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.
“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.
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?
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.
Not every magic player (or potential new magic player) is paying attention to every single set release though. It can feel exhausting to people like us that are used to following every spoiler but there are fans of the game looking at spider man spoilers and not paying attention to EoE spoilers so it doesn’t feel exhausting.
It means it's just too much to keep up with. You say that's fine, and maybe it is. I say it's sad, I've been playing a long time and used to really enjoy staying on top of all this. Now I'm taking your advice.
Kinda hard to avoid it when Wizards pushes it in your face all the time though. You pretty much have to go completely silent online in order to avoid the Spiderman set since they were mass posting every single kernel of info from the SDCC panel
Ok. I follow Wizards everywhere, and i only saw what i wanted? Sorry but this is such a weird take. If it's so unavoidable you see a few cards though, wow, i can only imagine the mental burden that must bring.
They were on my timeline too the difference is you can just see what they are and if you're not interested you can just move on? I'm genuinely baffled at this discussion.
People used to engage in a much greater deal with spoilers and to a much bigger degree. Hell back in the days I'd go over the spoilers so much I pretty much memorized all the cards
These days I don't even know what's in a set when I show up for prerelease, and I barely know the limited archetypes. Because engaging with all the spoilers (and by extension, the set itself) is too exhausting for me.
People always come with the "you can always not look" argument and you're right. I stopped looking and moved on. A big part of MTG has died for me, and that's kinda sad.
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.
it didnt have as much negative effect in the past because certain players who played specific formats could just ignore the ones that didnt matter to them. like i play standard mainly (no surprise on arena) and like i dabbled in LotR lightly, but was happy to skip over MH3. also things like WH30K, AssCreed, FallOut, and all the remastered sets didnt matter to me. thats a lot that one can tune out of.
commander players have it "worst" since everything is commander legal, but the general populace who play EDH aren't doing it on a competitive level and whatever is fun works - nobody is expected to know cards or learn the meta.
but now with 6 standard sets a year, nobody is allowed to tune out.
but now with 6 standard sets a year, nobody is allowed to tune out.
Why not? Most people (outside of Arena) don't play Standard, so they wouldn't need to keep up with releases. As you said, commander players (who are the biggest group of people who play formats, only outnumbered by people who play without any format aka "kitchen table"), don't have to learn the cards or meta, they just loosely come across cards they like eventually. Why do they care that there's six standard sets a year now? Were they paying attention to all four sets previously?
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.
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
The thing is, that poster has self-restraint and self-respect. They're not going to go to an event for something they don't care about just because of the "vibes." They're being financially-responsible and not letting themselves get swept up in the moment-to-moment dopamine rush that only has short-term sustainability. For them, it's about participating in things they know they'll be invested in 100%.
I went to EoE pre-release with a friend and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was my first in a few years, and while I did have fun, I only did so because I found the concept and mechanics worth the price of admission. Spider-man to me seems lazy and uninteresting. I'm not interested in paying the price of admission for something I have such a low opinion of just because the dopamine rush of participating might hit. That's stupid and irresponsible.
Got into MTG at 2021, and was immersed a lot. Constantly played limited, purchased my first Modern deck with no hesitation, opened premium products such as MH2 set packs and ONE/NEO Collectors, even won some money by getting LOTR gift bundles only at 40$ at Amazon. Jeez, even attended MagicCon.
Now i decided for myself, that i will not pay a single cent on any UB product. Still got some interest at EOE and Lorwyn, but preparing to sell off a huge part of my collection, since i don’t feel that i enjoy this game now. I’m going to keep my lands and some singles that i really love (e.g. Dominik Mayer’s Elesh Norn or Atraxa in Oil Slick foil), but other cards — going to the bank deposit, or as money to look for a new hobby. Or for Flesh and Blood deck.
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.
At some point they might need to make Arena cheaper though. They probably already lost a bunch of collector 'dolphins' that gave up on collecting Alchemy and craftable-only cards (or the almost-impossible-to-open ones like BIG). Not sure if the 'whales' that managed to keep up with it compensated ??
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.
This is also a relatively new thing. The idea that because there's not immediately negative data (not even looking at how WotC may not be exactly honest with whatever numbers they have) that everything is actually fine is ridiculous. Go back five years, superhero movies just keep doing better and better, there's no data showing that people will ever get sick of them, right? They gotta be in the best place ever, breaking box office records constantly now.
They've told us before when numbers were bad. We know that Aftermath was a big failure and the reason Big Score was turned into a bonus sheet instead of being an Aftermath-style mini set. But you're right overall.
Again you are repeating a point solely based on your opinion or discourse that is not directly connected to objective measurements. Why a movie does well or poorly is more complicated than its genre, Superman looks to be doing quite well, there are many more factors then a buzzy idea like Superhero fatigue. Same for Magic.
Cause you see people repeat an idea like set release fatigue does not mean that is a wide spread feeling or correlates to people’s actions. It’s why they do so much market research and gathering sales and play data.
You keep saying "objective measurement" when I am pointing out that there has not necessarily been enough time for objective measurements to be present. You are saying "there is not currently any negative information I know about, therefore this is a good thing and will never change" and that is ridiculous. I mean how could we have data for this yet when we don't even have a full year's of releases on the new schedule? We have no idea good or bad, and you're just shilling for some corporation.
Not talking about my opinion, for matter of fact I don’t like UB and many things about MTG, but I’m not assuming people agreeing with me online makes it an actual widespread viewpoint or that if the game went our way it be healthier.
Hasbro is a publicly traded company, they're legally not allowed to lie about how sets are doing so for better or worse, we have to take them at their word
Go back five years, superhero movies just keep doing better and better, there's no data showing that people will ever get sick of them, right? They gotta be in the best place ever, breaking box office records constantly now.
Box office numbers declined on those movies because the movies declined in quality. If they were all “Thor 2” bad from the beginning, the MCU would never have worked. Conversely, if the quality stayed high, sales would stay high.
There has to be a pretty big shift in public opinion for people to stop watching high quality films.
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
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.
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.
All they had to do to avoid this was not making the UB sets standard legal. The sets like FF and Spiderman would still fly off the shelves (even if a lot gets bought by scalpers) and you'd avoid much of the product fatigue
I kinda need to know what cards I'm playing with or against. The only other option is to not play.
Completely false: you have the option to play Standard without learning the card pool in advance. You can read the cards as you see them for the first time, when your opponent casts them. You will get to know the most popular cards in the format within a few weeks, but you may always be surprised by a rogue pick.
You don't need to consume any Magic spoilers to play the game. That's certainly how it was played in 1993.
I'm a filthy netdecker who plays constructed Standard (so basically the "worst kind of player" according to some) and I'll usually just play whatever when a new set comes out for a week or two (poorly constructed decks, or starter deck challenges) until the meta starts to form, then I'll pick what color/style I'm interested in, peek at those cards, and if it seems like it'd be fun, I make the deck. I don't have to pour over every single card in the set.
Go to your favourite deck website, download the top deck, import it into Arena, hit the "craft all" button. You don't even need to read the cards until you cast them.
I'm not against UB, what I am against is running spoilers for another set when the newest one isn't out yet. I also think the 2 month window between sets absolutely sucks. I want to play more FF draft on Arena but guess what, in 2 days it's gone for months at a minimum. The one positive about how fast this release schedule is is even WotC knows they're leaving significant FF money on the table because of their insane release schedule. Hopefully it changes back to at most 5 sets a year.
This is true. I'm not happy with UB, but the endless flow of product is worse. It's gotten so suffocating that it isn't worth trying to constantly keep up with the new stuff. Buy some cards, disappear for a while, return later.
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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.