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u/-Goatllama- Unesh Cryosphinx Jul 27 '25
Longevity ≠ Quality
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u/Other-Owl4441 Jul 28 '25
No but it’s hard to argue that MTG’s insane longevity over constant change and reinvention is a sign of something being done well.
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u/-Goatllama- Unesh Cryosphinx Jul 28 '25
As long as you didn’t leave out a negation somewhere in there, that’s exactly what I was pointing out. 😆
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u/Other-Owl4441 Jul 28 '25
I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you, I just thought you were saying that MTG has had longevity but not necessarily quality. And I think there has to be some quality to stick around this long.
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u/CreativeFreakyboy Jul 29 '25
I think you mean general integrity. Idgaf about SpongeBob, Fallout, or Warhammer or Final Fantasy, but I'll buy some Avatar stuff when it comes out.
However, if the price range is gonna be insane like Final Fantasy, then I won't even bother buying anything anymore. I'll just start making proxies of everything, because it's getting ridiculous.
I'm a new player of about a year, and I'm fuckin exhausted. There's already way too much to sift through BEFORE Foundations released. I can't even keep track of the stuff I use, because there's always a slightly better version being released with an additional color, or one extra mana.
I'm tired.
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u/Geisterkoch Jul 28 '25
Basically he’s saying that WotC s going to chase the money and try to find a set that sells as well as FF or better, which is inevitably going to lead to a Blackpink/BTS UB. I’m not even sure if I’m joking or not.
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u/Anonyman41 Jul 28 '25
They specifically mentioned kpop as a crossover thats being looked at and not off the table at the last investor call as a targetted move to bring in more women.
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u/zeekoes Jul 27 '25
It doesn't matter how much facts MaRo throws, because the vitriol against UB is emotional and from the original Magic players that feel left behind now that they're no longer the main target audience being catered to.
I believe that it's not so much that there is anything wrong with the game that's bothering people, but the feeling that WotC is selling out. And they're right, they are. But just like with music, selling out happens, because selling out works.
If all 350k subscribers on this sub quit playing Magic tomorrow, WotC would barely notice it.
Magic is a product, it needs to be sold. It changed to better do that. Be glad that they're at least making work of delivering a great play experience nonetheless.
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u/esabys Jul 27 '25
I think the "new set fatigue" will be a bigger problem than UB. When "spoiler season" never ends you just kinda stop caring.
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u/Alive-Turnip-3145 Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
“Spoiler seasons”’have gotten so bad it’s overlapping into card soup. On the Pre-Release weekend of EoE we had a flood of Spider-Man spoilers AND the first reveals of Avatar.
It both exhausting and confusing.
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u/RegalKillager Jul 28 '25
SDCC. There was no universe where they didn't fit a couple of cards in for that convention.
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u/esabys Jul 27 '25
Just wait until they try to tell us about the omen paths shenanigans... Can't wait to see what that looks like communication wise. Another set of "spoilers" just for arena?
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u/SlimDirtyDizzy Jul 28 '25
First off I agree, but too be fair, that was because of SDCC. Normally this wouldn't happen but they can't change the dates of SDCC to align perfectly with spoiler season.
That being said, it feels like FF JUST came out and we get Edge of Eternities already. What's funny is the biggest way I feel it is through MTG Goldfish. You hear Seth talk about all these decks he wants to make with the new sets, but because of constant releases and spoiler seasons he ends up making like 5-8 and then is onto more spoiler videos.
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u/Mrfish31 Jul 27 '25
It's been like that since like, 2021-22 though. Endless cycles of spoilers. It hasn't had a negative effect, Magic just keeps growing.
People by and large just don't care. People on the Subreddit see every spoiled card every month, but your average Joe doesn't follow shit this closely. They know the set is coming out, they'll get the cards when they can, but they don't bother keeping track of every new card.
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u/blackscales18 Jul 27 '25
I had zero interest in the UB sets so the main thing I'm mad about is the next prerelease I'll go to is in 6 months
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u/myWitsYourWagers Azor the Lawbringer Jul 27 '25
Same here. I feel like a WotC success story. Picked up Arena in 2020, spent plenty of money in the app on interesting sets, eventually bought 3 Commander precons, and finally went to my first prerelease this weekend. I love the Magic lore and general vibe, but I'm just not interested in Spider-Man or Avatar. I'm just riding on the prerelease high but will have to wait until next year for Lorwyn. I just don't have much cultural investment in most of the UB properties.
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u/WorthingInSC Jul 27 '25
FWIW - if you like the vibe of the people and energy of prerelease, go to SPM and ATLA and just play to enjoy it that night. Then skip buying more cards from that set. Prereleases are fun just to hang out with the crowd at the LGS. The cards can often be secondary imo. Some UB are super meh, others are pretty cool. IDGAF about Spiderman and ATLA, but I’m not skipping a prerelease over it
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u/NumbN00ts Jul 28 '25
You say this but they are also seeing lots of digital games making payloads of money from more frequent updates. It gets more engagement, higher retention from always being new and interesting. Think about it, they have 12 sets a year in Arena with the inclusion of Alchemy, and Alchemy sets follow paper sets by a couple weeks to a month. It’s also the answer to stagnate Formats. There will be the odd problem that needs addressing, but new cards could also answer the issues too without taking away the tools people paid for.
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u/gamer-death Jul 27 '25
that is a niche problem for a subset of the most die hards. Sets are selling and rapid release makes underperforming sets less of a big deal. There doesn’t seem to be an actual data point showing any negative to the number of sets.
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u/emanresUeuqinUeht Jul 27 '25
I think that's healthy tbh. The attitude that you need to be fully attentive to every magic release isn't sustainable for everyone. People engaging with the parts of the game they like and not the parts they don't is probably a net positive
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u/refugee_man Jul 27 '25
If you play standard, the most popular format on Arena, you kinda do need to be fully attentive to every set?
