.
General How much do you love Magic right now
- Thread starter Jason Waddell
- Start date
For all its faults, I've never loved it more. It's probably been more important to me at different stages of my life, but the game has been consistently fun to play and I'm enjoying the new expansions in spite of WotC's best efforts to alienate literally everyone with a mix of short-sighted profit seeking and a bunch of soulless senior management with baby's first MBAs treating the game like a widget instead of a lifestyle or, heaven forbid, a long-running game.
My cube is still my zen garden, and fills me with a mix of joy and tranquility as I tend to its branches, snipping off the unsightly growths and tidying up the misplaced bits. I've adored 3 different retail draft environments in the last year, and my interest in competitive play is only stifled in terms of opportunity by the lack of GPs and the way WotC's gone out of their way to undermine pro-level events of any kind; I'm actually loving Modern and Pioneer right now.
We just got a set of the BROTHER'S WAR, for goodness sake! This is the kind of fanservice I've been waiting for. And I'm not mad about Universes Beyond if we're going to get products of the likes of Warhammer 40k. That's to say nothing of the excitement I have for one of my all-time favorite properties, Lord of the Rings, getting a full Magic expansion, after two sets dealing with the Phyrexians. It's all I'd really want from the game, to be honest.
The recession's going to hit MtG eventually, I imagine, and Hasbro's current management philosophy will be a swift overcorrection to some of the excesses we've been seeing, but probably not the ones folks here are most upset about. I guess it's somewhat interesting to watch the corporate site go on a well-worn trajectory towards crumbling the core and then watching it all fall down when the inflated new audience moves on, but I can't help but miss the days where I felt a real connection to the staff writing on DailyMTG, and the blogs, etc. We're getting 5x the cards printed so we don't have the same strong connections to each individual one we used to, we can't go as deep on the shared Magic experience.
But it's like the move from having three channels (only premiere sets) to cable TV: everyone's dispersed with WotC formally supporting every format (though especially Commander) through a complex and silly maze of 500 channels. We're not sharing as much as a community but we're all better served...overall. And yes, sometimes it feels like there's still 500 channels and nothing to watch, but if you know where to look, or just remember what number HBO is on, you're going to have a good time.
My cube is still my zen garden, and fills me with a mix of joy and tranquility as I tend to its branches, snipping off the unsightly growths and tidying up the misplaced bits. I've adored 3 different retail draft environments in the last year, and my interest in competitive play is only stifled in terms of opportunity by the lack of GPs and the way WotC's gone out of their way to undermine pro-level events of any kind; I'm actually loving Modern and Pioneer right now.
We just got a set of the BROTHER'S WAR, for goodness sake! This is the kind of fanservice I've been waiting for. And I'm not mad about Universes Beyond if we're going to get products of the likes of Warhammer 40k. That's to say nothing of the excitement I have for one of my all-time favorite properties, Lord of the Rings, getting a full Magic expansion, after two sets dealing with the Phyrexians. It's all I'd really want from the game, to be honest.
The recession's going to hit MtG eventually, I imagine, and Hasbro's current management philosophy will be a swift overcorrection to some of the excesses we've been seeing, but probably not the ones folks here are most upset about. I guess it's somewhat interesting to watch the corporate site go on a well-worn trajectory towards crumbling the core and then watching it all fall down when the inflated new audience moves on, but I can't help but miss the days where I felt a real connection to the staff writing on DailyMTG, and the blogs, etc. We're getting 5x the cards printed so we don't have the same strong connections to each individual one we used to, we can't go as deep on the shared Magic experience.
But it's like the move from having three channels (only premiere sets) to cable TV: everyone's dispersed with WotC formally supporting every format (though especially Commander) through a complex and silly maze of 500 channels. We're not sharing as much as a community but we're all better served...overall. And yes, sometimes it feels like there's still 500 channels and nothing to watch, but if you know where to look, or just remember what number HBO is on, you're going to have a good time.
Pretty enamored
And not that far from peak. Limited has been great last year, three of the four premier sets have been super fun.
We've been getting cool stuff like retro frames and flashback sets for Kamigawa or Dominaria.
There are also quite a few products to ignore, but why would I care about that. Sets these days becoming more complex and often hyper focused on their mechanical themes just means two things:
1) I can ignore more of those cards and give my cube time to breath
2) Limited environments play less same-y
To me that's all upside.
And yeah, while I still believe, that the people working at wizards are individually decent human beings, there have been some questionable actions from them. However, people are waaaayyy overblowing these issues. The companies we buy our clothes or food from are mostly much, much worse and should be questioned before the guys making playing cards. I am pretty sure that chick shredding or slavery are much worse than overpricing proxy reprints ...
For me personally, my cube is also more fun than ever, it feels like every pack is super decision rich and fresh decks showing up regularly somehow.
I have some people I can and love to cube with at least somewhat regularly, even though we're never a full pod of eight.
Also, my two secondary projects, the Custom Pokécube and my Rav9ca-Cube are making heavy progress, hopefully getting drafted too later this year.
Magic has been my number one hobby for the vast majority of the last two decades. It's a brillantly designed game system that, especially with cube, gives us so many options to modify it and to experience it in new (or old) exciting ways. I am 100% sure that I will die a magic player, even if the game was to be stopped getting produced before that day.
And not that far from peak. Limited has been great last year, three of the four premier sets have been super fun.
We've been getting cool stuff like retro frames and flashback sets for Kamigawa or Dominaria.
There are also quite a few products to ignore, but why would I care about that. Sets these days becoming more complex and often hyper focused on their mechanical themes just means two things:
1) I can ignore more of those cards and give my cube time to breath
2) Limited environments play less same-y
To me that's all upside.
And yeah, while I still believe, that the people working at wizards are individually decent human beings, there have been some questionable actions from them. However, people are waaaayyy overblowing these issues. The companies we buy our clothes or food from are mostly much, much worse and should be questioned before the guys making playing cards. I am pretty sure that chick shredding or slavery are much worse than overpricing proxy reprints ...
