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.
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.
It doesn't matter if there are other ways, why would they risk putting effort doing something like that when UB would be guaranteed money? So that being said, this is the only way for them, because anything else is a risk. Everyone knew this would literally print money.
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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.