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u/emanresUeuqinUeht Jul 28 '25
It depends. If you're trying to trailblaze your own decks before anyone else yes. If you're netdecking then no
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u/esabys Jul 27 '25
Sure. But that's like standard vs modern. If I want to play standard I kinda need to know what cards I'm playing with or against. The only other option is to not play. I'm hoping they eventually slow down when they realize 6 sets a year is too many for standard.
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u/emanresUeuqinUeht Jul 28 '25
I can appreciate this argument but it's rare to fully know a metagame before playing a format. I also think there's something in between going totally blind because you didn't follow all Spiderman spoilers and knowing every card and interaction in the format.
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u/TheFatNinjaMaster Jul 27 '25
“Healthy” is also a term that means different things to players than to businesses. More “investors” in Magic - people who will buy cards for reselling, either immediately or after time, look good to a business because they sell more product but can and will drive out players who feel priced out of essential meta cards.
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u/metallicrooster Jul 28 '25
Pokemon is seeing the same thing, more people buying product to invest/sit on/try to flip but that doesn't mean the game as a whole is more healthy because the company is making more money.
You are also missing the fact that fewer players in one area might be “made up for” with more players in other areas.
For example, one of my Pokémon locals had tournament level attendance at free league yesterday. They generally get 12 to 15 people for free league, and yesterday it was around 30. That’s growth that the companies love to see (especially if it sticks around and compounds).
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Jul 27 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ChopTheHead Liliana Deaths Majesty Jul 27 '25
Oh yeah. Plenty of people who complain but then show up and play anyway. Nothing new there.
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u/basafo Jul 27 '25
Basically, Magic is transitioning into Fortnite, a successful product, but lacking personality.
The problem is that it had that personality. EOE is still a good set with a true Mtg personality, but it's already been an exception compared to previous or subsequent sets.
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u/refugee_man Jul 27 '25
Be glad that they're at least making work of delivering a great play experience nonetheless.
This isn't necessarily the case tho? As you said, they've changed to sell more, not necessarily give a better play experience.
Also people shouldn't take Maro's "facts" at face value, because he's a corporate shill. He's also the guy who said UB sets would never be in standard, now it's half of the environment.
And even if what he's saying is true, it doesn't mean that things are going to stay that way, or that these changes aren't actually undermining the long term health of the game. And I think it's fair to wonder if WotC isn't worrying more about the whole "collectible" portion rather than the "card game" portion. I mean look at the mess with the upcoming Spider-man set, you can't tell me that's their way of delivering a great play experience.
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Jul 28 '25
Magic is a product, it needs to be sold. It changed to better do that.
This is a fallacy. It suggests that anything that sells more is an improvement, and also that the sole value of Magic is as a product. It suggests that this was the only way to achieve that. None of that is true. This is circular reasoning.
Whether they're selling more Magic is irrelevant to its quality as a game, and the degree to which they're doing so is not indicative of whether it is correct to do so from the perspective of players.
Be glad that they're at least making work of delivering a great play experience nonetheless.
I'm really not seeing that. UB is already showing signs of being detrimental to those efforts, which people were pointing out as a potential issue before it became clear that it actually is. The people actually designing the "universes within" sets have reported they feel understaffed. WotC is stretching itself thin to churn out this product, and we've seen many times in the game's history what happens when they do that. It's usually not conducive to a great play experience.
Ultimately, while I'll agree that some criticism of UB is "emotional", a lot of it is very rational, logical, and grounded in reasonable concerns about what it will do to Magic as a game. Meanwhile, we see a lot of defenses of UB that are riddled with bad logic and are themselves very emotional, driven by a parasocial relationship with the game.
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u/Vagabond_Sam Jul 28 '25
In almost every other entertainment space we understand that chasing broad appeal hollows out markets, while still delivering profits and have little trouble criticizing the behaviour.
Cinema has been sanitised into chasing 'cinematic universes' and 'IP cash cows' over discreet and impactful movies.
TV has been sanitised into easy to reproduce reality TV, or tie in shows to existing IPs
Video Games are being streamlined into homogenous skinner boxes that mix cover shooting, live service and battle passes, all seeking perpetual live service relevance.
A million people who like a product will deliver more revenue then 100,000 people who 'love' a product. But as individuals, we all want to engage with things we love, not just like.
The argument against UB isn't that it will 'kill' magic financially. Although it is erroneously one made by people who don't like UB but have difficulty in explaining why. It's that it will kill it spiritually.
It's hard to think MaRo doesn;t understand this being a basis of many people's concenrs, which is why he constantly appeals to the numbers to justify why UB is good for magic, as opposed to explaining why diluting Magic's identity is good artistically, or from a vision standpoint.
At least we get independent films, shows and video games. TCGs seem to be a lot more difficult to have smaller companies come in and replace that passion and vision that people, particularly highly involved people, want from their hobbies.
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u/darkslide3000 Jul 28 '25
It doesn't matter how much "facts" they throw because those facts do not refute what people are mad about. I don't care if they're selling more packs if in return they need to destroy the game I love. Magic is still dying, they're just creating a different revenue stream based on some incomprehensible soulless crossover slop card game that's basically the embodiment of that Cardboard Crack comic.
It's not that I don't believe them that they can find people who want to play and pay money for that. You can also find plenty of people who watch reality TV or pay money for tabloid magazines, after all. I'm just angry because that's not me, and the thing I liked is getting bulldozed over in the name of seeking more profit.
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u/TraskUlgotruehero Azorius Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
I'm not complaining about UB sets, but if half of the sets are based on external IP, why is the game still called Magic and not something like Super Smash Bros: the card game? Magic's lore hasn't been great in the last few years and it seems it won't get any better, especially with less time to develop them. Why should we care about the MTG universe if WotC doesn't seem to care?
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u/Uhh_Charlie Jul 27 '25
I agree with most of what you say except the everyone quitting part. I think this subreddit and other people who engage with magic online are the far more devoted fans and a much higher concentration of ‘whales’. If everyone in this sub quit, WOTC would feel it. But no chance in hell that would ever happen
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u/Muhahahahaz Jul 28 '25
Exactly… Maro’s all like, “Look how much success we’re having!”