For me personally, my cube is also more fun than ever, it feels like every pack is super decision rich and fresh decks showing up regularly somehow.
I have some people I can and love to cube with at least somewhat regularly, even though we're never a full pod of eight.
Also, my two secondary projects, the Custom Pokécube and my Rav9ca-Cube are making heavy progress, hopefully getting drafted too later this year.
Magic has been my number one hobby for the vast majority of the last two decades. It's a brillantly designed game system that, especially with cube, gives us so many options to modify it and to experience it in new (or old) exciting ways. I am 100% sure that I will die a magic player, even if the game was to be stopped getting produced before that day.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
e) This question is hard to answer with the mild to severe disgust I have for WotC itself at the moment.
Interest is waning, but more due to life changes than Wizards. I've been in Memphis for 8 months now, and I'm still not particularly eager to find a new playgroup. Me and my wife are doing really well here. The change in priorities has been nice for me. I had been feeling like I never had enough time in my day...Turns out I vastly underestimated how many hours I logged looking at lists and decks, and shuffling cards in and out of my Cube Cobra over and over. 
I got in a cube night with a friend's cube last month when I visited Philly. I honestly just enjoyed catching up with people more than playing. That said, the cube wasn't the most curated, and battling things like Oko all night is only so fun.
I’m popping in here from time to time and keeping my cube up to date, but I don't know how likely it is that my interest will be rekindled. I'm considering budgetizing my list so I can still keep a cube intact, but sell off the expensive stuff. I'm not making any snap decisions, and one rad set or one encounter with a fellow player could plunge me right back in.
I got in a cube night with a friend's cube last month when I visited Philly. I honestly just enjoyed catching up with people more than playing. That said, the cube wasn't the most curated, and battling things like Oko all night is only so fun.
I’m popping in here from time to time and keeping my cube up to date, but I don't know how likely it is that my interest will be rekindled. I'm considering budgetizing my list so I can still keep a cube intact, but sell off the expensive stuff. I'm not making any snap decisions, and one rad set or one encounter with a fellow player could plunge me right back in.
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Mild to severe disgust.
"Life getting in the way" is absolutely a reason why I haven't been looking at Magic much, but it's not just that. When I look at Magic, most of the time it doesn't spark joy anymore. Not only I'm looking at WotC as a predatory company that wants to milk me dry but also quality-wise I haven't been a fan of their most of their designs lately. It feels like sifting design bulk looking for gems and I don't have time for that anymore, I can barely stand reading new cards.
Another thing that struck me is how Magic's design feels dated at this point. Every set they need to come up with smoothing mechanics to band-aid the rules and avoid variance making MtG a glorified rock-paper-scissors. This was made very evident to me when I saw simple custom rules (very permissive manabase and custom cycling rules) greatly improving the Smooth Twin Cube. This, with playing a lot of Spire at the same time, made a stark contrast that showed how Magic is kind of bad game design at this point. Playing OG Jumpstart was another big hit to my view of the game, it was just a really bad board game compared to other board games.
In 2022 I've also watched a lot more cube played than actually played it (CubeCon, Lucky Paper Radio's youtube, MTGO Cubes) and cringed at most cube gameplay :/ Too much complexity, not enough agency, somehow. I really think most cube designers optimize too much for a fun draft at the expense of gameplay, and that's why a lot of people just want to draft and don't care about playing out the games. The most enjoyable gameplay I've watched on average in 2022 has been uh... Pauper by @Kirblinx ?
Btw I don't mean it as a slight to Lucky Paper, I love the podcast, I just didn't like the gameplay of the cubes I watched (Breya, Bun Magic, Irregular).
That said, I'm excited to improve 2-player limited formats because that's where I see a lot of room to make Magic a better game tweaking rules and using different draft formats. I also think there is a ton of room to make cubes more fun to play in general, designing more the experience of playing out a game rather than what archetypes or cards will be in there.
"Life getting in the way" is absolutely a reason why I haven't been looking at Magic much, but it's not just that. When I look at Magic, most of the time it doesn't spark joy anymore. Not only I'm looking at WotC as a predatory company that wants to milk me dry but also quality-wise I haven't been a fan of their most of their designs lately. It feels like sifting design bulk looking for gems and I don't have time for that anymore, I can barely stand reading new cards.
Another thing that struck me is how Magic's design feels dated at this point. Every set they need to come up with smoothing mechanics to band-aid the rules and avoid variance making MtG a glorified rock-paper-scissors. This was made very evident to me when I saw simple custom rules (very permissive manabase and custom cycling rules) greatly improving the Smooth Twin Cube. This, with playing a lot of Spire at the same time, made a stark contrast that showed how Magic is kind of bad game design at this point. Playing OG Jumpstart was another big hit to my view of the game, it was just a really bad board game compared to other board games.
In 2022 I've also watched a lot more cube played than actually played it (CubeCon, Lucky Paper Radio's youtube, MTGO Cubes) and cringed at most cube gameplay :/ Too much complexity, not enough agency, somehow. I really think most cube designers optimize too much for a fun draft at the expense of gameplay, and that's why a lot of people just want to draft and don't care about playing out the games. The most enjoyable gameplay I've watched on average in 2022 has been uh... Pauper by @Kirblinx ?
Btw I don't mean it as a slight to Lucky Paper, I love the podcast, I just didn't like the gameplay of the cubes I watched (Breya, Bun Magic, Irregular).
That said, I'm excited to improve 2-player limited formats because that's where I see a lot of room to make Magic a better game tweaking rules and using different draft formats. I also think there is a ton of room to make cubes more fun to play in general, designing more the experience of playing out a game rather than what archetypes or cards will be in there.
