One thing that gives me an increasingly bad taste lately, is the increasing amount of standard legal cards that you can't open in standard BOOSTER PACKS.
B B not to mention the flood of different products and confusion about what cards come in what products. One content creator recently said “I didn’t see anyone pull a ironscale hydra at prerelease”. Yeah that’s because you can only find it in the mono colored packs and it is not available in draft boosters. Another content creator included ironscale hydra and another mono pack exclusive in their prerelease guide/limited set review. The confusion is a real problem.
"standard legal cards that you can't open in standard BOOSTER PACKS" Can you give me an example ? Are you talking about irl magic ? Are you saying that if I go to my local shop and buy a booster, there are cards i'm sure of not getting in these boosters ? :O where do you get them then ?
@@RaiZdOe yes of course, it started with the welcome decks and then the planeswalker decks containing cards that you couldn't open in packs, but were standard legal. WoTC made a point to say that these products were aimed at beginners and the cards would not be too powerful. Then they introduced the buy a box promo, a card that you could obtain by buying a box, it also was not in packs. The infamous one of these was Nexus of fate. Then they announced the brawl decks from throne of eldraine. The Jund dragon showed up in quite a few top 8 decks, he could only be obtained through buying the brawl deck. With Theros beyond death the introduced the color themed boosters that have two rares in each color that can only be obtained through buying those boosters.
@@RaiZdOe Yep! Kenrith, the Returned King is standard legal but ONLY available if you purchased a box of Throne of Eldraine. Prior to that Nexus of Fate was standard legal (and *highly* playable), but only available if you bought a box of Core 2019. It's crazy they do this.
I'd love it if they replaced that Arena ad card in boosters with a wildcard code. Reason for paper guys to try Arena and for Arena players to buy boosters.
This is a great idea, but it has the issue of a secondary market for wildcards for people who care nothing about arena to sell online codes I know this is a year late, but I really was interested in this and think it should be a thing even despite that drawback
@@harinarain09 Pokémon has a whole lot of ways to play vs MTG and makes a bit over 500 million more. Costing MTG nothing is a misconception for every person that gets a free code that's a person less likely to crack and buy gems trying to get packs online. It's a bad way to look at it, but it's the business way.
I love every time you have PK on. So many mtg podcasts have a cast where they do nothing but agree on everything. "That good, that bad..." You two disagree on a lot, and it leads to an actual interesting discussion and listen. These podcasts are always more interesting when not everyone agrees with what you believe prof. This one was a great listen, much better than "magic bad, magic good."
In my opinion you can see this quite often in the Command zone podcast. Jimmy and JLK often share an opinion or at least have a similar take on a topic, leading to onesided discussion.
I feel that the Prof. is usually more aware of that echo chamber effect when he writes his outlines/scripts, and will play the advocate to argue both sides of an issue or topic a lot of times. I mean, he will state, "I agree with you, but..." and then make a counter argument that has merit but doesn't hold his his view point. That is, when he is not being swept up in the moment of the debate while filming.
I agree that the only super expensive cards should be "bling" versions of cards that are otherwise affordable. You know who else agrees with you? Richard Garfield, PhD.
@@Chuubii The cat is very cute. You throw the cat into the oven to make a pie, but it's so delicious the cat must come back from death just to eat the pie
@@arcdevil hahaha nope w6 deleted entire fucking archetypes out of existence, in a format that traditionally is extremely resilient to archetypes becoming obsolete, maybe it was bad in standard but oko was nowhere close to that format warping in modern, and arguably pioneer
Power creep is like inflation: A little is necessary for the betterment of the economy/game state. Too much makes everything feel unimportant and is terrible for the economy/game state.
You don't need power creep, as the most powerful cards came out probably before any of you ever played the game, that is why sets/blocks had these mechanics attached to make the game interesting and address exactly the economy...also screw the economy who cares magic is meant to be collected & played, its not some rich dicks opportunity investment, part of what ruined the game was people out there looking to make investments and or a quick buck, because there was always a scheme to rip off the actual players.
@@nocturnal101ravenous6 A bit of strength increase keeps things interesting. And keeps players of eternal formats interested in buying new products. For example, I remember playing modern for like 5 years when almost no new cards entered in that whole time. I didn't even know when new sets came out because it didn't matter. Now obviously its way too much but I think a little bit is fine, maybe a couple cards here and there being a little stronger and more interesting than their competition. Or at least cards that can lead to new decks in eternal formats.
To offer a counterpoint. If they keep pushing sets like they have been and those new cards take the spot of cards in Jund for example it should bring down the price of cards like Bob and Goyf.
*Arena's mismanagement* . I really enjoy Arena, but like the Prof said in his end of the year video, it's handling is really the worst thing to happen to Magic lately. *WotC's short-sighted emphasis on non-consumer-friendly monetization is such a waste of an incredibly successful product.* All the while actually needed improvements and features that will make the game thrive and live long and prosper are criminally neglected... Almost 2 years to get a barely functional friends list! Maybe by 2021 we'll actually be able to chat with our friends...
What if it actually makes them more money though, short and long run? Whales in gamming can be a powerful force, so how can we expect a company to just leave money on the table, especially if they know it's there. We need some kind of value proposition that makes supporting the wider playerbase worth it. Not saying this to side with Hasbro, I just want to know myself what answers we have to this.
@@gagemorrow6702 you don't get whales by limiting or pay walling your gamemodes, you get them by letting everybody play so the queues are short and then selling them a lot of extra premium shit for those game-modes. Brawlidays is the perfect example, you think whales want that, or that it makes them spend a lot of real cash? Nope
It's MTGO 2.0 (not counting the dozens of versions of MTGO, lol). It will continue to get worse - more buggy and bloated. Features people actually want will continue to get delayed, ignored and cancelled. The embarassment of a friends list is the most transparent symptom of this.
@@LedPESRule I'd like to politely disagree there, I think whales are the exact people who will pay for brawlidays, the main group being cut out are the people who don't want to spend a lot on the game. I don't think having brawl all the time is the main hook for the game, the game itself is fun and the most immersive digital mtg experience. That's all you need to hook the whales imho.
@@gagemorrow6702 Whales want premium and exclusive content mostly, or just all the cards. Besides, they have Gold to spare, a once every month investment of 10k is nothing that would make them spend real money. It just makes the format less popular, meaning they are less enticed to spend actual money on cosmetics, wildcards etc. to brew or pimp their decks for that game-mode.
As someone who enjoys teaching the game as well as playing it, it's come to my attention that the competitive metagame, and the establishment ( and restriction ) to certain roles and playstyles is working counterproductively towards what I feel are the main selling points, or enjoyable factors, of this game. To me as well as many others I'm sure, one of the most beautiful things about magic the gathering and what makes it so fun to play is the sheer amount of diversity you have to be able to build a deck the way you like to fit your own strategy and personality for what you want to do. That no matter who you are or what you'd like to do there's bound to be a card somewhere that fits the bill. There's thousands upon thousands of magic cards in existence and they keep making more every year. You can create just about anything you want to basically and that's something I feel we should emphasize with new players in particular. Another thing about magic, I want to say, is the incredible community of friendliness. That even in a rivalry game with potential for politics and treachery, and even with people duking it out to try and win (because who doesn't like winning?) that the community is very open and welcoming and supportive, and you can make good friends playing people. I feel these are two big selling points. And competitive magic... Seems to do both these things wrong. Play to win as you might be oriented, the fact remains that magic is supposed to be a game. A "game" that everyone can enjoy playing. A friendly reminder for competitive folks that most people's lives are not going to revolve around this game, likely have other jobs and things and see magic as a fun pasttime and way to unwind... I know that there are always going to be some unsportsmanlike "sore losers" in the crowd of any game, which there's nothing to do about, and I'm not talking about general trash-talking, as mind games with an opponent can be okay. But I have observed especially toxic attitudes and truly degenerate playstyles when approaching the competitive magic community. Along with a sharp lack of diversity in deck types. If something doesn't conform to a certain list of acceptable "deck types" or doesn't run certain contingencies within the decklist just to deal with threats found in the metagame, you either are labelled a "bad player" or your deck is labelled as a "bad deck." It doesn't help that a lot of the most optimized decks are incredibly pricy to construct, especially in eternal formats. When you don't conform, the amount of insults and general abuse you receive as a player is quite staggering, and the degenerate playstyles used tend to leave no room for truly interactive and fun gameplay. It's exactly the wrong message to be sending if the objective is to make a game everyone will want to enjoy playing. I know I'm probably going to draw a lot of flak for this, because I know a lot of people appear to disagree with this sentiment, but let me tell you right now -- Control, in particular, just isn't casual. No matter how you spin it. And control decks are unhealthy towards creating diverse, enjoyable environments for everyone, by using a playstyle that either forces opponents to try and play around them by specifically building in contingencies to halt control, which kills diversity, or just be locked out from playing magic and lose because there's nothing you can do, watching the other person play solitaire. I've heard several different arguments that favor control as a deck archetype, and unarguably it is one of the top deck types one can construct. But that's part of the point. There is nothing fun or casual about it if you're on the receiving end of the stick. Control only appears to be fun to the player using the control deck, or periodically when it is considered relevant as an occasional check in games with 3 or more people. And there are those who say that "without control, magic becomes just a race to see who gets to the biggest baddest creature first and wins, which is also not diverse and is just boring." A mindset like that is one that is clearly restricted to thinking only about time-tested, competitive deck types. There's no question that big bad creatures CAN win games, but is that all it's limited to? Absolutely not! Magic is a huge game with thousands of cards, and there is loads of creative potential if you just put your mind to it. It's one of my central points and selling features of this game. But when you play versus control, there's only so much you can diversify your playstyle. Yes, there are things you can do specifically to combat control, like hexproof creatures and uncounterable cards, or playing bunches of cheap things not worth removing that add up to player destruction. And there are other competitive playstyles that deal with control. ..."Competitive" playstyles. That's the problem. Whenever you add in an answer for a control deck, that takes a deck slot away from something else creative you could have put in to make your deck unique. If you don't do it though, you just wind up losing to control every time, while the control player proceeds to berate you for building your deck badly when you complain you can't pull off the creative strategy you wanted to try using. "If you don't have a response for control, you just suck" is a mentality I see an awful lot. And in a purely competitive environment, okay, maybe they would have a point -- not having a contingency plan for control would mean a suboptimal deck. If the competitive community were wholly distinct and separate from the ordinary community this wouldn't be an issue. But there isn't any real separation. Every argument for control being fun and interactive that I see winds up based on the assumption that everyone will be doing something truly degenerate, and that it's good to have checks and balances. But this only makes sense to do in competitive environments! Casual fun decks with creativity and personality are stomped out by control every time unless they specifically build around dealing with control in places, and the moment they do that, they stop being so unique. It's a lose-lose situation: Control decks force their opponents to either conform or die while they laugh in your face about what a terrible deckbuilder you are. In a casual setting where decks are supposed to be fun and aren't necessarily going by what's optimal. Control is just inherently competitive. And that is why I very firmly believe that control decks have absolutely no place in casual magic. Every time it shows up in casual magic, someone's getting pissed off because they can't play with the cards they want to play with. I have tried control myself as well and have tested things over many games at a variety of power-levels, from jank to tier 1. What I have personally found is that even when I deliberately try to make control more janky, it still winds up being on a much higher power level compared to the rest of the jank. And I don't feel very good or accomplished when I successfully beat people with control. People say that it's supposed to be a "thinking" or "smart" way to play, but more often than not I find myself thinking "This is way too freaking easy. I just 'Nope' on anything that looks even remotely threatening" and then win because my opponent couldn't play their deck. Having been on both sides of the coin it is increasingly clear to me that as magic caters more to longtime fans than it does to inviting new people to enjoy the game, that control decks, and the inherently competitive folks that play them, in particular are a serious problem in the magic community to bringing in more people. Most people aren't going to want to get active in the competitive scene, and the presence of control in casual magic angers or bores the new people. It even bores me when I use it. It takes the fun out of magic, which I reiterate is JUST A GAME. What are games supposed to be? Fun. Otherwise, why play. In conclusion, what needs to happen I think is a clear and distinct separation between the casual and competitive communities -- while placing control decks firmly in the competitive bracket. If we did this, and cut back on some toxic attitudes otherwise, I honestly think that would drastically improve both the size of the player base and the overall morale.