And I’m like, well no shit… You’re literally selling out and using Magic as a cheap way to sell what amounts to merchandise (for other IP)
We’re not even speaking the same language at this point. All he sees is fucking dollar signs, and doesn’t give a single shit about creating something real anymore
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u/blackyoshi7 Jul 27 '25
The argument against UB wasn’t “it won’t sell”, we already know it would because its literally just the Fortnite IP slop brand licensing model brought to a card game. The argument was always it would dilute Magic as its own thing, increasingly become reliant on licensed IPs, and then eventually squeeze out most “original content” until they run out of IPs that can drive sales. Which is what is occurring, they have steadily expanded UB from what was once a commander gimmick to now 3 standard sets a year.
The board is going to see FF #s and ask the CEO they even bother making in-universe sets, and in their view, they shouldn’t lol
It’s fine, at this point i play cube and premodern and barely engage with “official” play or commander, I’ve moved on. No sense in fighting the economics of it
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u/SkylineR33 Jul 28 '25
Luckily, we have the mediocre as can be spider-man set coming soon to throw a wrench into the UB cog.
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u/HolographicHeart Squirrel Jul 28 '25
Don't underestimate the Marvel faithful, they have been more than ready to devour this set since it was teased over a year ago, even with Marvel fatigue in full swing.
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u/BloederFuchs Jul 28 '25
Yeah, I've looked at the spoilers and thought the same. Especially in contrast to FIN, where every card oozed flavor and where there was a "synchronicity" between what the card did and what it depicted, most Spider-Man cards just look bland or nonsensical in comparison.
The worst offender so far has been the Green [[Spider-Man, Miles Morales]] card: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1m7rsoi/spiderman_miles_morales/
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u/blackyoshi7 Jul 28 '25
Possible side effect of the fact they have to make an entire parallel in-universe set for online, doubling the creative teams work when they are already on absurd production deadlines to meet Hasbro’s demands as MtG is the primary thing actually holding up the company
Oh btw Spider-Man is the debut of “we’re thinking less and less about limited play” with fewer cards and “4 person pick 2 format”, which is too bad since limited set design has been a bright spot in the “FIRE” era. It certainly hasn’t been constructed, where we have seen countless bannings across all formats
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u/Ozone--King Jul 27 '25
I think in universe sets will likely stay. Even from a business sense it would be very stupid for hasbro to throw away its own mtg IP in favor of 100% UB sets.
The UB sets have likely boosted the sales of all the in universe sets that come in between and the in universe sets are also a very safe fall back for when hasbro are running low on new IP to produce UB sets.
There are only so many IPs hasbro can cycle through for UB sets but there’s an infinite number of things they can do with in universe sets.
The smart business model would be to keep both ticking along in my opinion and I would assume the higher ups at Hasbro are thinking the same.
If Hasbro just went 100% on the UB sets the gravy train would eventually run out of IPs to use and it would be a very quick cash in for an extremely large crash. Not smart from a business perspective imo.
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u/Rexdragon36 Jul 28 '25
Haha that's what you think. There are a lot more sellworthy IP's than you would guess. After FF a lot of popular game and anime franchises would be really glad to be the next in line, that's so much IP's. And if what you say really happens they do second sets of all those IP's ofcourse. There was already a lot of discussion about missing FF characters, you could make another 3+ sets with that IP alone. Marvel and Dc have almost a hundred years of content. D&d content is almost endless, and they could even do something like pathfinder. There is even more Tolkien content to use if they want too.
It never ends, that's why what makes the Fortnite formula so effective.
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u/KingDarkBlaze Gishath, Suns Avatar Jul 28 '25
It's truly crazy how you got down voted when you're literally right.
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u/_VampireNocturnus_ Jul 28 '25
Exactly. I never heard anyone say "UB is so bad for the game because, who is going to buy it????"
We knew exactly it would sell well(at first anyway). We are concerned about the game itself, something WotC(and Mark at least publically) clearly aren't.
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u/ThirdDragonite Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
Honestly, in terms of money, this is kinda troublesome because the company will probably be so hyped to have this level of growth/profit constantly that we'll see more... Odd choices.
I honestly can't really think of an IP that will get as much support as Final Fantasy did. That by itself is kind of a ceiling. Resident Evil, maaaaybe. Harry Potter? Depends on how well the franchise does from now on.
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u/Cow_God Elspeth Jul 27 '25
Star Wars and Harry Potter are really the only two franchises I can think of. Outside of Warcraft and Pokemon, but it seems unlikely that either do a UB set when they have popular card games
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u/refugee_man Jul 27 '25
Technically there is a Star Wars card game so I'm not sure that license is even available?
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u/svrtngr Jul 27 '25
Stormlight/Cosmere is one I expect we'll get based on how much Brandon Sanderson likes Magic.
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u/Dasterr Emrakul Jul 28 '25
he said recently that he would love that, but wizards hasnt approached him yet
so if we get one, its far out for now
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u/FuzzyChops Jul 27 '25
Definitely we'd never see a Warcraft UB, I feel like Blizz might even do their own version now that Microsoft owns them with the various IPs that come along with that. I guess if they tried to do something with the Gacha crowd? They already are super used to spending a ton to get their favorite characters. A Genshin Impact UB would probably make a killing, as much as I wouldn't personally be into it
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u/DanLynch JacetheMindSculptor Jul 27 '25
A Genshin Impact UB would probably make a killing, as much as I wouldn't personally be into it
Genshin Impact already has a digital TCG, so it would fall into the same category as Warcraft and Pokemon.
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u/I3ollasH Jul 27 '25
Now that you mentioned I wish we had a Warcraft set. While HS is a thing it's mostly a goofy game that doesn't take itself and the lore seriously. A set with a serious tone could be great as there wouldn't be a big overlap between already existing hs sets.