For me, definitely both "never loved it more" and "mild to severe disgust" at the same time. I've been having a lot of fun playing Magic and have actually played my cube this past year. EDH is still a mediocre format at best, but magic is magic.
New designs are kind of gross though, and WotC as a company is burning a lot of goodwill. I'll still buy cheap cards, but anything over $5 (heck, most things over $1) are getting proxied.
New designs are kind of gross though, and WotC as a company is burning a lot of goodwill. I'll still buy cheap cards, but anything over $5 (heck, most things over $1) are getting proxied.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Besides being angry at WotC/Hasbro over the leaked OGL and follow-up lies* , New Phyrexia, or whatever it is called, does not interest me in the slightest. I don't enjoy Phyrexians, I don't enjoy the poison mechanic, I don't enjoy the needlessly wordy designs... The only Mirrodin set I ever liked (and even loved) was Fifth Dawn, because sunburst and Bringers are my jam! That said, last year had a few nice sets for my cube, and NEO was just glorious all around, so... Who knows if I'll like what comes after?
*"It was just a draft", really?! Do you always send your drafts with contracts for those drafts?
*"It was just a draft", really?! Do you always send your drafts with contracts for those drafts?
I'm going to go with pretty enamored, but not at my peak.
I think it's very hard to really love Magic unless you're able to actively engage with the game on a regular basis, and I just haven't been able to since before the Pandemic. I'm finishing up my senior year of College, and I'm going to be starting dental school at some point within the next 18 months. I can't consistently make it to every prerelease or launch event anymore, and I don't have time to go to FNM drafts or organize Cube events. I've been able to have fun playing with my battle boxes, but that's not really the same as fully immersing oneself in the Magic ecosystem. Engaging with most of the online community hasn't really helped either since most spaces are full of people with no idea what they're talking about complaining about some combination of Universes Beyond, Power Creep, Too Many Products, or Price. Most of the valid criticisms of recent Magic, in my opinion, are being overshadowed by people talking about how Bootlegger's Stash is overpowered and how power creep is forcing them to quitting magic forever. Seriously, if I see someone post a picture of the card Greed again after some deranged take, I'm going to start throwing up gold. Thankfully that issue hasn't been too prevalent on Riptide (most people seem to have criticisms falling in the "valid" camp), but it has infected other parts of the Cube space. Just generally, it has been harder to find good-faith discussions about Magic that don't devolve into conversations that have nothing to do with actually playing the game.
When I think back to the two periods I loved Magic the most, the Theros-Khans era and the Guilds of Ravnica-Theros: Beyond Death era, I remember not only was I able to play a ton of Magic, but the new sets being released were generally very good, constructed was fun, and there was a lot of hype about the game. But ever since Ikoria, I think the average set has been worse than the Guilds of Ravnica-Theros: Beyond Death era. Modern Horizons 2 and Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty were both great, but otherwise, I think most sets are feeling a little less coherent or too niche to be completely engaging. I'm having fun seeing the All Will Be One cards that are being previewed, but realistically I won't be playing with most of them... ever. I might, might be able to go to prerelease, and there will probably be a couple of cute cards I can put into my Cube. But as a whole, I'm probably not going to actually use most of the set because they don't fit my design goals. This was a problem with Brother's War, New Capenna, Strixhaven, Kaldheim, and the Innistrad sets as well. I like that WOTC is pushing complexity a bit and making bolder design choices than they were in the pre-GRN era.
I think the time period between Battle for Zendikar and Ixalan block was the single worst time to be a Magic player who cared about anything other than limited. None of the new cards had legs in eternal formats. A lack of high-volume reprints made competitive Modern and Legacy impossible to start playing. WOTC's refusal to print good answers lead to cards like Rampaging Ferocidon and Attune with Aether needing to be banned in Standard. On what planet is that healthy for the game? On ours it certainly wasn't. I think this period sucking led to the death of Standard and the decline in 60-card eternal format popularity that we're seeing today. The only two things that didn't suck between BFZ and Ixalan were the new commander releases and the limited environments. Unironically, I think if WOTC had managed reprints better during this time period, there's a good chance Magic would not be Commander: The Gathering like it is today. Commander was always going to become popular, but I think it still would have had a fairly niche audience if it wasn't the easiest way to start playing the game for 4 years.
The world of Magic we're experiencing today is a direct result of the missteps of the 5 years leading into Guilds of Ravnica. Underpowered sets and a lack of reprints hurt eternal Magic's accessibility, but several consecutive years of bad Standard formats drove people into eternal play. Unfortunately, the lack of access to cards for formats like Modern forced most new players into Commander, which has fundamentally different needs from the rest of the game. As a result, when WOTC realized their error and started powering up Magic again, they were essentially catering to multiple groups of players whose needs did not align with that of Standard. Commander especially had needs that were not conducive to lower power 60-card formats. It is possible that Standard maybe could have recovered if it wasn't for the elkpocalypese and the Underworld Breach. People did seem to enjoy Guild's standard pre-Oko. If that were the case, we may have never seen sets like Kaldheim or Streets of New Capenna, which were derailed to appeal to the Commander crowd.
Additionally, if WOTC had been better at managing reprints, we may have a larger Modern scene to enjoy, and possibly we may have never even seen the Modern Horizons sets. As much as I love Modern Horizons 1 and 2, they seem to only exist as a means to inject new life into what was, at the time, a declining format. Thanks to recent reprintings, a lot of important Modern cards are much less expensive than they used to be, and I think this would have saved Modern if it had happened 8 years earlier. Modern Horizons 2 reprinting the fetchlands in an unlimited print set coupled with cards being added to the list has made many staples super accessible for the first time in over a decade. While this is mostly speculation on my part, I think the conclusion is still largely correct.
To sum it up:
–I think Magic is still very fun and I'm enjoying most new sets.
–I can't play magic as much as I used to and I think that is hindering my enjoyment of the game.
–Additionally, I think few new sets are able to live up to my favorites.