The watered down fetchlands that the Professor is hypothesizing are gonna be something like this: T, Sacrifice,: Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a *swamp* or *mountain* card. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
I always make proxies for non-land foils and keep the foils in the deck box and swap them when I play them. Too many times my opponent just picks the curled card for discard, much rather (usually) that they bin the land than a walker or a foil mythic... but it's annoying that they (WotC) can't seem to make foils well.
That’s what I’ve been saying. I’d rather have alternate artwork than foil cards. I like foil cards but I hate how they curl especially if it’s a card I want to use but I can’t cause my card is curled to the seven hells
Magic is just too confusing in general now. That’s why I’m out. I used to keep up with every set release, including reading or listening to limited and standard set reviews. Used to keep up with GP coverage and the Pro-Tour. I can’t for the life of me figure out what comes out when, or when there are big events. It’s just too much work to be a hobby.
Power-creep is so, so, so, so, so, so much worse than power-down. Come on prof... One thing has the potential to make the game a little stale, that other has the potential to ruin archetypes, push players out of formats, rotate non-rotating formats and quite literally destroy the game long-term
FYI, at Theros pre-release last week I did receive a special redemption code for a booster pack. Our LGS stated that they wanted us to do the redemption as the code was linked to their specific store and WotC was wanting to track linkage between the LGS and Arena.
Magic has the unique ability to protect itself from its customers from jumping ship and playing a completely different game such as Hearthstone. It comes with built in diversity of game modes, especially with Historic on Arena and now Pioneer in Magic Online and paper. The fact that WoTC chooses explicitly to make decisions on Arena to go against that philosophy. Making Brawl inaccessible and costly, or making Historic more “expensive” to craft cards for is driving people away, and those are the two most aggravating purposeful changes that the client has introduced, and the fact that they either don’t understand or don’t care is what troubles me the most. Fixing the this fundamental philosophy of doing things to negatively impact the player base for what seems to be a strictly monetary reason is what is ruining magic. Those have nothing to do with reprints, power level of the actual game pieces, cosmetics, or anything else.
@@thorin01 Oh, once Pioneer hits, I'm never touching standard again. That's a fact. Hell, I'd play Modern if they added it but I'm only interested in Pioneer now.
thorin01 I agree, but imagine if they printed more cards that are compelling and build new archetypes and play styles. Think Sram or Feather, those types of cards. It would give reason to buy new sets and craft cards on arena that would never otherwise be played.
Calling it "Magic the Gathering" implies that you are gathering around a table in person, with friends. To me, Magic Arena does not imply that I am "spending time" with my friends and making new acquaintances or life-long friends.
Ah, but MtG Arena got me into MtG and led me to discussing it more in depth with a Discord friend of mine who also plays, and now we have something to do together (very useful when you have two socially awkward people who are friends).
I love this guy. I recently started getting back into mtg and noticed this trend that cards keep getting outdone by its predecessors and that makes it harder for the average player to stay up to date with the competition. Also, Shivan Dragon was one of my favorite cards.
Question: how many episodes did they film together? There've been, like, 5 episodes pre-Professor Haircut. Did they just spend 2 days recording episodes?
It's so weird to me that having a code to claim a digital version of a product in the same physical product is something wizards hasn't leaned into when it's been the standard for games like Pokemon for so long
I worked for Wizards early when Hasbro purchased WotC. I can not honestly bring myself to believe that Hasbro as a GAME and TOY company, would ever abandon MTG as a "Card game" in addition to its additional "platforms."
heres my issue: average power levels are barely increasing, but it seems like we have big powercreep because instead of the 5 best cards of the set being liek 20% above everything else in that set, they are 200% better and so broken, they either enable stupid combos or have to be banned in several formats. Set design would be fine if they werent printing these very few completely off the charts insane cards
Obelion WOTC knows in order to sell as packs as broadly as possible they need a certain number of cards in each set to get play in at least one (preferably two or more) eternal formats. So it feels like these cards are designed to be overly flashy to get that broad appeal. Of course when they overshoot, as they did with Oko, they really overshoot.
Great podcast gentlemen. I play exclusively with paper magic because I don't like how people can randomly Nerf cards (as they have done in Hearthstone). If Hasbro decided to drop paper magic they would lose all of my business which I know wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket for them.
They were really right about one bad standard messing up arena. At least me personally, I quit arena during the Oko nonsense, started playing Modern and now have no interest in going back to standard
Prof, what you said about the Gatewatch - YES!!! Jeez, I'm even relatively new to Magic and am so fatigued of them. Throne of Eldraine was so incredibly refreshing without the same old thing. It makes the multiverse seem so small and uninteresting when the same old characters show up over and over and over again.
MTGFinance setting their sights on EDH is ruining magic today. Cards that were available and cool are now being 'speculated on' which means buying out and ratcheting prices up. Then those cards get held in greedy financer portfolios and see no play. Then those cards become excessively pricey and we have to wait for reprints to hit to get those cards accessible. This is going to price players out of EDH which is harmful to paper magic's best format.
While I agree that MTGFinance are annoying, a lot of 'speculators' are also players like myself. Blame Wizards for their half-assed reprints, SO many cards have inexplicably dodged meaningful reprints that it sucks.
@@TolarianCommunityCollege I've been a sub for years now, since I was a teenager.. now I'm in my sophomore year in college, studying business and finance. I have to admit, one of my first forays into business design and marketing was your content, and many of your critiques come to mind when I'm carrying out product and marketing analysis. Now trained in the field, and as enfranchised in the game as ever, I must say I enjoy your content even more. Your insights, and genuine passion for the game, and outright kindness to those around you, is something I truly respect. I'm proud to say you're my magic hero, and I truly hope I can meet you some day :) I was born in Germany, grew up in Canada, and live in Ireland; and I have been, and will continue to be, a fan of yours all the way. You're awesome, Brian. Keep it up!
I remember watching that video about the new pro tours info. I watched it and basically just decided that tournaments weren't worth it. I guess that is why so many other people also play commander now.
@Shill for Science very true and as well as how many lengths wizards is willing to cross for them to profit from this newer sets that just keep getting worse. I'm still waiting when will there see there errors and fix how they evaluate a card's power level.
To the last point about Arena vs Gathering, minor but also huge; every single paper card has Magic the gathering written on the back of the physical card. It would be a shock, quite a large shock, to suddenly see Magic arena written on the back of the cards.
While I don't care for the "stretched art", WOTC merely cashed in on what artists were doing for players. I think having all of these alt arts is good for the game, it sells cards and allows everyone to have their style. I'll be honest, I just want the Pre-2015 card frames back.
Mirrodin block had my favourite flavour of any set to ever come out. It felt so great to progress through the story and plane via the cards that we got. And the set symbols! Such a great block.
The power creep point is so legit. It's been driving me insane lately. I play commander primarily, and I feel forced to pay attention to the new sets way too often. It breaks some of the creativity that was once allowed. If things just keep getting stronger it just becomes 100 card brawl, and that's very boring. Obvious statement: you want new creative choices that work with old strategies and/or facilitate new ones, not forced into one meta. When commander feels touched by power creep of the new sets it feels weird.
honestly the question in commander is every time do you neat the card or it is just fun to use new stuff an evolving i mean we get 16 legendary every set +- we get great support cards for budget player i think its great and i mean if you think you neat to update your list with every new set it is your own fault because technically in commander you dot neat it to do end of the discussion
I think instead of pushing new better stuff, print functionally identical stuff like let's say rhystic study. Nearly unaffordable to newer players or younger players, we dont need something that works better or worse than it. Just print medomais pondering or something that does the exact same thing.
@@dragullongblackfang8073 I guess it's a meta thing at that point, so fair, one group updates a lot the other has an lgs owner so we play older stuff there. Still "your own fault" "end of discussion" makes you look like a dick. End of discussion
I think the core issue with power creep, or the reverse, is that WOTC's design philosophy, rules ,and process has become so extremely linear. A card is either more or less powerful than another card. WOW had this problem too, because as a player gains xp and levels, they simply become more powerful- they have more health and deal more damage. So much so that with Warlords of Draenor, I think, the devs addressed the power curve specifically and toned players down because they'd gotten so out of hand. Magic cards are the same. Since the panic after Lorwyn WOTC tanked the game's complexity, and started using "strictly better" to sell packs, instead of developing new strategies and synergies with open-ended cards, as they did with original Ravnica, TS block, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, etc. If you check out the in-development MMORPG Camelot Unchained, you will find a deliberate choice to avoid this problem by making combat more skill-based. As a player uses their skills, those skills will improve, but not so much that a new player will be 1-shot by someone who has been playing for a year merely because their numbers are higher. Horizontal progression, not vertical.