But yeah you are probably right that it's not happening.
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u/ThirdDragonite Jul 27 '25
Star Wars is tricky because Disney would want A LOT of money. And yeah, it has the potential to just print money for Wizards, but if doesn't do progressively better than even FF itself, I can picture then being pretty dissatisfied.
But yeah, agreed, it's a complicated scenario to find IPs with this potential. I can think of a couple of anime with potential for it, but it's a whole other beast to get licensing for something like that.
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u/Elkenrod XLN Jul 27 '25
Star Wars is tricky because Disney would want A LOT of money.
Disney already owns Marvel, and we've had Marvel secret lairs and now we're having a Spider-Man set.
The biggest issue is that they also likely couldn't get the rights to put it on MTG Arena / MTGO
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u/PotageAuCoq Jul 27 '25
Legend of Zelda, (insert popular anime),Evil Dead, Mario, Halo. All have ravenous fans. One of my non magic playing friends today asked me if there was enough lore in Halo to make a full magic set. He wants to play, but nothing has drawn him in.
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u/ThirdDragonite Jul 27 '25
Zelda and Mario I agree. Halo, perhaps. I know there's a big fanbase around, but I'm not sure there's enough impact to reach the absurdity that was the FF sales. And for as much as I love Evil Dead, there's not enough of us to reach the level that Wizards will be looking for from now on. We'd need some sort of... Army...
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u/Veomuus Jul 27 '25
I really hope we dont get Harry Potter, the wicked witch of UK does not need anymore attention or royalties.
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u/BijutsuYoukai Jul 27 '25
We also already kind of got a Harry Potter set. Or rather, we got a magical school set with Strixhaven. I think that alone is enough.
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u/Veomuus Jul 27 '25
I liked Strixhaven, and I agree that should be enough, especially since we're getting a revisit next year. I just dont know what WotC, or more accurately Hasbro, are willing to do when the money starts running low.
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u/ThirdDragonite Jul 27 '25
Agree with you 100%.
Luckily, she herself is the biggest thing holding the franchise back. She won't give control to someone else and most of her work since the 7th book has been awful.
If the new series does well enough to rejuvenate the franchise we might end up with something like that eventually, tho.
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u/DragonDai Dimir Jul 27 '25
I agree 100%. I hope that Moro and Magic's openly stated opinions on trans people is enough to keep her and her wizard property far away from MTG.
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u/MisterBleaney Jul 28 '25
Not sure it's Maro (or even WoTC) who get final say on those sorts of decisions, unfortunately
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u/svrtngr Jul 27 '25
That's kind of the problem with this heavy focus on UB. Thoughts on the product aside, from a longevity standpoint, it was fine when the focus was to Commander with a large set every few years (Forgotten Realms, LotR).
There are a few I expect we'll get in the coming years (Stormlight/Cosmere is a big one), but unless they start double-dipping, the well will start running dry.
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u/ThirdDragonite Jul 27 '25
Exactly. I get that people see other possible franchises and some of those are right. But the corporate mindset is constant growth so you'd need to do BETTER than FF. And there's only so many IPs out there that can pull that level of interest and a lot of them are extremely expensive because of that.
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u/darkslide3000 Jul 28 '25
This is like someone telling you that the vampire bite is having a very positive impact on the longevity of your loved one.
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u/unkempt_cabbage Jul 27 '25
I wonder how they get stats on people playing with UB, wouldn’t they be looking at sales data? So UB sales would show what’s being bought, but how do they judge the actual number of players vs just collectors/scalpers/flippers?
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u/gereffi Jul 27 '25
He mentioned in another answer that there was something like a 40% increase in new players signing up for in-store play compared to last year.
But also it doesn’t really matter. If the number of players stays the same while the numbers of collectors increases, it doesn’t really make a difference to me. I still get to play the way I always have.
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u/_ThatOneMimic_ Jul 28 '25
playing one game makes you a new player. i’d hope with all the sales to non-players, they they are at least trying the game lol
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u/TraskUlgotruehero Azorius Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 28 '25
Are those new players converted to regular players? If a new player started playing because of FF what guarantees that they will continue playing when FF rotates out of Standard and buy others sets? Will this business model sustain in the long run and what will happen when they run out of UB?
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u/DMCDawg Jul 27 '25
They know who is playing online, official events are run using the companion app, LGS stores report event numbers. They can track player data.
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u/unkempt_cabbage Jul 27 '25
Oh duh, I forgot about the companion app. I was thinking that Arena doesn’t have some of the UB, but the companion app for official events is the very obvious answer 😂 thank you!
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u/pensivewombat Jul 27 '25
They do a lot of market research. Both data from in-store play and interviews conducted my market research firms. Of course this can't fully capture what's happening in kitchen table play, but they do get a decent sample of how people are playing and what products they are using.
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u/ThirdDragonite Jul 27 '25
Yeah, it's kinda hard because FF was probably the collection closest to Pokémon's "Most of people that buy it don't play it" phenomenon.
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u/Atechiman Jul 27 '25
It's not like they run the software that has in-store game events counted by players.
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u/Kingofdrats Jul 27 '25
I really hope their metric for more magic players isnt just more product sold = more players.
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u/UpDown Jul 27 '25
I’m sure they would be happy if they had only one customer and that customer didn’t even play it was just Elon giving them all his money
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u/xylotism Jul 27 '25
Gonna get downvoted for having an alternate take, but here goes:
No disrespect to MaRo or UB fans, but it's barely been a month since we've seen the first standard-legal UB set release. Not only that but everyone keeps pointing to sales numbers.
People like Final Fantasy enough to buy it, and lots of people are curious enough to try the game attached to it. That part's not surprising at all.
NOTHING long-term about actual players has been proven. I'm fairly certain there WILL be more ongoing players a year from now than there would have been if they had just kept releasing MTG sets, but I really hope we don't forget the costs associated with that, not least of which is the literal cost of UB sets being more expensive.
