW minis for 20 years, spent over 10 grand and still have no viable army with all their new releases and invalidating old purchases.
So to me they are both monopolistic and predatory.