The problem is it's hard to manage horizontal growth when you have a mana system like magic does. As someone who plays a lot of yugioh they achieved this by printing counters to threats that can be used turn one, and decks deal with them by getting more resilient. Basically the interactions that would have lasted 10 turns end up getting compressed to 2-3 turns in modern yugioh. It seems like you can't balance it like that in MTG, since any card with a way to cheat around its mana cost has the potential to be incredibly broken. It also seems like the power creep that cards like that would cause a riot in of itself. Heck plenty if people complain about handtraps in Yugioh itself, but for the most part the decks that can't deal with them aren't remotely viable in the first place due to other reasons or would be degenerate combo decks.
When they talk about a special codes to unlock at your local game store, they are talking about getting players more involved with their local game store. The problem with this is that Wizards is getting players to spend their fixed amount of money at local game stores by having them go there and see cards they like rather than on Arena.
I'm gonna reckon a big problem with Power Down: Ideal: each set has mechanical focuses that are allowed to be stronger. It's like lowering one lever and raising another. You want dynamic, interactive games. You want many deck types of roughly similar power or with gentle rock/papers/scissors relationships that create mindgames. You want to gently bend the core limitations of the game while trusting in the strength of its fundament for fear of losing the game's core identity and ~feel~. Problem 1: When more and more sets offer every archetype the "make a big dude" strategy, there are fewer levers to pull for creatures. Problem 2: When sets make big box selling Planeswalkers, they're hard to generically interact with, limiting deck building. Problem 3: sets with core mechanics that are generically strong like efficient colorless cards, mana fixing, playing things from the graveyard, etc. risk making the format less diverse and breaking the fundamental limits of the game in a way that is difficult to design around. The meta is solved quickly due to the overt raw efficiency of even slightly overpowered cards with these effects. Result: If you lower one of these generically strong levers and raise another lever (say, enchantments), you aren't creating an equal exchange because of the inherent power of either concept. If you do that AND actively try to make cards lower quality in general to slow the game down, you overcompensate and get Theros, in casual, I found pretty slow and grindy, while the few cards that are pushed are SHOCKING-strong in the context of a block. Wrt food, the fun isn't inherent in the mechanic, unlike the other, more generically powerful sac tokens. Synergy-reliant effects like this can work, but it's very touchy and doesn't play well unless it's within a theme umbrella (like sacrifice).
@@TrainmasterGT White really just got Heliod, and it's mostly just a combo card in white. Compared to the number of good cards that the other 4 colors are getting in THB, white is STILL getting pretty shafted.
blue and green seem really pushed lately, like theyve said in this video, card draw and mana are some of the most important functions of the game, blue and green have been pushed because of this. This is something wotc should break the colour pie a bit more and give the likes of white and red a little more to balance more cards or more mana .
Yes it does snow on Innistrad. From the "Shadows Over Innistrad: Collected Stories" Story 3: Sacrifice - "When spring broke that year and the snows finally melted, a young apprentice rode his horse through the pass, into the sleepy little fishing village near Lake Zhava. He carried with him a satchel of letters, many long overdue, written before the first snowfalls of the winter before."
I have a 540 cards Vintage cube and the amount of cards released last year I had to add to it was huge. It usually needs 1-3 cards each year, but last year I added close to 20.
@@Zomburai45 it depends what your cube's goal is. If it's a set or block cube, you don't. If you want to optimize and run the absolute best cards in given slots, you have to look at new sets and see what's good.
I have always hated american comics and superhero stories and when I came back to Magic with Arena, I was really disappointed to see that the game basically tries to be a marvel story. It totally diminishes the impact and flavour of the individual planes. Also, the borderless cards are ugly as sin.
I think the reason people got tired of the gatewatch so quickly was exactly that. They tried to be the Avengers, without the characters being anywhere near as likeable.
@@thefallenmyst - I disagree. People got tired of the GateWatch for bad reasons that very rarely actually cleaved to anything in the story. As we so often do, Magic fans got a preconceived notion in their heads and never gave it an actual chance.
Ughh, the probability that the story goes right back to the Gatewatch is depressing. Would love to see a set that features Sarpadia, right before the era of Fallen Empires. No Gatewatch, no Bolas, just the story about an end of an era and all of the issues that would go with that. The idea of them revamping the sac and storage lands in an interesting way, that hopefully makes them better but maintains the same idea, is also something I would like to see.
i like the huge variety of boarders, frames, & styles today. it allows for more stylish customization of decks (you could be using one style for one deck and a different style for another to go with the theme of the deck). it allows for a wider range of appeal (some people don’t like foils but like full art, some don’t like full art but like classic frame, etc) it also reminds me of the surprise of opening packs in the nineties (you didn’t know what was in the sets) and reminds me of the wide range of alters that you’re seeing pop up in old school and commander formats.
Having Oko jpin the Gate Watch would spice things up. Although he's obviously be using them as a sort of security to protect him from Garruk. He can also do some trickster stuff and have inner turmoil among the group or whatever too. #OkoBestBoy
@Shill for Science Yes. And Purp was much more interesting when he stuck to Lore and History than how ticked off he is about, what is, seemingly everything. Only stay subscribed for the rare event he returns to the ...not Timmy, not Johnny, but that other version of player that *I am* and can't think of =P
Watches till 13:14 so far: The opposite of „powercreep“ is „powersleep“ maybe :D My favourite was ixalan and I do think that powercreep is a big problem. Greetings from germany (Sry for bad english)
@@Tamarocker88 I would disagree compared to previous standard sets. We cry and complain about a few planeswalkers from War, but they are like 5-6 cards out of the set, similarly to cards in Eldraine. I would argue there are more adventures alone being played in Standard than the Walkers in War.
9:45 - Since returning (~ Kaladesh), I think ELD has been my favorite set for limited and constructed. Before that, Mirrodin. I know people scoff, given affinity... but equipment and a largely interactive set was pretty fun. I actually liked the drawback of artifact lands (it came up more than they'd have you believe), but take the sets minus the cards that got banned and you'll see well designed, innovative sets.
@@Pistolsatsean IXA was "get your 2 drop" format, and didn't even reprint Tremor. WOTC basically apologized for failing to enable enrage w/ M20. DOM had "historic" as a mechanic, so already stupid. DOM was actually pretty good, but I like to judge a format by it's cardpool as a whole, and any set with Tolarian Scholar is a set with a vanilla 2/3, so it really screwed the pooch there.
@@williamsimkulet7832 And what were the most egregious cards of those formats? Carnage Tyrant, Teferi 5, Hostage taker, and Chainwhirler. What were the best cards? The entire Transform mechanic, Sagas, Legendary sorceries, treasures, the best designed PWs in magic, Helm of the Host, Enrage mechanic, Explore mechanic, Ixalans binding, Lichs Mastery. Also 2 drop bears were real cards. You are 100% wrong about Historic mechanic because it will always be relevant, it is not a "parasitic" mechanic, also because of characters like Teshar and Jhoira. What are the most egregious cards in ELD? Do I even need to say? Questing Beast, Cat, Oven, Oko, the other unkillable 3 mana PW, Brazen borrower, Fires of invention, Torbran, Embercleave, Gilded Goose, Once upon a time, Trail of crumbs, Wicked wolf, The great henge, Doom foretold, Korvold (being only available in the brawl precons). And that is just ELD, consider comparing the cards from WAR as well, or the other set that a card got banned out of... There are some great cards from Throne: The castles are pretty sweet, Irencrag Pyro, Beanstalk Giant, Thorn Mammoth, Dance of the manse, Improbable alliance, Outlaw's merriment, arcane signet, fabled passage, the basic lands that are not basics are okay, Murderous rider, Bonecrusher giant, and Emry. Also consider these sets' respective limited formats. Nobody likes playing a single draft match for an hour because both players have limitless life generation... I mean seriously dude in DOM meta Slimefoot was a played card! A 3 mana 2/3 with: pay 4, make a 1/1. Compare Slimefoot to Savvy Hunter! And that card was never being played! Nobody even plays with Charming Prince, or Garruk, or Alela, or Stonecoil serpent in ELD meta!
@@Pistolsatsean First, I stuck with IXA, RIX, and DOM, but their flaws were obvious. The flaws of ELD are obvious as well - WOTC pushed cards too much (egregiously on Questing Beast), they overlooked printing answers (Cat Combo), and they didn't understand a planeswalker they've printed (get used to it; WOTC has been exceptionally poor at this since the start). However, the reason ELD is so much fun, compared to even DOM, is - I think - Adventurers. Though clunky, the mechanic is laden with player choice and opens up 2-for-1s. It single-handedly makes counterspells playable in limited. Much like Astral Slide decks, 2 block-mechanic enablers carry the Adventure deck. Indeed, Astral Slide.dec is a good comparison, as Onslaught's cycling mechanic suffered from similar mechanical gaps; but of course they play radically differently (Adventures is midrange, while Astral Slide is control). DOM is a pretty great set with great ideas, but many balls were dropped. The dedicated legendary slot is a great idea, poorly executed (many (U) were garbage or filler). I genuinely hope Commander Legends learned from this, and either (1) copy time spiral with 2 rare slots - one (L) and one "normal", or (2) make all (M)s and (R)s Commanders (if this draft-only format needs a Wrath variant... reprint one at (U) then. DOM failed kicker, much like TBD fails Devotion. In block sets, you'd expect these mechanics to be built on, but w/o block sets, to make these viable you need a critical mass. ELD had a critical mass of Adventurers. IXA... didn't have a critical mass of enablers, and thus the Enrage mechanic went unused outside of limited, disappointingly. I don't see Slimefoot and Savvy Hunter as comparable; compare Slimefoot to Syr Konrad; both (U) legends. And yes, Konrad is worded super poorly (it's 3 different abilities shoved into one runon paragraph), and Slimefoot has more decks on edhrec, but I think they're comparably powerful for limited and EDH. It's not worth our time to compare middle-of-the-road rares from DOM and ELD. However, Stonecoil is pushed (the best X artifact creature ever printed), but not metagame relevant. It's comparable to Traxos, Scourge of Kroog from DOM... though I think Stonecoil's protection is a poor design choice, given the incompetence of bringing back the mechanic (When a good percentage of the playerbase doesn't understand your mechanic, get the hint!). ELD would be better if Adamant had been removed, if there were more adventures, and if WOTC printed more answers. A cycle of (U) Charming Bears (rather than the (R) charming prince) would have given room to print narrow answers as well. However, really, they needed to bite the bullet and bring back affinity (as opposed to just print it on a half dozen cards unkeyworded). Give me a vertical cycle of Affinity for Artifacts, Affinity for creatures in the graveyard, affinity for knights, affinity for attacking creatures (ugh), and whatever affinity would replace the Great Henge's Ghalta mechanic... maybe affinity for creatures you control. A (M) artifact, a (R) Legendary creature, and (U) spell, and a (C) "filler" creature for each color. Final thought: While I think WOTC should aim to make more (C)s and (U)s viable in constructed formats (even just EDH), it's worth noting that only 2-3 (C) cards in each color in ELD were unplayable in limited, compared to DOM's 4-5 and TBD's 4-5. Was ELD more playable to enable monocolor, or was it more playable because designers underestimated adventurers? We probably won't know; but I'd like to think they wanted more FUN, playable cards, rather than "oops, this didn't turn out bad."
