Strong disagree. I'm about to ramble so apologies to anyone just looking for spoiler discussion, but fuck it.
Ok, a couple things.
First, this set actually has an
Unlimited Print
Run. While cards from this set will be a little more scarce than standard release cards, there is not cap on how much of this gets printed. As long as people are buying it, there will be more. The booster box prices also only appear to be about $120, so a little more than a normal box but not too much more. There's also a foil in every pack, and the two guaranteed legends per pack are in their own slot and can be of any rarity. Plus, the collector booster contents are pretty reasonable as well.
I don't think you quite grasp what Unlimited means in terms of a supplemental product. Print to demand? Sure, it'll be available as long as stores ask for it. But Magic doesn't have a single product to sell for half a year; we go through new sets and releases every quarter. As soon as the next big set or supplemental comes out, player demands will shift and this will end up going out of print. It happened with Conspiracy both times, and certain cards shot to the moon as a result, and it will absolutely happen again.
We're also in the middle of a pandemic; paper Magic is not being restocked as often as it was previously. So many players couldn't get their hands on Double Masters or Mystery Boosters earlier this year. It will be an exact repeat with this set given the current circumstances. That does not bode well when you print the
Black Lotus of the format at the highest rarity.
There is no way in hell you meet the demand for the player base with a card that is literally
Black Lotus for commanders unless it gets printed in every pre-con to infinity like
Sol Ring has. This will be akin to
Mana Crypt where every deck will want a copy, but the vast majority will not be able to readily acquire or afford one. Having played the format for nearly 6 years now, I'm confident in saying that there are only a handful of decks that would not be interested in this particular card if they could afford it. If this were readily available, it would be a stone cold staple of the format akin to
Sol Ring. But there is no way they meet player demand in a supplemental set that won't be printed forever.
While I won't deny that consumer confidence is an important part of selling product, I'm skeptical as to how much of WOTC's money actually comes directly from so-called enfranchised players like us. Much of wizard's money no longer comes from it's tournament player base- it comes from people playing exclusively casually. There's no point in trying to sell someone who's never even heard of booster draft a pack specifically designed for that purpose if you don't have to.
Magic has survived to this point due to its stability as a product. I'm not speaking from a finance perspective, but as a game that was consistent in its quality. Players felt safe buying cards because they weren't about to be outdated or power-creeped out of relevance on the norm. I don't believe that's the case any longer; their design philosophies strongly suggest that they are in favor of pushing the envelope and constantly moving the power band upwards if the last 18 months are any indication. This is eerily similar to what Konami did with Yu-Gi-Oh waaaaaay back when and that's NOT where you want to be headed.
Tournament Magic was never a real moneymaker for them, it's always been the casual crowd. But casuals drift in and out of the game. What brings them back in? What brought many of them in the first place? The dedicated player base. The main reason why Magic has been so successful for so long is that long-time players have LOVED the game and brought others in over time. I've met a lot of people playing the game and been introduced to friends that I still keep in contact with years after the fact. Magic has long been a great game and that's what has allowed it phenomenal player retention over the years. I can't think of many other games that have managed to captivate their players for 7+ years on average.
Unfortunately, that's not the reality of the last year; the game hasn't been great. Their formats haven't been engaging, corrective measures for problematic cards are being done every set now, and they've been pretty blatant about maximizing possible revenue streams by targeting their consumers with the least impulse control.
Our game suffers from so much doomer pessimism with this game these days that I don't really see the point in getting upset about a card in an unlimited run draft set that is literally only usable in a casual format. While there are larger issues in the Magic ecosystem worth being upset about right now, this is not one of those things. It just doesn't matter.
This absolutely is an issue. I'm sorry if you don't play Commander enough to realize it, but I'm not a fan of having one of my favorite formats go down the shitter with shortsighted designs. You're also grossly underestimating how big this format is for Magic nowadays; it's arguably the most profitable and most catered to segment of their player base BY FAR.
With the push of legendary cards in the last few years and various product offerings specifically to target this player base, it has become a constant arms race with pushed designs. Where before it was an exploratory format to try out cards that were overlooked, nowadays there are more robust and efficient options being printed and shoehorned as staples every other set. It doesn't help that the format is regulated by a group of people who are entirely out of touch with something they built years ago. It absolutely matters when players feel the need to constantly buy new product to keep up. This is not sustainable.
You can try talking it down but it's been evident that the game is not on a good course the last year and half. Unless you're wearing rose-colored glasses, the game is NOT in a healthy position when viewed through various different lenses. Format staples being printed every set shifts metagames too rapidly for it to be tenable for players to keep up with in paper, where cards cost actual money to acquire. Modern has had major shifts in minimal time, unheard of for a format that many bought into years ago with the idea of it being mostly non-rotating. Well you technically can play with most of your cards, but good luck being competitive without utilizing the newer more efficient options being printed every set. Constant bannings lead to a reduced interest in competitive formats because it is not worth the time or money to invest into something that can be taken away from you as soon as the next set is released. Broken mechanics requiring errata to glue together a hasty solution to something that should have been caught in development. This is just a bad product right now.
Last I'm going to say on this because I don't want to derail any further. As much as I love Cube and how little it is affected by these seemingly constant missteps, I really really fucking hate what Wizards has done with this game in recent times. This game isn't suffering from doomer pessimism; it's suffering from shortsighted decision-making and bad stewardship from the higher-ups. If all they care about is revenue numbers then they're right on track to make money for their shareholders. I just hope they don't bleed the enthusiasm for this game dry by the time they're done with it. Unfortunately, that seems to be the current course if they don't right the ship.