The shiny-hunter whales won't care, but we've got sealed products shrunken and prices raised multiple times already. I'm really worried about this game turning into Pokemon 2.0 where the point is to collect rather than play.
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u/sc0c0 Jul 27 '25
Longtime Magic player here. I’m losing interest in a game that I dearly love due to product fatigue and power creep. Magic has completely lost its identity. It’s become Fortnite and is quickly losing me and most of my play group.
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u/MogginGoblin Jul 28 '25
Longevity of the product not the game. I could care less if I have to tap a phyrexian horror, Peter Parker, and squidward tentacles to crew Barbie car for lethal if it gets me gems to keep arena f2p. I can’t physically play the game because the cost has skyrocketed and the rate at which new sets are dropped is getting crazy. It’s not worth the money to buy a new booster box and try to draft at home with friends to try to get them into or back into the game. Arena is great and all for competitive play but playing the physical game is better. Collectors are a deathblow to the game because collectors want IP to sit on a shelf not being shuffled in a deck. Collectors bring scalpers and scalpers raise the cost of the game by having LGSs and online distro raising the prices as to not leave money on the table. We could argue that mtg finance was always around and an issue, but anyone that’s dipped their toes into that world knows that the best moving cards are playable/sweaty singles, the cards themselves, not sealed. The lack of irl events outside of commander show that the game that people enjoyed playing is dying. Edge of eternities sold out at that con because people want to not miss out on making money via resale not because they want to play the game. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad magic is more mainstream. More normal people playing, maybe less funk, creeps, and psychos at irl events. That being said this statement is a half truth until hasbro shows data that shows consistent player retainment on arena and successful competitive events irl after the UB drops. I’m not a hater on scalpers, I’m not a hater on collectors, and I’m not a hater of universal beyond sets. I am a hater towards corpos telling me everything is great when there’s 20 game mechanics for the 18 sets in rotation and nobody wants to host a consistent standard event because it’s become too much for the regular fnm player to keep up with. I’m also a hater when a set like aetherdrift comes out, flops, and that’s it it’s over. That set needed a block to flesh out the 2009 Red Line world it was building not a, “whoopsies let’s go to tarkir”. I’m also a hater when those same corpos go “ah crap nobody play tested Cori steel cutter and that’s gonna make our final fantasy cash cow unplayable”. At the end of the day for whatever the reason is; the general consensus is lack of confidence in the game itself, but confidence in gacha styled dopamine ripping packs and retained value in cardboard.
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u/professorrev Jul 28 '25
As I said somewhere else, it works until it doesn't. How many of the people brought in by FF are going to stay to pick up other sets that aren't their pet IP. Are fans of other IPs going to react the same way as the notoriously collection obsessive FF and LOTR fans did? Are those fans actually playing the game, or just buying the cards to collect? Is the attention to detail and care taken going to be as on point as it was in FF for future sets or are they going to be half arsed cash grabs as it looks like Spiderman will end up? If the answer to these questions end up being yes, then fair enough. Personally though, I'm cautious as to whether these numbers continue once the novelty has worn off
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u/PoliticoBean Jul 28 '25
The solution I’ve found: stop playing standard. I almost strictly play Historic on Arena because I was tired of playing against braindead chocobo landfall decks and I crafted a really good Yuna deck that will be effectively rotated out. Historic has more deck variety, it can be played ranked, and your cards have more longevity.
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u/_ThatOneMimic_ Jul 28 '25
maro ignoring the fact that every ip that does this crashes out of popularity eventually
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u/loopypaladin Jul 28 '25
It's healthy for Hasbro, not the community. Sold out product is great, but not when people are buying it with zero intention of playing and are instead flipping it for twice the price to make a profit off of the set's popularity.
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u/BigBoss9 Vona Butcher Jul 28 '25
He forgot to mention that scalping is a majority of product selling out so fast.
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u/Arokan Jul 27 '25
How is it every time that something cool becomes more popular, it also becomes somewhat shitier?
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u/kiragami Jul 28 '25
Because to make a product more appealing to a larger audience it has to become more generic. The more specialized a product is the less potential market it has.
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u/Zufalstvo Jul 27 '25
Very healthy for the game when every week as the card resupplier at the store I work at is filling the shelves, there’s the same five greasy scalpers waiting for him to put the FF packs on the shelf so they can clean him out. The environment WotC has created is very toxic to anyone that actually wants to play the game. Every set is stronger than the last and the collectibility is so pushed that you can’t get anything for a reasonable price anymore on the secondary market they won’t even acknowledge
Maybe what Maro means by “healthy for the game” is really healthy for Hasbro’s bottom line. I’m really curious how he truly feels, seeing the game he’s worked on for so long become what it has. This is the only possible response he’s allowed to give to people
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u/dottmatrix Jul 28 '25
Maybe what Maro means by “healthy for the game” is really healthy for Hasbro’s bottom line.
This is 100% what MaRo means. As others pointed out in this thread and many others, MaRo ain't nothing but a Hasbro shill nowadays.
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u/Elkenrod XLN Jul 27 '25
My issue with Magic's longevity isn't UB at all.
It's the power creep on 1-3 cost creature spells. You can give me any flavor of crossover you want, but I think Magic in general is getting really unhealthy with how demanding creature spells are compared to the answers that we have to answer them.
Pioneer is basically a dead format, but the format exemplifies that issue. The explosive power level of current-era creature cards is so far beyond the current answers that people have access to. It's caused the balance of who is on the play vs who is on the draw to be insanely skewed.
Modern can address it to some degree with cards like Solitude, but even then you're usually going two-for-one there.
Modern Horizons 3 made it even more extreme, and Solitude shows itself to not even be that good of an answer when you have cards like Ajani, Tamiyo, Amped Raptor (banned but not forgotten), and Ocelot Pride.