@@williamsimkulet7832 I do agree that commons in ELD are better and there are better EDH specific cards, but I believe that is a symptom of them finally starting to design with EDH in mind. (maybe finally learning that people hate paying money for filler garbage? Designing better commons is certainly not tied to the design of any set) Are adventures a good mechanic? Sure they are fun to play with the unique style of card advantage is interesting, the mechanic itself is fun, but it is another thing that cannot be interacted with. (most other forms of card advantage are interactable, either through using the graveyard, a permanent on board, or simply being an instant/sorcery) I do not entirely agree with your claim that most of them are playable, consider that the (only?) decks playing adventures (other than the stand alone good ones) are using both Edgewall Innkeeper, and Lucky Clover to fuel a card advantage mechanic... I do like the adventure mechanic I just think that you are giving wotc too much credit on the specific abilities/cards they chose to print on/as adventures for the most part. Also I specifically did not mention EDH in my previous comment as I feel it is not wise to consider EDH when evaluating card effectiveness and balance as it is a singleton format with 100 card decks which naturally balances out cards by decreasing consistency and normalizing deck building.
Having multiple variations of one card just seemed like lazy set filler to me. Like, instead of thinking of six different amazing cards I'm just going to come up with six variations of one good card. I speak of course of certain cards being traditional, tradtional foil, showcase, showcase foil, extended art and extended art foil. In my opinion you don't need that many variations on cards. I myself would be happy with traditional border and traditional foil, then if you must do a third variant just do masterpiece cards. Speaking of Masterpieces, absolutely love them I think they're gorgeous but I digress. Having six variations of certain cards also takes away from value of said cards from a collector standpoint. "Oh you have (insert card name here)? That's cool. Too bad it's the normal traditional non foil version. If it was the supermega Kawasaki XJ9 extended foil humper version you'd really have something." So that's really what I think isn't necessarily ruining Magic as much as it is making sets dull. Too many variants and too much filler.
How formats are being warped every two seconds with the power creep. It used to be only standard that would warp drastically. Now its all of them. Thanks Modern Horizons.
I just want to say that after this video was recorded, there was an event on Arena that brought me to my LGS, which was hard because I didn't have a car. They offered a copy and style of tome of legends, command tower and arcane signet to anyone who came to an LGS brawl event one weekend. We need more events like that.
That was going to be my response to that section of the video as well. And Arena had a link right in the game that took me to information on an LGS I didn't even know about. Along with the LGS I use.
I love how Magic pushes the envelope on how their cards look. I love having a variety of styles in my commander decks. I almost got a invocation blood moon for my mono-red just because it looks so different.
I really like the expedition lands and the borderless cards. The mystic archive is probably my favorite so far. I hope they keep trying new things. I know it's not for everyone, but it's not supposed to be.
Rock Lobster- Paper Tiger - Scissors Lizard. No Wax and Wane. No Strong and Weak. Just Shift and Change. Mechanics that hinder previous mechanics. The Dragon must eat his tail. If Primeval Titan is too strong, print a soldier in white called Land Warden. CMC-1W for a 3/2: “During each player’s turn, any land that would enter play under that player’s control beyond the first is exiled instead.” This has the added benefit of nerfing fetches, as it would still allow you to fetch on your opponent’s turn, but you would not be able to fetch on your turn. This could potentially incentivize less complex mana bases for two-color aggro strategies, as they would be faster than their multi-color counterparts. Guilds alliances might even come to define competitive Magic.
The way to handle power levels is rock-paper-scissors - that is you don't make it weaker - you make each new set work better against the previous set. Keep the power level about the same. That way it feels like each set is stronger but it an absolute sense it is not stronger, just against the current meta is it stronger.
What is ruining Magic is that there is still no spiritual successor to the Shandalar pc game
Absolutely!
Correct answer!
This
*cries in Diablo clone*
Even Yugioh managed to make multiple acceptable adventure games...
"let's sell a set of five of them with alternate art for $500"
This got scarily close.
49:25
It's not just close. I'd say it's perfectly accurate.
Hey guys check out 30th edition
One thing that gives me an increasingly bad taste lately, is the increasing amount of standard legal cards that you can't open in standard BOOSTER PACKS.
B B not to mention the flood of different products and confusion about what cards come in what products. One content creator recently said “I didn’t see anyone pull a ironscale hydra at prerelease”. Yeah that’s because you can only find it in the mono colored packs and it is not available in draft boosters. Another content creator included ironscale hydra and another mono pack exclusive in their prerelease guide/limited set review. The confusion is a real problem.
"standard legal cards that you can't open in standard BOOSTER PACKS" Can you give me an example ? Are you talking about irl magic ? Are you saying that if I go to my local shop and buy a booster, there are cards i'm sure of not getting in these boosters ? :O where do you get them then ?
@@RaiZdOe yes of course, it started with the welcome decks and then the planeswalker decks containing cards that you couldn't open in packs, but were standard legal. WoTC made a point to say that these products were aimed at beginners and the cards would not be too powerful. Then they introduced the buy a box promo, a card that you could obtain by buying a box, it also was not in packs. The infamous one of these was Nexus of fate. Then they announced the brawl decks from throne of eldraine. The Jund dragon showed up in quite a few top 8 decks, he could only be obtained through buying the brawl deck. With Theros beyond death the introduced the color themed boosters that have two rares in each color that can only be obtained through buying those boosters.
I strongly agree with all of these comments! I don't understand why they're attempting to confuse their customers.
@@RaiZdOe Yep! Kenrith, the Returned King is standard legal but ONLY available if you purchased a box of Throne of Eldraine. Prior to that Nexus of Fate was standard legal (and *highly* playable), but only available if you bought a box of Core 2019. It's crazy they do this.
I'd love it if they replaced that Arena ad card in boosters with a wildcard code. Reason for paper guys to try Arena and for Arena players to buy boosters.
This is a great idea, but it has the issue of a secondary market for wildcards for people who care nothing about arena to sell online codes I know this is a year late, but I really was interested in this and think it should be a thing even despite that drawback
@@haku6506 well they do it in pokemon and it doesn't seem to ruin the format and it wouldn't cost them anything I think
@@harinarain09 Pokémon has a whole lot of ways to play vs MTG and makes a bit over 500 million more. Costing MTG nothing is a misconception for every person that gets a free code that's a person less likely to crack and buy gems trying to get packs online. It's a bad way to look at it, but it's the business way.
It's like they're allergic to cross pollinating their customer base.
We all know the moon glows because it's foil.
Actually it's made of silver
It even curled so much it ended up being a sphere. smh WOTC.
It's the first foil that changes the direction of its curving through time, amazing new technology !
I love every time you have PK on. So many mtg podcasts have a cast where they do nothing but agree on everything. "That good, that bad..." You two disagree on a lot, and it leads to an actual interesting discussion and listen. These podcasts are always more interesting when not everyone agrees with what you believe prof.
This one was a great listen, much better than "magic bad, magic good."
In my opinion you can see this quite often in the Command zone podcast. Jimmy and JLK often share an opinion or at least have a similar take on a topic, leading to onesided discussion.
Aiden Pearce there’s a few Mtg podcasts that are just echo chambers. They are definitely one of them. Professor has also had a few.
@@aidenpearce6624 That's why I really like the the ones that have DJ or Craig on instead. Way more differing opinions.
I feel that the Prof. is usually more aware of that echo chamber effect when he writes his outlines/scripts, and will play the advocate to argue both sides of an issue or topic a lot of times. I mean, he will state, "I agree with you, but..." and then make a counter argument that has merit but doesn't hold his his view point. That is, when he is not being swept up in the moment of the debate while filming.
I agree that the only super expensive cards should be "bling" versions of cards that are otherwise affordable.
You know who else agrees with you? Richard Garfield, PhD.
Kenobi: There must be snow on Innistrad
Me (singing): This is Innistrad. This is Innistrad. Stichers rise in the dead of night.
Zachery Lewis LMAO
Emrakul be like the shadow of the moon at night or something
Zachery Lewis why haven’t more people gotten aboard this burton train? 😂
well, there ARE things in the ice so there should also be snow. I think..
Oh I'd kill for a complete parody
Magic became so expensive that the professor and pleasant kenibi cant buy shoes xd
This poor innocent pre-oko professor, lamenting the low power of recently printed cards
Oko aside, food cards are generally meh at best.
Or calling cat oven "cute"
@@lolimmune Gilded Goose? Witch's Oven. Cauldron Familiar? Trail of Crumbs?
@@Chuubii The cat is very cute. You throw the cat into the oven to make a pie, but it's so delicious the cat must come back from death just to eat the pie
Yeah, this is pretty hilariously off in a lot of ways.
Kenobi: Wrenn and six is an overpowered planeswalker. Power creep is ruining magic.
Wizards: Wrenn overpowered?. Hold my beer..
It's not banned in everything? Come on team we can do better!
Wrenn in legacy is more disgusting than Oko in legacy
@@nonsequiter5411 and Oko in standard, historic, brawl, pioneer and modern was far more disgusting than w6 would be
@@arcdevil hahaha nope w6 deleted entire fucking archetypes out of existence, in a format that traditionally is extremely resilient to archetypes becoming obsolete, maybe it was bad in standard but oko was nowhere close to that format warping in modern, and arguably pioneer
Ok, but oko was played in 60% of competitive decks in modern, it turned any combo piece, or win con into a 3/3
So this was recorded looooong ago lol
Definitely got that feeling.
@@thefallenmyst what gives it away? xD
Obelion probably the hair
@@Obelion_ The fact they said Eldraine looks like a rather weak set compared to War or Modern Horizons, lol
around 50:00 Vince predicted the Eldraine Wonderland Secret Lair Drop \o/
Power creep is like inflation: A little is necessary for the betterment of the economy/game state. Too much makes everything feel unimportant and is terrible for the economy/game state.