–I can't 100% pinpoint why this is happening, but I think it's mostly down to shifting design goals.
–I think most of the non-Riptide online Magic community is insufferable these days.
–If WOTC had been better stewards of their game in the past, none of the bad things about it right now would be happening.
–Screw you, Battle For Zendikar.
I think it's very hard to really love Magic unless you're able to actively engage with the game on a regular basis, and I just haven't been able to since before the Pandemic. I'm finishing up my senior year of College, and I'm going to be starting dental school at some point within the next 18 months. I can't consistently make it to every prerelease or launch event anymore, and I don't have time to go to FNM drafts or organize Cube events. I've been able to have fun playing with my battle boxes, but that's not really the same as fully immersing oneself in the Magic ecosystem. Engaging with most of the online community hasn't really helped either since most spaces are full of people with no idea what they're talking about complaining about some combination of Universes Beyond, Power Creep, Too Many Products, or Price. Most of the valid criticisms of recent Magic, in my opinion, are being overshadowed by people talking about how Bootlegger's Stash is overpowered and how power creep is forcing them to quitting magic forever. Seriously, if I see someone post a picture of the card Greed again after some deranged take, I'm going to start throwing up gold. Thankfully that issue hasn't been too prevalent on Riptide (most people seem to have criticisms falling in the "valid" camp), but it has infected other parts of the Cube space. Just generally, it has been harder to find good-faith discussions about Magic that don't devolve into conversations that have nothing to do with actually playing the game.
When I think back to the two periods I loved Magic the most, the Theros-Khans era and the Guilds of Ravnica-Theros: Beyond Death era, I remember not only was I able to play a ton of Magic, but the new sets being released were generally very good, constructed was fun, and there was a lot of hype about the game. But ever since Ikoria, I think the average set has been worse than the Guilds of Ravnica-Theros: Beyond Death era. Modern Horizons 2 and Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty were both great, but otherwise, I think most sets are feeling a little less coherent or too niche to be completely engaging. I'm having fun seeing the All Will Be One cards that are being previewed, but realistically I won't be playing with most of them... ever. I might, might be able to go to prerelease, and there will probably be a couple of cute cards I can put into my Cube. But as a whole, I'm probably not going to actually use most of the set because they don't fit my design goals. This was a problem with Brother's War, New Capenna, Strixhaven, Kaldheim, and the Innistrad sets as well. I like that WOTC is pushing complexity a bit and making bolder design choices than they were in the pre-GRN era.
I think the time period between Battle for Zendikar and Ixalan block was the single worst time to be a Magic player who cared about anything other than limited. None of the new cards had legs in eternal formats. A lack of high-volume reprints made competitive Modern and Legacy impossible to start playing. WOTC's refusal to print good answers lead to cards like Rampaging Ferocidon and Attune with Aether needing to be banned in Standard. On what planet is that healthy for the game? On ours it certainly wasn't. I think this period sucking led to the death of Standard and the decline in 60-card eternal format popularity that we're seeing today. The only two things that didn't suck between BFZ and Ixalan were the new commander releases and the limited environments. Unironically, I think if WOTC had managed reprints better during this time period, there's a good chance Magic would not be Commander: The Gathering like it is today. Commander was always going to become popular, but I think it still would have had a fairly niche audience if it wasn't the easiest way to start playing the game for 4 years.
The world of Magic we're experiencing today is a direct result of the missteps of the 5 years leading into Guilds of Ravnica. Underpowered sets and a lack of reprints hurt eternal Magic's accessibility, but several consecutive years of bad Standard formats drove people into eternal play. Unfortunately, the lack of access to cards for formats like Modern forced most new players into Commander, which has fundamentally different needs from the rest of the game. As a result, when WOTC realized their error and started powering up Magic again, they were essentially catering to multiple groups of players whose needs did not align with that of Standard. Commander especially had needs that were not conducive to lower power 60-card formats. It is possible that Standard maybe could have recovered if it wasn't for the elkpocalypese and the Underworld Breach. People did seem to enjoy Guild's standard pre-Oko. If that were the case, we may have never seen sets like Kaldheim or Streets of New Capenna, which were derailed to appeal to the Commander crowd.
Additionally, if WOTC had been better at managing reprints, we may have a larger Modern scene to enjoy, and possibly we may have never even seen the Modern Horizons sets. As much as I love Modern Horizons 1 and 2, they seem to only exist as a means to inject new life into what was, at the time, a declining format. Thanks to recent reprintings, a lot of important Modern cards are much less expensive than they used to be, and I think this would have saved Modern if it had happened 8 years earlier. Modern Horizons 2 reprinting the fetchlands in an unlimited print set coupled with cards being added to the list has made many staples super accessible for the first time in over a decade. While this is mostly speculation on my part, I think the conclusion is still largely correct.
To sum it up:
–I think Magic is still very fun and I'm enjoying most new sets.
–I can't play magic as much as I used to and I think that is hindering my enjoyment of the game.
–Additionally, I think few new sets are able to live up to my favorites.
–I can't 100% pinpoint why this is happening, but I think it's mostly down to shifting design goals.
–I think most of the non-Riptide online Magic community is insufferable these days.
–If WOTC had been better stewards of their game in the past, none of the bad things about it right now would be happening.
–Screw you, Battle For Zendikar.
I sold my entire Magic collection last summer (other than a playset of Overwhelmed Archivist, which I kept as a joke), and I've only regretted it once.
(I put myself down as "Waning Moon" because I still fire up Cockatrice semi-frequently and still watch some Magic on the youtubes. It has definitely gotten to the point where I mostly do it out of habit, though.)
(I put myself down as "Waning Moon" because I still fire up Cockatrice semi-frequently and still watch some Magic on the youtubes. It has definitely gotten to the point where I mostly do it out of habit, though.)
Is part of feeling dated not due to the strength of ‘modern’ creatures? The clock is so quick that stumbling on a land drop is most of the times game over.