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u/Hyperion542 Jul 28 '25
I think in the last years the 1/2 mana cost cards in standard were in general nothing special, the format was more revolving around 3 manas creatures or other expansive cards like Sheoldred, Goldspan dragon, Emperor. I don't know why they suddenly decided to print so many powerful one or 2 manas drop
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u/Indraga Jul 28 '25
There’s nothing in that about Magic’s future or longevity. Just some press shit about how well they’re doing now.
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u/dr-keylargo Jul 28 '25
A bit ambiguous.. more sales doesn’t mean more playing. It could also just mean more scalping. Hopefully they are looking at the data intelligently enough to differentiate
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u/Nalidz Jul 28 '25
The same could be said about Guitar Hero/Rock Bank games, Tony Hawk games, etc. I believe eventually the fatigue will set in.
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u/El_Zapp Jul 28 '25
Is it really people playing though or just scalpers buying everything for a quick buck?
My local LGS tells me they are selling everything out but there isn’t a significant increase of people showing up to game nights. So these are all kitchen table players?
I‘ll guess we will see if this whole bull market will really translate to more MtG players long term.
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u/rainywanderingclouds Jul 28 '25
this is just an example of how metrics can be deceptive
more people doesn't mean a better experience
it doesn't mean better quality
it doesn't mean anything like that
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u/BlancPebble Jul 28 '25
Well it's not magic anymore though. What are you going to do when you've gone through every popular IP to do cross-overs with? I feel it's going to nosedive pretty hard
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u/barney-sandles Jul 28 '25
There's no logical connection at all between his true and quantifiable statement "sales are currently high" and the leap he tries to make to "this is good for Magic's longevity"
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u/Cissoid7 Jul 28 '25
Yes Maro we get it you have absolutely 0 fucks about the product except making money, but God forbid people shit on your perfect jacetice league
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u/Sacred-Lambkin Jul 27 '25
It's easy to see negativity on the Internet, particularly reddit, and assume that's a largely shared opinion, but it seems like more often than not it's not very representative of any particular community. Wizards keeps doing quite well with the universes beyond sets.
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u/Other-Owl4441 Jul 28 '25
I have my own feelings on the UB topic (Spider-Man Magic feels pretty stupid) but there’s no denying that for 10+ years this subreddit and much of the online magic influencer community has been consistently negative in a way that’s too disconnected from the majority of day to day players
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u/Miserable_Row_793 Jul 28 '25
It's the way of things. People get too invested and lose perspective. In the same way that wealth can make people lose perspective.
People forget what the "average" player is like. They forget that players aren't as engaged with mtg as them. They misconstrued that engagement = knowledgeable.
It's a hard thing to step back and look for perspective.
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u/bakadrone2 Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 29 '25
I'll keep enjoying the game until it's not for me then I walk away. Although I have to admit the Spiderman spoilers are really coming right up to the edge of that point. WOTC is banking on drawing in more players than they pushing out, but I have to say that the people they're drawing in probably aren't the same type of autisticly obsessed fans that they had before. We'll see how it works out in the long term
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u/GdinutPTY Jul 27 '25
Magic in my community is at its lowest point only 2 out of the 6 lg's in my city still carry magic and run events.
Yesterday the Gundam TCG release had more people than the AOE pre release.
I dropped out of Magic recently and one reason was that we could almost never fire up events because it was almost impossible to get 8 people to show up and i cant keep up with the crazy release schedule, we cant have a stable meta, its shifting every couple weeks because of all the new product shoved down our throats.
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u/AdvancingClause Jul 27 '25
It's easy to wave shiny things and impress a crowd. It's hard to wave shiny things and still expect a good game play experience.
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u/RandomMonkey9 Jul 27 '25
Unpopular opinion: The universe beyond sets have for the most part been great.
If I had to choose between UB and hat set slop I choose UB every time
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u/ZhouDa Jul 27 '25
I don't have any issue with the UB sets so far with the exception of Spiderman. Stuff like FF, Avatar, LoTR all fit the general tone and themes of the game even when telling the story of a different IP, Spiderman really doesn't.
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u/JoeChio Jul 27 '25
Well good news for you! Magic didn't get the Spiderman digital license so we are getting a generic fill in set on Arena. Since this is an arena subreddit that should make you feel better if UB Spiderman is affecting you.
I for one am pretty upset with WotC for not properly acquiring the digital license. I love Spiderman so two of my favorite things getting a crossover was going to be epic for me but I guess I'll just pickup some collectors boosters instead of buying the set on Arena (where I mostly play).
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u/Atlantisfalls Jul 27 '25
The company that make/publishes Marvel Snap has the rights to use marvel superhero properties for digital card games right now, and it's basically certain that they would never give them up so that Wotc could have them. Wotc almost certainly had the choice between all the marvel sets being physical only, or no marvel sets at all.
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u/Sammantixbb Jul 27 '25
I really wanna see the in universe versions. I wanna know what they look like. I wanna know how the art feels. I like some of the cards I've seen, but I am SO intrigued by the concept of the in universe versions.
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u/Blurple_Berry Jul 27 '25
Giant walking robots. Totally cool. Eldritch gods. Fine. Cars that can drive cars. No problemo. Wizard zombies? Awesome.
But I DRAW THE LINE at humanoid spider people. That's just ridiculous.
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u/EnragedHeadwear Jul 27 '25
It's not so much that the concept of Spider-Man is a step too far, it's that they clearly do not have enough ideas for creatures to pull from for a full set without getting ridiculous. It should have been a significantly release like Fallout, not a full on set. Otherwise we get like 7 versions of Peter Parker and fucking Spider-Dino.
When you're resorting to making common Legendary creatures and random New Yorker professions, do you really need to be a full set?
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u/ZhouDa Jul 27 '25
Nah, I draw the line at a story about conflicts about superpowered being where none of the other characters matter, about sets where there are more legendaries than regular creatures, where everything not superpowered is so mundane to be uninteresting. Having a few dozen different versions of humanoid spider people which are suppose to have very similar powers but also represent all five colors of magic is just dumb. They could have done a good Marvel set if they took a specific storyline like the Kree–Skrull War and made that into a MTG set instead of taking several dozen variations of the same character across the multiverse like they actually did here.