You don't need power creep, as the most powerful cards came out probably before any of you ever played the game, that is why sets/blocks had these mechanics attached to make the game interesting and address exactly the economy...also screw the economy who cares magic is meant to be collected & played, its not some rich dicks opportunity investment, part of what ruined the game was people out there looking to make investments and or a quick buck, because there was always a scheme to rip off the actual players.
@@nocturnal101ravenous6 A bit of strength increase keeps things interesting. And keeps players of eternal formats interested in buying new products. For example, I remember playing modern for like 5 years when almost no new cards entered in that whole time. I didn't even know when new sets came out because it didn't matter. Now obviously its way too much but I think a little bit is fine, maybe a couple cards here and there being a little stronger and more interesting than their competition. Or at least cards that can lead to new decks in eternal formats.
@@nocturnal101ravenous6 ooooooo..... Salty!
To offer a counterpoint. If they keep pushing sets like they have been and those new cards take the spot of cards in Jund for example it should bring down the price of cards like Bob and Goyf.
*Arena's mismanagement* . I really enjoy Arena, but like the Prof said in his end of the year video, it's handling is really the worst thing to happen to Magic lately.
*WotC's short-sighted emphasis on non-consumer-friendly monetization is such a waste of an incredibly successful product.* All the while actually needed improvements and features that will make the game thrive and live long and prosper are criminally neglected...
Almost 2 years to get a barely functional friends list! Maybe by 2021 we'll actually be able to chat with our friends...
What if it actually makes them more money though, short and long run? Whales in gamming can be a powerful force, so how can we expect a company to just leave money on the table, especially if they know it's there. We need some kind of value proposition that makes supporting the wider playerbase worth it. Not saying this to side with Hasbro, I just want to know myself what answers we have to this.
@@gagemorrow6702 you don't get whales by limiting or pay walling your gamemodes, you get them by letting everybody play so the queues are short and then selling them a lot of extra premium shit for those game-modes.
Brawlidays is the perfect example, you think whales want that, or that it makes them spend a lot of real cash? Nope
It's MTGO 2.0 (not counting the dozens of versions of MTGO, lol). It will continue to get worse - more buggy and bloated. Features people actually want will continue to get delayed, ignored and cancelled. The embarassment of a friends list is the most transparent symptom of this.
@@LedPESRule I'd like to politely disagree there, I think whales are the exact people who will pay for brawlidays, the main group being cut out are the people who don't want to spend a lot on the game. I don't think having brawl all the time is the main hook for the game, the game itself is fun and the most immersive digital mtg experience. That's all you need to hook the whales imho.
@@gagemorrow6702 Whales want premium and exclusive content mostly, or just all the cards. Besides, they have Gold to spare, a once every month investment of 10k is nothing that would make them spend real money.
It just makes the format less popular, meaning they are less enticed to spend actual money on cosmetics, wildcards etc. to brew or pimp their decks for that game-mode.
As someone who enjoys teaching the game as well as playing it, it's come to my attention that the competitive metagame, and the establishment ( and restriction ) to certain roles and playstyles is working counterproductively towards what I feel are the main selling points, or enjoyable factors, of this game.
To me as well as many others I'm sure, one of the most beautiful things about magic the gathering and what makes it so fun to play is the sheer amount of diversity you have to be able to build a deck the way you like to fit your own strategy and personality for what you want to do. That no matter who you are or what you'd like to do there's bound to be a card somewhere that fits the bill. There's thousands upon thousands of magic cards in existence and they keep making more every year. You can create just about anything you want to basically and that's something I feel we should emphasize with new players in particular.
Another thing about magic, I want to say, is the incredible community of friendliness. That even in a rivalry game with potential for politics and treachery, and even with people duking it out to try and win (because who doesn't like winning?) that the community is very open and welcoming and supportive, and you can make good friends playing people. I feel these are two big selling points.
And competitive magic... Seems to do both these things wrong. Play to win as you might be oriented, the fact remains that magic is supposed to be a game. A "game" that everyone can enjoy playing. A friendly reminder for competitive folks that most people's lives are not going to revolve around this game, likely have other jobs and things and see magic as a fun pasttime and way to unwind...
I know that there are always going to be some unsportsmanlike "sore losers" in the crowd of any game, which there's nothing to do about, and I'm not talking about general trash-talking, as mind games with an opponent can be okay.
But I have observed especially toxic attitudes and truly degenerate playstyles when approaching the competitive magic community. Along with a sharp lack of diversity in deck types. If something doesn't conform to a certain list of acceptable "deck types" or doesn't run certain contingencies within the decklist just to deal with threats found in the metagame, you either are labelled a "bad player" or your deck is labelled as a "bad deck." It doesn't help that a lot of the most optimized decks are incredibly pricy to construct, especially in eternal formats. When you don't conform, the amount of insults and general abuse you receive as a player is quite staggering, and the degenerate playstyles used tend to leave no room for truly interactive and fun gameplay. It's exactly the wrong message to be sending if the objective is to make a game everyone will want to enjoy playing.
I know I'm probably going to draw a lot of flak for this, because I know a lot of people appear to disagree with this sentiment, but let me tell you right now -- Control, in particular, just isn't casual. No matter how you spin it. And control decks are unhealthy towards creating diverse, enjoyable environments for everyone, by using a playstyle that either forces opponents to try and play around them by specifically building in contingencies to halt control, which kills diversity, or just be locked out from playing magic and lose because there's nothing you can do, watching the other person play solitaire.
I've heard several different arguments that favor control as a deck archetype, and unarguably it is one of the top deck types one can construct. But that's part of the point. There is nothing fun or casual about it if you're on the receiving end of the stick. Control only appears to be fun to the player using the control deck, or periodically when it is considered relevant as an occasional check in games with 3 or more people. And there are those who say that "without control, magic becomes just a race to see who gets to the biggest baddest creature first and wins, which is also not diverse and is just boring." A mindset like that is one that is clearly restricted to thinking only about time-tested, competitive deck types. There's no question that big bad creatures CAN win games, but is that all it's limited to? Absolutely not! Magic is a huge game with thousands of cards, and there is loads of creative potential if you just put your mind to it. It's one of my central points and selling features of this game. But when you play versus control, there's only so much you can diversify your playstyle. Yes, there are things you can do specifically to combat control, like hexproof creatures and uncounterable cards, or playing bunches of cheap things not worth removing that add up to player destruction. And there are other competitive playstyles that deal with control.
..."Competitive" playstyles. That's the problem. Whenever you add in an answer for a control deck, that takes a deck slot away from something else creative you could have put in to make your deck unique. If you don't do it though, you just wind up losing to control every time, while the control player proceeds to berate you for building your deck badly when you complain you can't pull off the creative strategy you wanted to try using. "If you don't have a response for control, you just suck" is a mentality I see an awful lot. And in a purely competitive environment, okay, maybe they would have a point -- not having a contingency plan for control would mean a suboptimal deck. If the competitive community were wholly distinct and separate from the ordinary community this wouldn't be an issue. But there isn't any real separation. Every argument for control being fun and interactive that I see winds up based on the assumption that everyone will be doing something truly degenerate, and that it's good to have checks and balances. But this only makes sense to do in competitive environments! Casual fun decks with creativity and personality are stomped out by control every time unless they specifically build around dealing with control in places, and the moment they do that, they stop being so unique. It's a lose-lose situation: Control decks force their opponents to either conform or die while they laugh in your face about what a terrible deckbuilder you are. In a casual setting where decks are supposed to be fun and aren't necessarily going by what's optimal.
Control is just inherently competitive. And that is why I very firmly believe that control decks have absolutely no place in casual magic. Every time it shows up in casual magic, someone's getting pissed off because they can't play with the cards they want to play with. I have tried control myself as well and have tested things over many games at a variety of power-levels, from jank to tier 1. What I have personally found is that even when I deliberately try to make control more janky, it still winds up being on a much higher power level compared to the rest of the jank. And I don't feel very good or accomplished when I successfully beat people with control. People say that it's supposed to be a "thinking" or "smart" way to play, but more often than not I find myself thinking "This is way too freaking easy. I just 'Nope' on anything that looks even remotely threatening" and then win because my opponent couldn't play their deck.
Having been on both sides of the coin it is increasingly clear to me that as magic caters more to longtime fans than it does to inviting new people to enjoy the game, that control decks, and the inherently competitive folks that play them, in particular are a serious problem in the magic community to bringing in more people. Most people aren't going to want to get active in the competitive scene, and the presence of control in casual magic angers or bores the new people. It even bores me when I use it. It takes the fun out of magic, which I reiterate is JUST A GAME. What are games supposed to be? Fun. Otherwise, why play.
In conclusion, what needs to happen I think is a clear and distinct separation between the casual and competitive communities -- while placing control decks firmly in the competitive bracket. If we did this, and cut back on some toxic attitudes otherwise, I honestly think that would drastically improve both the size of the player base and the overall morale.
"Power Down" should obviously be called "Power Leak"
Power Seep
I call it "powercrap"
The watered down fetchlands that the Professor is hypothesizing are gonna be something like this:
T, Sacrifice,: Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a *swamp* or *mountain* card. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
I would play that for sure
I’d rather not play with shiny cards. They’re constantly curled and my deck roles off the table.
Even with Sleeves?
i want all my decks foil and with alternate art hahaha
I always make proxies for non-land foils and keep the foils in the deck box and swap them when I play them. Too many times my opponent just picks the curled card for discard, much rather (usually) that they bin the land than a walker or a foil mythic... but it's annoying that they (WotC) can't seem to make foils well.
Yeah just want pretty art no sparkles
That’s what I’ve been saying. I’d rather have alternate artwork than foil cards. I like foil cards but I hate how they curl especially if it’s a card I want to use but I can’t cause my card is curled to the seven hells
This is one of the most insightful debates about make-up tutorials I have ever watched.
Magic is just too confusing in general now. That’s why I’m out. I used to keep up with every set release, including reading or listening to limited and standard set reviews. Used to keep up with GP coverage and the Pro-Tour. I can’t for the life of me figure out what comes out when, or when there are big events. It’s just too much work to be a hobby.
Power-creep is so, so, so, so, so, so much worse than power-down.
Come on prof...
