General Number of new and reprinted cards per year

Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
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I saw this graph on reddit. This concept has been a recurring theme in my conversations with Dom on the podcasts. I can remember when I started playing Magic, reading articles about how there were too many cards printed per year, and that the average player couldn't possibly keep up with the rate of releases.

This was around 2009/2010. Since then, the rate of new card printings has nearly doubled. Not really concerned about the rate of reprints at all.

I don't want to sound like a 'back in my day' boomer, but even as somebody who is pretty heavily invested (at least time-wise) in Magic, I'm finding it a little overwhelming. It's probably visible that by the end of Part 2 of our MH2 review I was just kind of... running out of mental bandwidth to talk about new cards. Part of that's on me for scheduling two recordings in 5 days (sorry Dom). I know plenty of people are in the 'more the merrier' crowd, and certainly the number of eyeballs on the forums increase during spoiler season. How do you guys feel about it?
 
Brad

Brad

If anything, I'm disappointed that the percentage of printed cards that are reprints is so high.

I appreciate the new cards, but I like things to think about.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Brad said:
If anything, I'm disappointed that the percentage of printed cards that are reprints is so high.

I appreciate the new cards, but I like things to think about.
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I think that's mostly due to the commander decks and the secret lairs, which have a very high percentage of reprints?
 
sigh

sigh

I've definitely noticed the increase qualitatively. While I feel it's virtually inevitable as they work to maximize the number of products leaving the shelves, I do still find it frustrating. We basically meld from one spoiler season into the next with little to no break.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I don't mind it too much. That said, it doesn't help that the floor has gone up. Not only are they printing more good cards, a larger portion of the new cards could conceivably see play somewhere.
 
landofMordor

landofMordor

Administrator
Onderzeeboot said:
I don't mind it too much. That said, it doesn't help that the floor has gone up. Not only are they printing more good cards, a larger portion of the new cards could conceivably see play somewhere.
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That's the truth. Like, it's rough to test 10-15 cards from each Standard-legal set, 30 from supplemental sets, and keep an eye out for the 1,000,000 commander decks for secret all-stars like Laelia, the blade reforged or whatever.

And for lower-power cubes, the options are even wider because a reasonable card (like that new RW Modular cat, e.g.) isn't automatically excluded on the "does this stack up well to Oko and Uro" test. When I look at my peasant-ish cube, its MH2 testing lists are twice as big even though I heavily restrict the themes and mechanics that enter that environment. One big benefit to pursuing high power in my main list is that I get to decrease my cognitive load.
 
Seeker

Seeker

That only counts tournament-legal reprints, right? Because 02/04 were old enough they still had World Championship decks, and Collector's Edition is also clearly not present at the start...
 
inscho

inscho

Jason Waddell said:
I don't want to sound like a 'back in my day' boomer, but even as somebody who is pretty heavily invested (at least time-wise) in Magic, I'm finding it a little overwhelming. It's probably visible that by the end of Part 2 of our MH2 review I was just kind of... running out of mental bandwidth to talk about new cards. Part of that's on me for scheduling two recordings in 5 days (sorry Dom). I know plenty of people are in the 'more the merrier' crowd, and certainly the number of eyeballs on the forums increase during spoiler season. How do you guys feel about it?
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100%. I obviously love the new toys, and having design holes filled in my cube, but it's a lot. I don't feel like I get any time to settle into a list before a new host of amazing cards drop, and then I have to spend two+ weeks shuffling things around to see what and how things fit. It's a lot of stimuli. I'm feeling it especially right now, because my wife has been out of town for two weeks so I have had some extra time on my hands....which has perfectly coincided with MH2 spoiling. My head is hot from thinking about all of this stuff
 
japahn

japahn

I've had to start minding the stability of my list a lot more so that it doesn't change 10% from draft to draft. I'll now err on the side of minimizing cards that enter and leave the list instead of minimizing the number of cards that I "miss".

Overall it's nice to have a bigger pool of cards and make more strategies viable (Scorching Rootwalla, I've been waiting for you since 2001!) but to me it takes away some of new card appeal because new designs aren't scarce anymore, but abundant; the scarce resource is my capacity to evaluate and playtest them.

The number of reprints is high, but isn't that just an artifact of "The List" plus commander decks, event decks, etc? That seems relevant for r/mtgfinance (value of cards might go down) but quite ok for me (I don't mind much losing value on my collection, not like I sell anything anyway).
 
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MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

I'm personally a fan of the higher quantity of cards being produced each year, especially in the current draft world where sets follow a stricter framework. It means that new cards are less likely to be substantively different from one set to the next below Rare, and Development misses on power level aside mucking up some formats, I like all the opportunities for fun niches to be explored (and thus, give us power-level appropriate Cube cards for all sorts of themes).
 
shamizy

shamizy

It's a lot to process honestly. We're pretty much in a perpetual spoiler season and if you don't have the means to regularly test your cube with a playgroup, you can go multiple sets of swaps without actually seeing any real results. It's fun to tinker around with stuff, but it can get exhausting if you're someone that likes to stay up to date with current offerings. Luckily for me I only really actively engage with Cube and EDH and dabble in Modern every once in a while. Don't really have the time or means to draft like I used to and I don't play digital Magic so there's not a whole lot to keep up with.

Still, the rate at which they're deploying cards and trying out new mechanics and card technology with DFCs and the like has been a goddamn whirlwind the last two years. I still feel like Theros Beyond Death stuff is pretty fresh and new in terms of actual reps I've had with them and we've had like a half dozen sets since then. It's crazy.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Honestly, I think it's weird to complain about this for cubers particularly. If we don't manage to keep up because we've had a lack of motivation or time, it's not like our cubes will be any less good. I think my cube is great right now, and it would stay so even if I never check the cards from AFR or the two Innistrad sets coming.

No one forces us to follow spoilers and buy new cards. Players of with somewhat competitive constructed ambitions in any format are kinda forced, but we as cube managers aren't.

Heck, I have a cube that only uses cards from 2005/2006, it will never get new cards and it's still something I'd proudly bring anywhere for friends or strangers to draft.
 
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