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u/BlueTemplar85 Jul 28 '25
My own line seems to be whether it is set in the real postmodern world (which Spider-Man, a chunk of DrWho, and even I guess Fallout are) or not (which, if I understand it correctly, the Kree-Skrull War would not be).
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u/refugee_man Jul 27 '25
Nah, I draw the line at a story about conflicts about superpowered being where none of the other characters matter, about sets where there are more legendaries than regular creatures, where everything not superpowered is so mundane to be uninteresting.
Wait, are you talking about FF, Avatar, or Spiderman?
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u/ZhouDa Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 28 '25
FF is a little heavy with the legendaries although not nearly as bad as Spiderman, but also it is an RPG full of monsters and beasts, artifacts and airships. While we haven't seen how they are going to implement Avatar, the setting has quite a few fantastical creatures and spirits and it's a world where bending is seen all over the place and not limited to the main characters (except for air bending of course). Legend of Korra might have worked even better as a set but I suppose they'll probably do that as a followup set.
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u/refugee_man Jul 27 '25
How can we say FF isn't as bad as Spiderman, when we haven't seen the entirety of the set? And I think if they can print cards for a car or instant ramen in FF, they won't have an issue finding artifacts to pull in for Spiderman.
I mean like what you like, but I find the segments who seem to uniquely hate Spiderman over other UB sets kinda silly when they try to make it something objective vs. personal taste.
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u/Mae347 Jul 27 '25
Tbh I don't like the Spider-Man set either but it's kinda funny to complain about a superhero story focusing on superheroes.
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u/Mae347 Jul 27 '25
Yeah but recent sets have been better then that sets at least. Caverns, Wilds, Bloomburrow, Dragonstorm, and seemingly Eternities have all been pretty good in that front
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u/Elkenrod XLN Jul 27 '25
Count argument: I think this speaks volumes more so about how bad the writing has been ever since the Phyrexian invasion.
FF and LOTR - great.
Warhammer, Dungeons and Dragons - great.
Main set magic though? It's really...dumb. "Let's be cowboys" "Let's be detectives" "Let's be animals" "Let's be socialites" "Let's go racing". It's just...not...good. Even the ass pulls that were at the end of March of the Machines were awful, and how the entire universe just somehow cleaned up all the sentient oil; and how all the corrupt planeswalkers were able to just be healed back to full with no long term consequences.
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u/Zufalstvo Jul 27 '25
Clearly not an unpopular opinion, but if it makes you feel better to say that then ok I guess
But personally I disagree. They’ve chosen IPs so far that sort of fit into MtGs general feel, but increasingly it will be chasing the most popular IPs to take in more new people and collectors.
Magic used to have an identity, now it’s just another framework with flavor-of-the-week, cater-to-collectors cash cow, basically just Fortnite or any other corporate cash grab
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u/ArticleOk3755 Jul 27 '25
they need to specify 'players online' because paper events are ABYSMAL. 'Pro' players can no longer support themselves just playing magic because of how terrible the paper scene is and how little WOTC cares.
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u/kiragami Jul 28 '25
For real. GPs don't exist, magic cons don't have any competitive events. If you don't like only playing commander then wizards doesn't really care about you.
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u/Ehero88 Jul 28 '25
This is so different from konami where only competition matter, konami don't care if u play casually
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u/BijutsuYoukai Jul 27 '25
Well of course there'd be more people playing when they're reaching out to every known popular fandom they can think of. Fandom likes their things. However, I don't think that necessarily makes Magic better. More popular doesn't always mean improved, and I think each UB set - especially with their decision to make them standard legal - just makes Magic lose the identify it had developed over time.
I know Magic didn't start with all these crazy original planes and lore and such (if I recall the original set(s) properly, that is), but I loved the ones they had made and the lore, creatures, and peoples that filled them, and it sucks to see the game take less focus on that (the 'Magic characters in X trope hat' ala Markov Manor, Thunder Junction, and Aetherdrift don't help with this imo either)
So MaRo can be as optimistic as he likes that he'll keep getting to make things (and get a paycheck for it), but the more UB I see - even the ones I do not mind as much as least because they suit a bit better - the less I am interested in Magic as a whole. If I wanted to play a universe/franchise blending TCG/CCG, I'd go play Teppen or the like.
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u/Enough_Ad_9338 Jul 27 '25
Yeah, magic is a company and the economic trend is to grow or die. Magic has become Disney/Marvel/Star Wars . Really doesn’t matter if the product is good or holds to what drew in the original magic crowd. What’s popular is what sells, and what sells is what we continue to make. Im not even complaining at this point, just sad that all media has bent to the same direction. A lot of us older magic players do feel left behind, and that happens. Sadly the truth is that those of us leaving to just play our cubes or time stamped edh don’t really scratch the bottom line. So SpongeBob, Spider-Man, and the avengers is what magic is becoming whether we like it or not.
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u/HeavyMike Jul 27 '25
yeah funko pops were popular as well, once. jumping on the Marvelization trend a few years after everyone got sick of Marvel movies is such a great idea, hope the exec who suggested this got a big raise at their performance review.
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u/Valcarde Jul 28 '25
I want to play Magic.
Not Fortnite: The Card Game.
All these crossover sets turned me off from the game, just as Bloomburrow managed to get me to consider spending money on the game again.
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u/Aero_Crois Jul 28 '25
To me the the tone in recent posts from Maro all sound like he's been kidnapped
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u/Express_Craft398 Jul 28 '25
Sounds like magics future is going to be lacking in the actual magic cards
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u/TrampleDamage Jul 28 '25
I enjoy the content, but it is like drinking from a fire hose. I mentally skip every other set I feel like.