Compare it to the sets starting from urza block. The game was much more forgiving and one could stumble a turn on a land drop. One has time to answer an opposing problem. I am only talking about draft/preconstructed decks with a few boosters. It certainly does not hold for constricted like combo winter/lin-sobbing/shitstorm.
The difference in that era between draft and constructed is huge.
Variance is what makes the game work for me. That said, mana screw/flood is painful, so some help is nice. But the hearthstone mechanic was not the way to go when I tried it.
Yeah, good point, that is maybe the most important factor of why it feels random. Every threat is a game ender and every turn you need to push tempo as far as you can. Watching the Old Border cube in CubeCon, it felt markedly slower than other cubes and more strategical because you could choose your pace.
landofMordor
Administrator
I put "enamored but not at my peak".
But it'd be more accurate to say "I've never been more skeptical of Magic the Gathering, but never more enamored with Cube."
This year I played a "Secret Santa Chaos Draft," where two pods each chaos drafted and then donated their deck to people from the other pod, winning prizes for their own performance and that of their giftee. It was a merry time, but it starkly illuminated how Magic is in fact a game of skill. The best IRL player I know ("John") went 0-3 because they were gifted an atrocious pile from somebody who just had no clue what they were doing, and John's strong gift deck was piloted to a 0-3 or 1-2 by another unskilled player. I went 3-0, not close, because my Santa was equally skilled and gave me Monarch cards.
This made me realize: The $15 you spend on a draft is partly a goods-for-money exchange (3 packs and table space), but partly a wager that you'll win more than 50% of your matches. And half of Magic players have negative EV when they make that bet!
I have slightly positive EV myself and am a "game mastery Spike" interested in understanding the game engine, so I'd always assumed other players didn't treat the game like gambling, either. But I don't think that's a true assumption, and it sucks the joy out of winning at Magic to know that my prize money is coming from rubes who don't know any better, and my cheap Cube cards are subsidized by people who see booster boxes as lotto tickets. It's just capitalism at a micro-scale. Ugh.
Cube, with no money-drafting, no prize structure, and no requirement to pay-to-win, is amazing because I can opt out of enacting capitalism during my game. Magic itself kinda sucks because there's no non-Cube way to play that doesn't bring those capitalist externalities with it.
TL;DR: Cube is the only thing keeping me in Magic. Designing and playing Cube is sheer joy.
But it'd be more accurate to say "I've never been more skeptical of Magic the Gathering, but never more enamored with Cube."
This year I played a "Secret Santa Chaos Draft," where two pods each chaos drafted and then donated their deck to people from the other pod, winning prizes for their own performance and that of their giftee. It was a merry time, but it starkly illuminated how Magic is in fact a game of skill. The best IRL player I know ("John") went 0-3 because they were gifted an atrocious pile from somebody who just had no clue what they were doing, and John's strong gift deck was piloted to a 0-3 or 1-2 by another unskilled player. I went 3-0, not close, because my Santa was equally skilled and gave me Monarch cards.
This made me realize: The $15 you spend on a draft is partly a goods-for-money exchange (3 packs and table space), but partly a wager that you'll win more than 50% of your matches. And half of Magic players have negative EV when they make that bet!
I have slightly positive EV myself and am a "game mastery Spike" interested in understanding the game engine, so I'd always assumed other players didn't treat the game like gambling, either. But I don't think that's a true assumption, and it sucks the joy out of winning at Magic to know that my prize money is coming from rubes who don't know any better, and my cheap Cube cards are subsidized by people who see booster boxes as lotto tickets. It's just capitalism at a micro-scale. Ugh.
Cube, with no money-drafting, no prize structure, and no requirement to pay-to-win, is amazing because I can opt out of enacting capitalism during my game. Magic itself kinda sucks because there's no non-Cube way to play that doesn't bring those capitalist externalities with it.
TL;DR: Cube is the only thing keeping me in Magic. Designing and playing Cube is sheer joy.
I still enjoy playing Magic, the game itself and social parts of it are as fun as ever, but I'm not anywhere near as interested as I was in the past.
Part of it is due to other hobbies and interests taking precedence over the years, but I'd say the core issue I have with the game is the current leadership behind it at this point. I don't think they fundamentally understand what has given the game staying power with its fanbase for decades, what made it a game that people wanted to engage with for years and years. I don't like the direction they've been heading the last couple of years as I've made pretty clear on these forums and I'm not a fan of companies that shit on their core fanbase and ignore issues with their ecosystem. Why should I go about supporting a game like that when the people behind it seem to abhor their fans for some reason? It's just so bizarre that they've taken so many actions for short term gains in the past few years while ignoring the core tenets that gave their game staying power for nearly 3 decades. It's just not the same game that got me hooked again a decade ago.
What made it stick for me was how there were so many viable ways to approach the game and stay engaged. Let me jump back to 2014 real quick to paint a clearer picture. Standard was the crown jewel with SCG tournaments and GPs every weekend that let you see the game played at a high level and articles and analysis for the weeks in between. The Pro Tour would happen every couple of months where you got to see the best of the best go at it and try out cool new decks that you might be able to run at the next Game Day or FNM, cards would shoot up and down in value based on new tech so you could engage with trades and whatnot to help build out your paper collection. Modern was beginning to take off and represented a jumping off point for players from Standard into some more long term where you could "invest" in building out your collection without fear of rotation or having to spend a bunch of money to keep up every year. Legacy represented a mostly static metagame, but something that was aspirational as the next step beyond Modern if you REALLY wanted to go all in on a deck long term. In between lending out cards to build up Standard decks the majority of my play group (8-10 deep) would pretty much just draft every week either on campus or at the LGS on Fridays if they weren't playing Standard. In the meantime you had Commander starting to take off as a format with a product release every other year, you had interested sets ala Battlebond and Conspiracy coming out during the summers to shake things up, and you had a very set schedule of releases which made every spoiler season feel engaging and worthy of paying attention to.