One thing has the potential to make the game a little stale, that other has the potential to ruin archetypes, push players out of formats, rotate non-rotating formats and quite literally destroy the game long-term
Arent they the same thing lol
What goes up must come down
FYI, at Theros pre-release last week I did receive a special redemption code for a booster pack. Our LGS stated that they wanted us to do the redemption as the code was linked to their specific store and WotC was wanting to track linkage between the LGS and Arena.
i call bullshit on that
49:18
Some dude at WOTC heard that and was like: "Yeah, and we'll call it 'Secret Lair: Ultimate Edition'."
"My full art snow lands can only get so erect." - underpaid community college professor, 2020
Lol hes pure gold
51:00 Pleasant Kenobi predicts Secret Lair: Eldrain Wonderland
Magic has the unique ability to protect itself from its customers from jumping ship and playing a completely different game such as Hearthstone. It comes with built in diversity of game modes, especially with Historic on Arena and now Pioneer in Magic Online and paper. The fact that WoTC chooses explicitly to make decisions on Arena to go against that philosophy. Making Brawl inaccessible and costly, or making Historic more “expensive” to craft cards for is driving people away, and those are the two most aggravating purposeful changes that the client has introduced, and the fact that they either don’t understand or don’t care is what troubles me the most.
Fixing the this fundamental philosophy of doing things to negatively impact the player base for what seems to be a strictly monetary reason is what is ruining magic. Those have nothing to do with reprints, power level of the actual game pieces, cosmetics, or anything else.
Peter Lotocki WOTC is terrified that if they put a full time eternal format in Arena the majority of players will stop playing standard.
I would add that they are messing up Historic by gating when fans of the format can play Historic ranked.
@@thorin01 Oh, once Pioneer hits, I'm never touching standard again. That's a fact. Hell, I'd play Modern if they added it but I'm only interested in Pioneer now.
thorin01 I agree, but imagine if they printed more cards that are compelling and build new archetypes and play styles. Think Sram or Feather, those types of cards. It would give reason to buy new sets and craft cards on arena that would never otherwise be played.
@@pistolpete1358 Sram as in eggs? That deck is cool.
Calling it "Magic the Gathering" implies that you are gathering around a table in person, with friends. To me, Magic Arena does not imply that I am "spending time" with my friends and making new acquaintances or life-long friends.
Ah, but MtG Arena got me into MtG and led me to discussing it more in depth with a Discord friend of mine who also plays, and now we have something to do together (very useful when you have two socially awkward people who are friends).
This is my favorite makeup tutorial channel here on RUclips!
8:00 I just watched an episode of Game Knights where Torrential Gearhulk played a pretty substantial role!
I love this guy. I recently started getting back into mtg and noticed this trend that cards keep getting outdone by its predecessors and that makes it harder for the average player to stay up to date with the competition. Also, Shivan Dragon was one of my favorite cards.
Question: how many episodes did they film together? There've been, like, 5 episodes pre-Professor Haircut.
Did they just spend 2 days recording episodes?
Oko was the Tireless Tracker for food, silly Kenobi.
It's so weird to me that having a code to claim a digital version of a product in the same physical product is something wizards hasn't leaned into when it's been the standard for games like Pokemon for so long
I worked for Wizards early when Hasbro purchased WotC. I can not honestly bring myself to believe that Hasbro as a GAME and TOY company, would ever abandon MTG as a "Card game" in addition to its additional "platforms."
What is ruining Magic: The gathering today?
Hey guys, it's me Vince also known as PleasantKenobi on the internet
Kiss me softly upon my lips. *blows a kiss*
heres my issue: average power levels are barely increasing, but it seems like we have big powercreep because instead of the 5 best cards of the set being liek 20% above everything else in that set, they are 200% better and so broken, they either enable stupid combos or have to be banned in several formats.
Set design would be fine if they werent printing these very few completely off the charts insane cards
Obelion WOTC knows in order to sell as packs as broadly as possible they need a certain number of cards in each set to get play in at least one (preferably two or more) eternal formats. So it feels like these cards are designed to be overly flashy to get that broad appeal. Of course when they overshoot, as they did with Oko, they really overshoot.
Great podcast gentlemen. I play exclusively with paper magic because I don't like how people can randomly Nerf cards (as they have done in Hearthstone). If Hasbro decided to drop paper magic they would lose all of my business which I know wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket for them.
They were really right about one bad standard messing up arena. At least me personally, I quit arena during the Oko nonsense, started playing Modern and now have no interest in going back to standard
The new Weatherlight crew are more interesting than almost every planeswalker combined, definitely more than all of the gatewatch combined.
Prof, what you said about the Gatewatch - YES!!! Jeez, I'm even relatively new to Magic and am so fatigued of them. Throne of Eldraine was so incredibly refreshing without the same old thing. It makes the multiverse seem so small and uninteresting when the same old characters show up over and over and over again.
51:45 LIFE DAY!!! But seriously, use Christmas/Secret Lair to show seasonal festivities & Holidays on the planes.
MTGFinance setting their sights on EDH is ruining magic today.
Cards that were available and cool are now being 'speculated on' which means buying out and ratcheting prices up. Then those cards get held in greedy financer portfolios and see no play. Then those cards become excessively pricey and we have to wait for reprints to hit to get those cards accessible. This is going to price players out of EDH which is harmful to paper magic's best format.
Proxying used to be taboo, now it's pretty normal. No one wants their decks neutered due to artificial scarcity.
Pioneer has done this also
"investors" are a fucking cancer. I'm so tired of them. Fucking parasites
I dont think you can blame the rudys. When wizzards could just reprint it at anytime if the price goes up.
While I agree that MTGFinance are annoying, a lot of 'speculators' are also players like myself.
Blame Wizards for their half-assed reprints, SO many cards have inexplicably dodged meaningful reprints that it sucks.
The snow land cycle was a good call Vince
This is honestly my favourite series on youtube. Goodness, Brian, you and Vince have been brightening each of my days lately
Wow, thank you!
@@TolarianCommunityCollege I've been a sub for years now, since I was a teenager.. now I'm in my sophomore year in college, studying business and finance. I have to admit, one of my first forays into business design and marketing was your content, and many of your critiques come to mind when I'm carrying out product and marketing analysis. Now trained in the field, and as enfranchised in the game as ever, I must say I enjoy your content even more. Your insights, and genuine passion for the game, and outright kindness to those around you, is something I truly respect. I'm proud to say you're my magic hero, and I truly hope I can meet you some day :)
I was born in Germany, grew up in Canada, and live in Ireland; and I have been, and will continue to be, a fan of yours all the way.
You're awesome, Brian. Keep it up!
I love how Vince casually predicted the Eldraine Snow Land Secret Lair product.
wow I've been listening to all the old episodes at work today, hoping the new DTR would come out soon! perfect timing :)
Magic gets ruined by overpowered/pushed cards, that get banned shortly after release. Bad Promocard distribution... and a bad official play program.
Or get banned way too late after they lay waste to the Format (or in Oko's case almost every Format)
Oh how right you continued to be
I remember watching that video about the new pro tours info. I watched it and basically just decided that tournaments weren't worth it. I guess that is why so many other people also play commander now.
Didn’t we already have this with just the prof
I thought we had "No, this is not what's ruining Magic"
Just because you had sex with somebody, doesn't mean you can't enjoy it with somebody else.
I hate how the discussion of Fetchlands was essentially a prophecy that came true with the secret lairs
WOW. PROF'S HAIR GROWS SO FAST
This was recorded before prof haircut
@Shill for Science I haven't seen the
Episode fully but I think yes before oko
@Shill for Science very true and as well as how many lengths wizards is willing to cross for them to profit from this newer sets that just keep getting worse. I'm still waiting when will there see there errors and fix how they evaluate a card's power level.
"make up tutorial! Uh, video games, wait no kids toys" was hilarious. Great job on this episode!
I wonder how depressed I’m going to get after I finish watching this video.
Edit: I’m amused at how outdated this ended up being.
How out dated is it?
it doesnt feel outdated
Yeah... What? Its not out dated at alllll.
Hater.
To the last point about Arena vs Gathering, minor but also huge; every single paper card has Magic the gathering written on the back of the physical card. It would be a shock, quite a large shock, to suddenly see Magic arena written on the back of the cards.
Wonder when we run out of these gp Vegas recorded ones
My theory is they filmed enough until next time.
While I don't care for the "stretched art", WOTC merely cashed in on what artists were doing for players. I think having all of these alt arts is good for the game, it sells cards and allows everyone to have their style. I'll be honest, I just want the Pre-2015 card frames back.
prof: New card, 4 mana 10/10. Power creep.
me: Gigantosaurus is in my meme deck, and it's a 10/10 for 5 mana
Mirrodin block had my favourite flavour of any set to ever come out. It felt so great to progress through the story and plane via the cards that we got. And the set symbols! Such a great block.
The most relevant part of this vid is when the Prof mentioned that the true ruin of Magic is mtg finance. Paper mtg at least
When a card isn't amazing, but it's expensive because it's not reprinted.
The power creep point is so legit. It's been driving me insane lately. I play commander primarily, and I feel forced to pay attention to the new sets way too often. It breaks some of the creativity that was once allowed. If things just keep getting stronger it just becomes 100 card brawl, and that's very boring.
Obvious statement: you want new creative choices that work with old strategies and/or facilitate new ones, not forced into one meta.
When commander feels touched by power creep of the new sets it feels weird.
I agree. I like to skim the new sets for cards I might like to run in my decks, but I don't want to have to remake half my decks every set
honestly the question in commander is every time do you neat the card or it is just fun to use new stuff an evolving i mean we get 16 legendary every set +- we get great support cards for budget player i think its great and i mean if you think you neat to update your list with every new set it is your own fault because technically in commander you dot neat it to do end of the discussion
I think instead of pushing new better stuff, print functionally identical stuff like let's say rhystic study. Nearly unaffordable to newer players or younger players, we dont need something that works better or worse than it. Just print medomais pondering or something that does the exact same thing.
@@daranik yeah that would work wonders
@@dragullongblackfang8073 I guess it's a meta thing at that point, so fair, one group updates a lot the other has an lgs owner so we play older stuff there. Still "your own fault" "end of discussion" makes you look like a dick. End of discussion
12:30 You guys missed Eidolon of the Great Revel. That card was probably the best thing since Goblin Guide that both legacy and modern burn acquired.
I think the core issue with power creep, or the reverse, is that WOTC's design philosophy, rules ,and process has become so extremely linear. A card is either more or less powerful than another card. WOW had this problem too, because as a player gains xp and levels, they simply become more powerful- they have more health and deal more damage. So much so that with Warlords of Draenor, I think, the devs addressed the power curve specifically and toned players down because they'd gotten so out of hand.