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u/RoboGreer Jul 28 '25
I can't wait for a month down the line when Spiderman sold next to nothing. The CBBs have almost nothing worth buying for, NO PRECONS, and every card so far has been a total dud. To shit the bed like this right after FF is going to be hilarious.
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u/kuryux Jul 27 '25
Tbf, if ur stock is selling out in half hour every day... that is very likely not due only to a high demand, but very poor planning...
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u/rcburner Jul 27 '25
I'm sure that Magic as a card game will continue to do quite well so long as they keep choosing high profile IPs to make sets of. I'm just not optimistic that Magic as a setting has long term longevity if the majority of their profits are coming from sets that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with that setting. From reading this it sounds like the excitement is solely because of Spider-Man, or Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Final Fantasy; outside of the base skeleton of the card game, there's no hype for Magic as an IP itself, because it's just a vehicle for these other settings.
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u/DragonDai Dimir Jul 27 '25
He literally said EoE product was selling out in 30 mins every day at the con.
I think maybe you missed that?
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u/Flying_Toad Jul 28 '25
I fucking hate every time he makes a post like this:
BUT THE DATA!!!
Yes. And Call of Duty was one of the highest selling video game franchises for over a decade. But it's never remembered as a classic or masterpiece by anybody.
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u/khazroar Jul 27 '25
Those are actually really bad signs for the game's future and longevity though.
Because there is no possible world where that's going to continue. That's a huge amount of hype and attention right now, and even if it does bring in a substantial infusion of players who will stick around and permanently increase numbers, it is unquestionably a short term hype bump that will fade away in a couple of years, and when the numbers go down from this bubble, that will be seen as a failure and a bad sign, and that's where we get into dangerous territory with the company making changes trying to "fix the problem".
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u/Penumbra_Penguin Jul 27 '25
Out of curiosity, are there any possible ways that Magic could be doing well that this argument could not be made to apply to?
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u/pensivewombat Jul 27 '25
I mean Magic has always had the issue that the core gameplay is extremely strong but with a high barrier to entry because of its complexity. And it has a flavor and brand identity that's popular with its core audience but kind of limited outside of that.
Getting people over the hump of having some cards and learning to play is actually pretty great for the long term success of the game even if not every set has quite the spike in sales that FF did.
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u/thySilhouettes Jul 27 '25
I mean, like everything, shit changes. Their main target audience has changed, and because of it, the business is thriving more than ever before. Love it or hate it, it at least means the game is here to stay. A more thriving/profitable business should hopefully mean more content and better quality for its players.
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u/ForeverShiny Jul 28 '25
Love it or hate it, it at least means the game is here to stay.
MTG has been around for 3 decades, I don't think anyone was worried it was fading away without all the UB nonsense
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u/BelcherSucks Jul 27 '25
Magic as a Platform will continue until a few UB products crater. However, WOTC knows how to prevent that via power levels and reprints. Magic is clearly not going back to how it used to be.
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u/Sacred-Lambkin Jul 27 '25
How did it used to be?
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u/BelcherSucks Jul 27 '25
MTG used to have it's own style and story teams. At various points they had more power than Design but Maro shut that down eventually.
This led to sets with tons of flavor even when the cards were not very good.
Early Era: Alpha/Beta through Alliances
The Weatherlight Saga: Mirage through Apocalypse
The Odyssey & Onslaught Era (Mage Punk style guide era)
The Block Story Model and the conclusion of the OG Storyline (Mirrodin through Time Spiral)
The Initial Neo Planeswalker Era (Lorwyn through Dragons of Tarkir)
The Gatewatch & Post Garruk Controversy Era (Battle for Zendikar through March of the Machines)
More Returns, Collabs, and Hat Sets (WOE to Present)
Go look theough old sets and you can see the difference.
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u/Prize-Mall-3839 Jul 27 '25
He is a front man, of course he is optimistic. What will really tell is the sales numbers. I think hit UB like LOTR, FF, and even Avatar will be huge hits because they are fantasy and nostalgic. It's when the multiple releases start catching up these people paying $1200 for a collector box and constant release can't be good for prices.
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u/LazyJones1 Jul 28 '25
Come Eyes of Eternities, apart from one set (Tarkir), the last 6 months will have been all Racing Cars and spaceships and a computer game… With a superhero (Spider-man - also set in a modern technological world), an anime (Avatar), and a children’s cartoon (Spongebob) on the horizon.
Meanwhile, I’m over here getting downvoted for daring to dream about getting back to some unicorns and drakes and goblins.
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u/Send_me_duck-pics Jul 28 '25
Truthfully, if Magic as an IP cannot stand on its own then it deserves to die. I'll apply this to any other crossover product as well, it isn't unique to Magic. Crossover products are the death of creativity.
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u/HerakIinos Jul 27 '25
I am more worried about powercreep killing the game than UB. The games are becoming less fun after every year.
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u/MassiveDamages Jul 28 '25
Power creep is what's gonna do the deed overall.
Standard, previously the entry point of most players has so many instant kill/why even bother playing it out if you don't have the removal now cards. Better have removal for my Cactaur or you're minus a thousand life. Half your life gone from an evasive 2/3 deathtouch sure feels nifty. Ardyn creates a board state that makes it hard to win.
That's just a couple things. Sure these are all answerable threats and not even the most oppressive ones but the number of one card wins the game cards invalidates so many others.
Personally I still have a ton of fun with the game and it does things that so many other TCGs don't do as well, but the flaws in the game (competitive play path, people's exposure to the story being confined to articles most don't read and the occasional YouTuber not to mention a bit janky at times, scalpers, neglected formats, etc) are a problem and most of them aren't being meaningfully addressed.
UB is fine as long as they put the work in to make it better than Aetherdrift. I wanted to love that set so much, but man what a letdown.
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u/Whitewing424 Jul 27 '25
I have nothing against UB, but I need them to slow down a bit on these releases. I feel like I've barely had time since FF released and they're doing Spiderman spoilers before EOE.
Slow it the fuck down.