Cube became an appealing format to me Summer 2014 and I came back to school the following Fall with the first draft of my environment and was able to host many cube drafts over the following school year with friends at the Magic club. It was a blast. This was pretty much the pinnacle of Magic to me; it was a hobby that gave you countless different ways to engage with it and a variety of formats that appealed to everyone. If you were feeling tired of Standard then playing Limited was a viable alternative. If you didn't want to engage with something competitive in a 1v1 setting you could sling some games of EDH amongst friends. You could focus on building out a Modern deck to eventually bring to a different FNM event down the road. So many possibilities. But that doesn't really seem to be the case anymore with how the game has been homogenized. Everything just kind of blends together which has also killed off the tertiary ecosystem of LGS's and SCG Tour and other formats in general. I think Magic is at its best when it is a multi-faceted game that offers various ways to approach it, which is what we get in Cube, but it seems like they've lost sight of that over the years in the name of chasing profits and bleeding their customers dry. It's very predatory and quite gross, even worse when they're constantly spinning everything as though it's a positive and expecting people to haplessly buy in. Just an ugly look.
Cube is in a strange place where you can basically exist within a bubble separate from all the WoTC bullshit and choose when and how you interact with the game, but to me it was only just one part of the greater Magic ecosystem. That ecosystem doesn't really exist anymore with more limited ways to approach the game and I mostly just engage with the game tinkering with my cube getting in a few drafts during the year or mostly playing EDH with friends. I've actually been selling off a lot of cards that I had accumulated over the years this year and it's felt good being able to turn that into stuff for other hobbies and interests. I'm pretty content with just keeping the bare minimum I need to maintain my EDH deck(s), Cube, and maybe keep a draft set of basics available and ready to go.
Magic the game is still a fun experience when I actually get to play it with friends or a fun opponent, but it isn't a big part of my life like it once was. I'll go through stretches of posting here and getting re-engaged for short stints, but I think I'd rather be spending my time on any of my other hobbies that aren't stale and becoming a shell of themselves.
Part of it is due to other hobbies and interests taking precedence over the years, but I'd say the core issue I have with the game is the current leadership behind it at this point. I don't think they fundamentally understand what has given the game staying power with its fanbase for decades, what made it a game that people wanted to engage with for years and years. I don't like the direction they've been heading the last couple of years as I've made pretty clear on these forums and I'm not a fan of companies that shit on their core fanbase and ignore issues with their ecosystem. Why should I go about supporting a game like that when the people behind it seem to abhor their fans for some reason? It's just so bizarre that they've taken so many actions for short term gains in the past few years while ignoring the core tenets that gave their game staying power for nearly 3 decades. It's just not the same game that got me hooked again a decade ago.
What made it stick for me was how there were so many viable ways to approach the game and stay engaged. Let me jump back to 2014 real quick to paint a clearer picture. Standard was the crown jewel with SCG tournaments and GPs every weekend that let you see the game played at a high level and articles and analysis for the weeks in between. The Pro Tour would happen every couple of months where you got to see the best of the best go at it and try out cool new decks that you might be able to run at the next Game Day or FNM, cards would shoot up and down in value based on new tech so you could engage with trades and whatnot to help build out your paper collection. Modern was beginning to take off and represented a jumping off point for players from Standard into some more long term where you could "invest" in building out your collection without fear of rotation or having to spend a bunch of money to keep up every year. Legacy represented a mostly static metagame, but something that was aspirational as the next step beyond Modern if you REALLY wanted to go all in on a deck long term. In between lending out cards to build up Standard decks the majority of my play group (8-10 deep) would pretty much just draft every week either on campus or at the LGS on Fridays if they weren't playing Standard. In the meantime you had Commander starting to take off as a format with a product release every other year, you had interested sets ala Battlebond and Conspiracy coming out during the summers to shake things up, and you had a very set schedule of releases which made every spoiler season feel engaging and worthy of paying attention to.
Cube became an appealing format to me Summer 2014 and I came back to school the following Fall with the first draft of my environment and was able to host many cube drafts over the following school year with friends at the Magic club. It was a blast. This was pretty much the pinnacle of Magic to me; it was a hobby that gave you countless different ways to engage with it and a variety of formats that appealed to everyone. If you were feeling tired of Standard then playing Limited was a viable alternative. If you didn't want to engage with something competitive in a 1v1 setting you could sling some games of EDH amongst friends. You could focus on building out a Modern deck to eventually bring to a different FNM event down the road. So many possibilities. But that doesn't really seem to be the case anymore with how the game has been homogenized. Everything just kind of blends together which has also killed off the tertiary ecosystem of LGS's and SCG Tour and other formats in general. I think Magic is at its best when it is a multi-faceted game that offers various ways to approach it, which is what we get in Cube, but it seems like they've lost sight of that over the years in the name of chasing profits and bleeding their customers dry. It's very predatory and quite gross, even worse when they're constantly spinning everything as though it's a positive and expecting people to haplessly buy in. Just an ugly look.
Cube is in a strange place where you can basically exist within a bubble separate from all the WoTC bullshit and choose when and how you interact with the game, but to me it was only just one part of the greater Magic ecosystem. That ecosystem doesn't really exist anymore with more limited ways to approach the game and I mostly just engage with the game tinkering with my cube getting in a few drafts during the year or mostly playing EDH with friends. I've actually been selling off a lot of cards that I had accumulated over the years this year and it's felt good being able to turn that into stuff for other hobbies and interests. I'm pretty content with just keeping the bare minimum I need to maintain my EDH deck(s), Cube, and maybe keep a draft set of basics available and ready to go.
Magic the game is still a fun experience when I actually get to play it with friends or a fun opponent, but it isn't a big part of my life like it once was. I'll go through stretches of posting here and getting re-engaged for short stints, but I think I'd rather be spending my time on any of my other hobbies that aren't stale and becoming a shell of themselves.