Magic cards are the same. Since the panic after Lorwyn WOTC tanked the game's complexity, and started using "strictly better" to sell packs, instead of developing new strategies and synergies with open-ended cards, as they did with original Ravnica, TS block, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, etc.
If you check out the in-development MMORPG Camelot Unchained, you will find a deliberate choice to avoid this problem by making combat more skill-based. As a player uses their skills, those skills will improve, but not so much that a new player will be 1-shot by someone who has been playing for a year merely because their numbers are higher. Horizontal progression, not vertical.
The problem is it's hard to manage horizontal growth when you have a mana system like magic does. As someone who plays a lot of yugioh they achieved this by printing counters to threats that can be used turn one, and decks deal with them by getting more resilient. Basically the interactions that would have lasted 10 turns end up getting compressed to 2-3 turns in modern yugioh. It seems like you can't balance it like that in MTG, since any card with a way to cheat around its mana cost has the potential to be incredibly broken. It also seems like the power creep that cards like that would cause a riot in of itself. Heck plenty if people complain about handtraps in Yugioh itself, but for the most part the decks that can't deal with them aren't remotely viable in the first place due to other reasons or would be degenerate combo decks.
When they talk about a special codes to unlock at your local game store, they are talking about getting players more involved with their local game store. The problem with this is that Wizards is getting players to spend their fixed amount of money at local game stores by having them go there and see cards they like rather than on Arena.
Korvold loves gold, clues, treasure, and food in EDH
@@Tamarocker88 lol, he is absolutely fabulous
I'm gonna reckon a big problem with Power Down:
Ideal: each set has mechanical focuses that are allowed to be stronger. It's like lowering one lever and raising another. You want dynamic, interactive games. You want many deck types of roughly similar power or with gentle rock/papers/scissors relationships that create mindgames. You want to gently bend the core limitations of the game while trusting in the strength of its fundament for fear of losing the game's core identity and ~feel~.
Problem 1: When more and more sets offer every archetype the "make a big dude" strategy, there are fewer levers to pull for creatures.
Problem 2: When sets make big box selling Planeswalkers, they're hard to generically interact with, limiting deck building.
Problem 3: sets with core mechanics that are generically strong like efficient colorless cards, mana fixing, playing things from the graveyard, etc. risk making the format less diverse and breaking the fundamental limits of the game in a way that is difficult to design around. The meta is solved quickly due to the overt raw efficiency of even slightly overpowered cards with these effects.
Result: If you lower one of these generically strong levers and raise another lever (say, enchantments), you aren't creating an equal exchange because of the inherent power of either concept. If you do that AND actively try to make cards lower quality in general to slow the game down, you overcompensate and get Theros, in casual, I found pretty slow and grindy, while the few cards that are pushed are SHOCKING-strong in the context of a block.
Wrt food, the fun isn't inherent in the mechanic, unlike the other, more generically powerful sac tokens. Synergy-reliant effects like this can work, but it's very touchy and doesn't play well unless it's within a theme umbrella (like sacrifice).
I'm worried about the color White. There are not coming enough good cards down the pipeline in recent years.
Bernd B white just got a ton of great cards in THB. I’m sure we’re getting more in the future.
@@TrainmasterGT White really just got Heliod, and it's mostly just a combo card in white. Compared to the number of good cards that the other 4 colors are getting in THB, white is STILL getting pretty shafted.
blue and green seem really pushed lately, like theyve said in this video, card draw and mana are some of the most important functions of the game, blue and green have been pushed because of this. This is something wotc should break the colour pie a bit more and give the likes of white and red a little more to balance more cards or more mana .
Yes it does snow on Innistrad.
From the "Shadows Over Innistrad: Collected Stories" Story 3: Sacrifice - "When spring broke that year and the snows finally melted, a young apprentice rode his horse through the pass, into the sleepy little fishing village near Lake Zhava. He carried with him a satchel of letters, many long overdue, written before the first snowfalls of the winter before."
"there much to hate in capitalism"
Comrade Kenobi
he aint wrong tho
I have a 540 cards Vintage cube and the amount of cards released last year I had to add to it was huge. It usually needs 1-3 cards each year, but last year I added close to 20.
It's a cube; you don't HAVE to add anything to it, ever.
@@Zomburai45 it depends what your cube's goal is. If it's a set or block cube, you don't. If you want to optimize and run the absolute best cards in given slots, you have to look at new sets and see what's good.
I have always hated american comics and superhero stories and when I came back to Magic with Arena, I was really disappointed to see that the game basically tries to be a marvel story. It totally diminishes the impact and flavour of the individual planes.
Also, the borderless cards are ugly as sin.
I think the reason people got tired of the gatewatch so quickly was exactly that. They tried to be the Avengers, without the characters being anywhere near as likeable.
@@thefallenmyst - I disagree. People got tired of the GateWatch for bad reasons that very rarely actually cleaved to anything in the story.
As we so often do, Magic fans got a preconceived notion in their heads and never gave it an actual chance.
Ughh, the probability that the story goes right back to the Gatewatch is depressing. Would love to see a set that features Sarpadia, right before the era of Fallen Empires. No Gatewatch, no Bolas, just the story about an end of an era and all of the issues that would go with that. The idea of them revamping the sac and storage lands in an interesting way, that hopefully makes them better but maintains the same idea, is also something I would like to see.
This was a great makeup tutorial!
i like the huge variety of boarders, frames, & styles today. it allows for more stylish customization of decks (you could be using one style for one deck and a different style for another to go with the theme of the deck). it allows for a wider range of appeal (some people don’t like foils but like full art, some don’t like full art but like classic frame, etc) it also reminds me of the surprise of opening packs in the nineties (you didn’t know what was in the sets) and reminds me of the wide range of alters that you’re seeing pop up in old school and commander formats.
Having Oko jpin the Gate Watch would spice things up. Although he's obviously be using them as a sort of security to protect him from Garruk. He can also do some trickster stuff and have inner turmoil among the group or whatever too. #OkoBestBoy
When talking about Theros cards in eternal formats did they miss Eidolon of the Great Revel ? Perhaps the best original card from theros block
I've always heard "Power Seep" ...
Question, what about Limitations within Modern instead of outright Ban/Unbanned?
Such as Limited, Semi-Limited and Tridem-Limited. As the names suggest, these would limit Libraries to one, two and three copies to a select few cards. Here's just an example:
Limited (One copy per Library or Sidedeck).
* Abrupt Decay.
* Aether Vial.
* Ancestral Vision.
* Blood Moon.
* Bojuka Bog.
* Chalice of the Void.
* Cloudpost.
* Collected Company.
* Disdainful Stroke.
* Dismember.
* Duress.
* Eidolon of the Great Revel.
* Extirpate.
* Fatal Push.
* Green Sun's Zenith.
* Kira, Great Glass-Spinner.
* Light Up the Stage.
* Liliana of the Veil.
* Living End.
* Lotus Bloom.
* Mind Rot.
* Mox Opal.
* Mutavault.
* Nihil Spellbomb.
* Noble Hierarch.
* Once Upon a Time.
* Pithing Needle.
* Preordain.
* Silent Gravestone.
* Spellskite.
* Splintertwin.
* Stony Silence.
* Surgical Extraction.
* Sword of Feast and Famine.
* Sword if Fire and Ice.
* Tarmogoyf.
* Thoughtseize.
* Tormod's Crypt.
* Urza's Mine.
* Urza's Power Plant.
* Urza's Tower.
* Veil of Summer.
* Vesuva.
* Walking Ballista.
* Witchbane Orb.
* Wurmcoil Engine.
Semi-Limited (Two copies in total Library and/or Sidedeck).
* Amulet of Vigor.
* Ashes of the Abhorrent.
* Bitterblossom.
* Boros Charm.
* Cavern of Souls.
* Chandra, Torch of Defiance.
* Cloud of Faeries.
* Damping Sphere.
* Death's Shadow.
* Dryad of the Ilysian Grove.
* Eldrazi Temple.
* Engineered Explosives
* Ghost Quarter.
* Graftdigger's Cage.
* Illusionist's Bracers.
* Inquisition of Kozilek.
* Jace the Mind Sculptor.
* Layline of Sanctity.
* Layline of the Void.
* Lightning Helix.
* Manamorphose.
* Narcomoeba.
* Opt.
* Path to Exile.
* Primeval Titan.
* Rancor.
* Relic of Progenitus.
* Rest in Peace.
* Saheeli Rai.
* Searing Blaze.
* Smuggler's Copter.
* Snapcaster Mage.
* Stoneforge Mystic.
* Sword of the Meek.
* Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas.
* Thought-Knot Seer.
* Torpor Orb.
* Vengevine
Tridem-Limited (Three copies in total Library and/or Sidedeck)
* Ashiok, Dream Render.
* Chromatic Star.
* Cryptic Command.
* Kharn the Great Creator.
* Lava Spike.
* Leonin Arbiter.
* Lightning Bolt.
* Prized Amalgam.
* Rift Bolt.
* Serum Visions.
Thank the Goddess, for the Sarcasm intro... I was about to ditch you like I did Purp for negativity.
@Shill for Science Yes. And Purp was much more interesting when he stuck to Lore and History than how ticked off he is about, what is, seemingly everything.
Only stay subscribed for the rare event he returns to the ...not Timmy, not Johnny, but that other version of player that *I am* and can't think of =P
VORTHOS! lol
Watches till 13:14 so far:
The opposite of „powercreep“ is „powersleep“ maybe :D
My favourite was ixalan and I do think that powercreep is a big problem.
Greetings from germany
(Sry for bad english)
...when was this recorded that they say Eldraine is a "powered down" set?
@@Tamarocker88 I would disagree compared to previous standard sets. We cry and complain about a few planeswalkers from War, but they are like 5-6 cards out of the set, similarly to cards in Eldraine. I would argue there are more adventures alone being played in Standard than the Walkers in War.
I agree with the idea of making powerful cards in spesific ways. Drown in the Loch is a very good example.
As always. Prices. But nicely enough, Games Workshop is better at getting my money
the only way article is powercreeping is by their prices
RUclips told me this was a makeup tutorial, I've been bamboozled!
9:45 - Since returning (~ Kaladesh), I think ELD has been my favorite set for limited and constructed. Before that, Mirrodin. I know people scoff, given affinity... but equipment and a largely interactive set was pretty fun. I actually liked the drawback of artifact lands (it came up more than they'd have you believe), but take the sets minus the cards that got banned and you'll see well designed, innovative sets.
You are off your nut ELD is trash IXL and DOM are the best recent sets by miles and miles
@@Pistolsatsean IXA was "get your 2 drop" format, and didn't even reprint Tremor. WOTC basically apologized for failing to enable enrage w/ M20. DOM had "historic" as a mechanic, so already stupid. DOM was actually pretty good, but I like to judge a format by it's cardpool as a whole, and any set with Tolarian Scholar is a set with a vanilla 2/3, so it really screwed the pooch there.
@@williamsimkulet7832 And what were the most egregious cards of those formats? Carnage Tyrant, Teferi 5, Hostage taker, and Chainwhirler. What were the best cards? The entire Transform mechanic, Sagas, Legendary sorceries, treasures, the best designed PWs in magic, Helm of the Host, Enrage mechanic, Explore mechanic, Ixalans binding, Lichs Mastery. Also 2 drop bears were real cards. You are 100% wrong about Historic mechanic because it will always be relevant, it is not a "parasitic" mechanic, also because of characters like Teshar and Jhoira.
What are the most egregious cards in ELD? Do I even need to say? Questing Beast, Cat, Oven, Oko, the other unkillable 3 mana PW, Brazen borrower, Fires of invention, Torbran, Embercleave, Gilded Goose, Once upon a time, Trail of crumbs, Wicked wolf, The great henge, Doom foretold, Korvold (being only available in the brawl precons).
And that is just ELD, consider comparing the cards from WAR as well, or the other set that a card got banned out of...
There are some great cards from Throne: The castles are pretty sweet, Irencrag Pyro, Beanstalk Giant, Thorn Mammoth, Dance of the manse, Improbable alliance, Outlaw's merriment, arcane signet, fabled passage, the basic lands that are not basics are okay, Murderous rider, Bonecrusher giant, and Emry.
Also consider these sets' respective limited formats. Nobody likes playing a single draft match for an hour because both players have limitless life generation...
I mean seriously dude in DOM meta Slimefoot was a played card! A 3 mana 2/3 with: pay 4, make a 1/1.
Compare Slimefoot to Savvy Hunter! And that card was never being played!
Nobody even plays with Charming Prince, or Garruk, or Alela, or Stonecoil serpent in ELD meta!
@@Pistolsatsean First, I stuck with IXA, RIX, and DOM, but their flaws were obvious. The flaws of ELD are obvious as well - WOTC pushed cards too much (egregiously on Questing Beast), they overlooked printing answers (Cat Combo), and they didn't understand a planeswalker they've printed (get used to it; WOTC has been exceptionally poor at this since the start).
However, the reason ELD is so much fun, compared to even DOM, is - I think - Adventurers. Though clunky, the mechanic is laden with player choice and opens up 2-for-1s. It single-handedly makes counterspells playable in limited. Much like Astral Slide decks, 2 block-mechanic enablers carry the Adventure deck. Indeed, Astral Slide.dec is a good comparison, as Onslaught's cycling mechanic suffered from similar mechanical gaps; but of course they play radically differently (Adventures is midrange, while Astral Slide is control).
DOM is a pretty great set with great ideas, but many balls were dropped. The dedicated legendary slot is a great idea, poorly executed (many (U) were garbage or filler). I genuinely hope Commander Legends learned from this, and either (1) copy time spiral with 2 rare slots - one (L) and one "normal", or (2) make all (M)s and (R)s Commanders (if this draft-only format needs a Wrath variant... reprint one at (U) then.
DOM failed kicker, much like TBD fails Devotion. In block sets, you'd expect these mechanics to be built on, but w/o block sets, to make these viable you need a critical mass. ELD had a critical mass of Adventurers.
IXA... didn't have a critical mass of enablers, and thus the Enrage mechanic went unused outside of limited, disappointingly.
I don't see Slimefoot and Savvy Hunter as comparable; compare Slimefoot to Syr Konrad; both (U) legends. And yes, Konrad is worded super poorly (it's 3 different abilities shoved into one runon paragraph), and Slimefoot has more decks on edhrec, but I think they're comparably powerful for limited and EDH.
It's not worth our time to compare middle-of-the-road rares from DOM and ELD. However, Stonecoil is pushed (the best X artifact creature ever printed), but not metagame relevant. It's comparable to Traxos, Scourge of Kroog from DOM... though I think Stonecoil's protection is a poor design choice, given the incompetence of bringing back the mechanic (When a good percentage of the playerbase doesn't understand your mechanic, get the hint!).
ELD would be better if Adamant had been removed, if there were more adventures, and if WOTC printed more answers. A cycle of (U) Charming Bears (rather than the (R) charming prince) would have given room to print narrow answers as well. However, really, they needed to bite the bullet and bring back affinity (as opposed to just print it on a half dozen cards unkeyworded). Give me a vertical cycle of Affinity for Artifacts, Affinity for creatures in the graveyard, affinity for knights, affinity for attacking creatures (ugh), and whatever affinity would replace the Great Henge's Ghalta mechanic... maybe affinity for creatures you control. A (M) artifact, a (R) Legendary creature, and (U) spell, and a (C) "filler" creature for each color.
Final thought: While I think WOTC should aim to make more (C)s and (U)s viable in constructed formats (even just EDH), it's worth noting that only 2-3 (C) cards in each color in ELD were unplayable in limited, compared to DOM's 4-5 and TBD's 4-5. Was ELD more playable to enable monocolor, or was it more playable because designers underestimated adventurers? We probably won't know; but I'd like to think they wanted more FUN, playable cards, rather than "oops, this didn't turn out bad."
@@williamsimkulet7832 I do agree that commons in ELD are better and there are better EDH specific cards, but I believe that is a symptom of them finally starting to design with EDH in mind. (maybe finally learning that people hate paying money for filler garbage? Designing better commons is certainly not tied to the design of any set) Are adventures a good mechanic? Sure they are fun to play with the unique style of card advantage is interesting, the mechanic itself is fun, but it is another thing that cannot be interacted with. (most other forms of card advantage are interactable, either through using the graveyard, a permanent on board, or simply being an instant/sorcery) I do not entirely agree with your claim that most of them are playable, consider that the (only?) decks playing adventures (other than the stand alone good ones) are using both Edgewall Innkeeper, and Lucky Clover to fuel a card advantage mechanic...
I do like the adventure mechanic I just think that you are giving wotc too much credit on the specific abilities/cards they chose to print on/as adventures for the most part.
Also I specifically did not mention EDH in my previous comment as I feel it is not wise to consider EDH when evaluating card effectiveness and balance as it is a singleton format with 100 card decks which naturally balances out cards by decreasing consistency and normalizing deck building.
18:50 Actually I run a couple food cards in my Tasigur deck as an excuse to run banana food tokens.
i run some in my rats deck :P
Having multiple variations of one card just seemed like lazy set filler to me. Like, instead of thinking of six different amazing cards I'm just going to come up with six variations of one good card. I speak of course of certain cards being traditional, tradtional foil, showcase, showcase foil, extended art and extended art foil. In my opinion you don't need that many variations on cards. I myself would be happy with traditional border and traditional foil, then if you must do a third variant just do masterpiece cards.
Speaking of Masterpieces, absolutely love them I think they're gorgeous but I digress. Having six variations of certain cards also takes away from value of said cards from a collector standpoint. "Oh you have (insert card name here)? That's cool. Too bad it's the normal traditional non foil version. If it was the supermega Kawasaki XJ9 extended foil humper version you'd really have something."
So that's really what I think isn't necessarily ruining Magic as much as it is making sets dull. Too many variants and too much filler.
Prof your comment about the arena-to-LGS for a promo pack-esque item is spot on.
How formats are being warped every two seconds with the power creep. It used to be only standard that would warp drastically. Now its all of them. Thanks Modern Horizons.
At least it lived up to it's name... Still, I agree with you though.
@@jaygiemtg7511 remember when people thought it was to weak?
Shocked at the levels of disrespect to Cavalier of Thorns.
Nothing is ruining magic as its still epic and the best tcg ever
I agree! It really is the best tcg game ever, the only game that holds me for 10 years and counting :)
I just want to say that after this video was recorded, there was an event on Arena that brought me to my LGS, which was hard because I didn't have a car. They offered a copy and style of tome of legends, command tower and arcane signet to anyone who came to an LGS brawl event one weekend. We need more events like that.
That was going to be my response to that section of the video as well. And Arena had a link right in the game that took me to information on an LGS I didn't even know about. Along with the LGS I use.
This Video was Made so Long ago prof had wizards Talk about IT xD
I love how Magic pushes the envelope on how their cards look. I love having a variety of styles in my commander decks. I almost got a invocation blood moon for my mono-red just because it looks so different.
I really like the expedition lands and the borderless cards. The mystic archive is probably my favorite so far. I hope they keep trying new things. I know it's not for everyone, but it's not supposed to be.
Cant stand the gatewatch! I wish we could move on from them and the boring CG art style.
+1 for boring CG art style. PW cards also ruining the game, they need to completly redisegn them and don't let them to be win cons by themself.
Rock Lobster- Paper Tiger - Scissors Lizard.
No Wax and Wane.
No Strong and Weak.
Just Shift and Change.
Mechanics that hinder previous mechanics.
The Dragon must eat his tail.
If Primeval Titan is too strong, print a soldier in white called Land Warden. CMC-1W for a 3/2: “During each player’s turn, any land that would enter play under that player’s control beyond the first is exiled instead.”
This has the added benefit of nerfing fetches, as it would still allow you to fetch on your opponent’s turn, but you would not be able to fetch on your turn. This could potentially incentivize less complex mana bases for two-color aggro strategies, as they would be faster than their multi-color counterparts.
Guilds alliances might even come to define competitive Magic.
Kenobi interrupts the professor so many times, it's hard to listen to them talking because of that
You run basic lands and snowlands in Titanshift due to Field of the Dead. They count as different named lands so it speeds up field's activation.
Hot take: The weather light saga is just as bad as the Gatewatch.
That's not even a hot take, that's just the truth.
Inferno take: both are just fine. Their simple cozy stand ins
Eh, different kind of bad. No one will huff if you hate Urza, who was a dick. Hate Liliana, who has been a dick for decades and it'll be a shitshow.
The way to handle power levels is rock-paper-scissors - that is you don't make it weaker - you make each new set work better against the previous set. Keep the power level about the same. That way it feels like each set is stronger but it an absolute sense it is not stronger, just against the current meta is it stronger.