I had a long-ish response to Rusje suggesting an alternate reason for this, but I fumble-fingered and accidentally reloaded the page.
Trying to rebuild it... I think one of the major reasons why Modern magic design feels so off is that the game used to have a fundamentally different flow to it, which the current game is kinda clumsily built on top of. Basically, the game was built around the following:
- You naturally draw one card each turn, but play one or more cards each turn (land + spells).
- You have to run far more lands in your deck than you ever actually want to see in play.
- Cards that improve your hand generally don't improve your board, and vice-versa.
These combine to give the game a natural flow — you start off with a hand full of resources that you use to build the board, and then once you start topdecking lands are initially useful (because you'll occasionally draw a curve-topper that you can't play yet) but quickly turn into blank cardboard, which effectively signals the end of the game (since variance is going to screw one player more than the other, letting one person close out the game relatively quickly). Games usually don't spend much time in the "lands are useless" stage, however, so it doesn't feel that bad.
The problem with this structure is that topdecks aren't flashy — you essentially just reach a point of the game where you're testing out the board states you built earlier to see who did a better job, with the chance of flipping over a clutch spell that can swing things. So FIRE design came in and decided to try to keep games in the "exciting" part of the game (aka the "everyone has resources to spare and gets to do multiple things a turn" part) for as long as possible.
On the surface? This is a good change — everyone likes exciting games, right? The problem is that lands are still a thing, and that lands still turn into blank cardboard. The end result is that the game gets faster and swingier, even before you start factoring in the increased power level of creatures. And that's before you get into how certain mechanics basically depend on the original game flow to work — Scrying is a big example, since it gets stronger as the game goes on.
I'm part of the Waning Moon.
Magic has also been a part of my life for way too long. It is also pretty much the only hobby I have, along with just other generic video games. My LGS is flailing due to not retaining players, and the GP circuit has destroyed any competitive in Australia. The only paper play I do these days is release drafts and Pioneer if it is on (even then we can only hit around 4 players most of the time), mainly just keep going so it doesn't die. The logic is if I stop going then everyone will give up hope and no one else will go either.
I've pretty much transitioned to MTGO entirely, but even then the desire to play isn't that great. I play the Pauper Challenge every Saturday, mainly because I feel obligated to help gather the data to help the rest of the Pauper community that I feel indebt to because of being a once champion of the format. The people I have met from the Pauper community have been great, and I feel are what pretty much keeps me in the format. The discourse on how the format is managed can be a bit much, but I've been decently happy with how the format has been for the past couple of years (slow bannings on initiative aside). I don't usually play too much outside of the Challenge, only just to record a video since people seem interested in what decks I have to show (glad you are enjoying @japahn ). The Youtube stuff is cool, because it is just like it's own game of stats where you are just trying to make numbers go up. I don't know how people make a living out of this though, I struggle to pump out a video every 2 weeks and even then most have minimal effort put into them.
Cube I haven't touched in ages. I only drafted the MTGO vintage cube once because I had a free token to do so. It all just feels very same-y. I have been enjoying Sealed events of each set as they have come out. BRO and NEO were great sets and I am happy that the forced output of products hasn't declined the limited environments. If anything they feel like the only thing that has improved over the last year. I haven't been posting here as I have had nothing to contribute, but I still read the forum at least 3 times a week because I like the people here and want to keep up what the populous is thinking.
It's the sunk-cost fallacy all over again, but with time instead of money. I've put so much of my life into all sorts of facets of this game (LGS, Pauper, Riptide) that I feel like I can't let it go even if I don't like it anymore, because if I do... What will I have left?
Magic has also been a part of my life for way too long. It is also pretty much the only hobby I have, along with just other generic video games. My LGS is flailing due to not retaining players, and the GP circuit has destroyed any competitive in Australia. The only paper play I do these days is release drafts and Pioneer if it is on (even then we can only hit around 4 players most of the time), mainly just keep going so it doesn't die. The logic is if I stop going then everyone will give up hope and no one else will go either.
I've pretty much transitioned to MTGO entirely, but even then the desire to play isn't that great. I play the Pauper Challenge every Saturday, mainly because I feel obligated to help gather the data to help the rest of the Pauper community that I feel indebt to because of being a once champion of the format. The people I have met from the Pauper community have been great, and I feel are what pretty much keeps me in the format. The discourse on how the format is managed can be a bit much, but I've been decently happy with how the format has been for the past couple of years (slow bannings on initiative aside). I don't usually play too much outside of the Challenge, only just to record a video since people seem interested in what decks I have to show (glad you are enjoying @japahn ). The Youtube stuff is cool, because it is just like it's own game of stats where you are just trying to make numbers go up. I don't know how people make a living out of this though, I struggle to pump out a video every 2 weeks and even then most have minimal effort put into them.
Cube I haven't touched in ages. I only drafted the MTGO vintage cube once because I had a free token to do so. It all just feels very same-y. I have been enjoying Sealed events of each set as they have come out. BRO and NEO were great sets and I am happy that the forced output of products hasn't declined the limited environments. If anything they feel like the only thing that has improved over the last year. I haven't been posting here as I have had nothing to contribute, but I still read the forum at least 3 times a week because I like the people here and want to keep up what the populous is thinking.
It's the sunk-cost fallacy all over again, but with time instead of money. I've put so much of my life into all sorts of facets of this game (LGS, Pauper, Riptide) that I feel like I can't let it go even if I don't like it anymore, because if I do... What will I have left?
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That's why my golden formula is good card draw and smoothing with humble, old school creature stats. So games don't turn into decision low non-games but you don't get punished for stumbling as hard either!I had a long-ish response to Rusje suggesting an alternate reason for this, but I fumble-fingered and accidentally reloaded the page.
Trying to rebuild it... I think one of the major reasons why Modern magic design feels so off is that the game used to have a fundamentally different flow to it, which the current game is kinda clumsily built on top of. Basically, the game was built around the following:
- You naturally draw one card each turn, but play one or more cards each turn (land + spells).
- You have to run far more lands in your deck than you ever actually want to see in play.
- Cards that improve your hand generally don't improve your board, and vice-versa.
These combine to give the game a natural flow — you start off with a hand full of resources that you use to build the board, and then once you start topdecking lands are initially useful (because you'll occasionally draw a curve-topper that you can't play yet) but quickly turn into blank cardboard, which effectively signals the end of the game (since variance is going to screw one player more than the other, letting one person close out the game relatively quickly). Games usually don't spend much time in the "lands are useless" stage, however, so it doesn't feel that bad.
The problem with this structure is that topdecks aren't flashy — you essentially just reach a point of the game where you're testing out the board states you built earlier to see who did a better job, with the chance of flipping over a clutch spell that can swing things. So FIRE design came in and decided to try to keep games in the "exciting" part of the game (aka the "everyone has resources to spare and gets to do multiple things a turn" part) for as long as possible.
On the surface? This is a good change — everyone likes exciting games, right? The problem is that lands are still a thing, and that lands still turn into blank cardboard. The end result is that the game gets faster and swingier, even before you start factoring in the increased power level of creatures. And that's before you get into how certain mechanics basically depend on the original game flow to work — Scrying is a big example, since it gets stronger as the game goes on.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Oh god, this is too relatable
(Also, I do care about RipLab, which does help keep some semblance of interest in MtG alive )
Well, I still remember the time in a two vs two I had to topdeckI had a long-ish response to Rusje suggesting an alternate reason for this, but I fumble-fingered and accidentally reloaded the page.
Trying to rebuild it... I think one of the major reasons why Modern magic design feels so off is that the game used to have a fundamentally different flow to it, which the current game is kinda clumsily built on top of. Basically, the game was built around the following:
- You naturally draw one card each turn, but play one or more cards each turn (land + spells).
- You have to run far more lands in your deck than you ever actually want to see in play.
- Cards that improve your hand generally don't improve your board, and vice-versa.
These combine to give the game a natural flow — you start off with a hand full of resources that you use to build the board, and then once you start topdecking lands are initially useful (because you'll occasionally draw a curve-topper that you can't play yet) but quickly turn into blank cardboard, which effectively signals the end of the game (since variance is going to screw one player more than the other, letting one person close out the game relatively quickly). Games usually don't spend much time in the "lands are useless" stage, however, so it doesn't feel that bad.
The problem with this structure is that topdecks aren't flashy — you essentially just reach a point of the game where you're testing out the board states you built earlier to see who did a better job, with the chance of flipping over a clutch spell that can swing things. So FIRE design came in and decided to try to keep games in the "exciting" part of the game (aka the "everyone has resources to spare and gets to do multiple things a turn" part) for as long as possible.
On the surface? This is a good change — everyone likes exciting games, right? The problem is that lands are still a thing, and that lands still turn into blank cardboard. The end result is that the game gets faster and swingier, even before you start factoring in the increased power level of creatures. And that's before you get into how certain mechanics basically depend on the original game flow to work — Scrying is a big example, since it gets stronger as the game goes on.
my brother is still angry with me
Wowzers, this seems to be a very good idea.
Edit: maybe I will try to have everyone scry 1 at the beginning of their draw phase
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I'm fading for sure over here but its complicated..
I feel like the game has just morphed into this big concerted effort to cash in on every single thing that made this game actually feel like "self-expression". Card Alters. Hunting down foil playsets of special promo cards. Full-Art Lands. Commander. They have decided to commoditize all of these things and the game just feels like a complete fucking disaster as a result in design & execution. We have 10x versions of every card now. Everything is designed for Commander, first, and any other format, second. You really can't keep track of anything anymore. Yes, maybe this is how Magic felt at the beginning of the game (inability to know/keep up with it all) but I just absolutely hate it and I suspect many others do.
Then again, if I'm being honest, when I look back on Magic's golden years (I started in 2000 but got heavily into collecting all the sets prior..)= I also have to admit that Magic, as a game/system/whatever, was completely ad hoc, disorganized, largely experimental, and random (and slow drip-drip schedule). But, you also had time to absorb everything. Underdeveloped. It's a lot more developed now--far TOO developed--careful what you wish for.
I'm a lot less keen to introduce brand new players to the game than I used to be. That's certainly a change from only a few years ago.
I feel like the game has just morphed into this big concerted effort to cash in on every single thing that made this game actually feel like "self-expression". Card Alters. Hunting down foil playsets of special promo cards. Full-Art Lands. Commander. They have decided to commoditize all of these things and the game just feels like a complete fucking disaster as a result in design & execution. We have 10x versions of every card now. Everything is designed for Commander, first, and any other format, second. You really can't keep track of anything anymore. Yes, maybe this is how Magic felt at the beginning of the game (inability to know/keep up with it all) but I just absolutely hate it and I suspect many others do.
Then again, if I'm being honest, when I look back on Magic's golden years (I started in 2000 but got heavily into collecting all the sets prior..)= I also have to admit that Magic, as a game/system/whatever, was completely ad hoc, disorganized, largely experimental, and random (and slow drip-drip schedule). But, you also had time to absorb everything. Underdeveloped. It's a lot more developed now--far TOO developed--careful what you wish for.
I'm a lot less keen to introduce brand new players to the game than I used to be. That's certainly a change from only a few years ago.
I don't think you need to do stuff like this. All I do is allow a friendly mulligan house rule (7/7/6/6... instead of 7/6/5...). But much more important is a relatively low mana curve combined with stuff like:
But also stick with threats like:
It's the best of both worlds really.
Considering this, I'm grateful you still engage with new spoilers from time to time; your perspective is amongst my favorites.