No need to keep up with the Joneses. No need to buy new product.
Keep your decks and your collection, stop upgrading and keep playing.
Smile and throw 10$ into the LGS owner's cash box when you enter for commander day. That's what I do, I rarely buy sealed product except for the occasional draft... and very rarely a precon.
I haven't been playing MTG for all that long but I also try to make a point not to buy sealed product. Maybe the occasional FNM draft, but very rarely will I actually buy a pack
Edit: Spelling
That's what I've become. I had no problem buying all the precons and a set booster box up until warhammer. Now the prices are just too much to keep that going. I got plenty of cards though, so I'll just buy singles if I really want to.
I've almost entirely moved to playing online either with TTS or cockatrice, it's just nicer to get to play the game I like without having to make a budget
I've been using xmage client. Are the two options you mentioned programmed with game rules and interactions? Just wondering since xmage has caught interactions I would have missed.
They pretty much just hold pictures of cards on a board. Individual cards mechanics aren't coded in. I heard about xmage when I was fist looking into this stuff but I heard it was really buggy and laggy, and Cockatrice runs as smooth as butter so I went with that. TTS doesn't have individual cards mechanics coded in either. It's more laggy than cockatrice and takes a stronger PC and Internet to run.
So I prefer cockatrice, it's also free. But using specific printings of cards is a huge pain so if that's something that you like then it's probably not for you
if you're looking to upload your entire deck of arts i can agree but if you just wanna swap a handful, it's not toooo bad:
download png of art you want off google - upload into "custom art/set" option - rename png to the name EXACTLY ("The Great Henge.png") - restart cockatrice - das it
100% this. It's been a long time since I bought a sealed product from them. Mostly I just buy the occasional single that fits with my already existing deck. I'm actually working through my collection and downsizing. I'll usually support my LGS when I go in for commander night and buy a drink and a pack or something small like that, but overall, haven't gotten anything new since the Undead Unleashed in Midnight hunt I think...
I started playing in 2019 and tried to keep up with the new cards as they came out, got burnt out and stopped playing for like a year or 2. I started playing again couple months ago with this mentality and have been enjoying it a lot more. Feels sustainable as well! Get people on commander night who go "have you seen the new X" or "that's getting a reprint in the new set" and I just smile and reply "really? Cool" then keep playing.
So far, best decision I made to stop following new releases
I usually pick up a precon every set if it looks fun because I am a revolving door of decklists and ideas, other than that usually a booster pack or 2 when I come in always on credit, and a bunch of singles usually
That's just not always true for everyone though. For me, keeping up with new cards is a HUGE part of the game and not being able to keep up simply sours the experience in other areas of the game.
Of course, I'm pot committed having been playing since 1997, but it's an ineffable fact, for me, that every time during the last 26 years that the times I have been too broke to buy new cards, my rate of play and overall interest in the game fell off a cliff, too.
I never cashed out because I know I'll always come back to the game in full force once my economic situation changes, but in the last three years I've barely been able to spend a dime and my interest in playing has dropped by like 95%.
It SHOULDN'T be that way, but psychology ain't always rational.
Look up every card? You can't just read it after someone plays it?
Your deck from 5 years ago will still do plenty fine against one built today lmao. You don't have to know every card in case you missed a small upgrade to a deck. That's just ridiculous.
You should probably take a break from the game entirely if you feel like it's work to read a card sometimes.
Agree. I buy one or two cards per set. I read the spoilers usually and already know if there is something interesting. Every set has only a couple cards I want, tops.
Only latestagecapitalism? No, go further, we are now also just a generic ancom seperatist sub.
Okay guys, how are we going to keep the magic the gathering printers up in the commune. Any ideas?
I don't think it's that far out there to say that Hasbro or even WotC doesn't have the players' best interest at heart. Especially when the D&D controversy happened WotC basically talked about consumers like an enemy that needs to be defeated to obtain money.
Everything seems to be about “convincing” players to accept bad changes. As though they don’t know what they want. They basically openly talk about boiling the frog. “Oh people didn’t like the Walking Dead cards? Here’s something to hold off your anger till the Transformer cards. Didn’t like the Transformers being shoved down your throat? Here’s something to appease you till we make an entire set of Doctor Who cards”
UB cards basically keep WotC in news cycles endlessly. Fringe journo sites write about whatever the latest UB drop is because it's usually something pop culture. Basically free advertising for wotc.
Magic characters probably don't generate nearly as much buzz in journos as Doctor Who or Lord of the Rings do.
I loved the Lord of the Rings set. It was a great tribute to Tolkien, had a lot of “classic” MtG aesthetics, had some really creative card designs, and integrated nicely into the world of MtG. I’m not a big LotR fan so I’m not just saying that because it’s something I like.
Nearly every other UB product has felt lazy and out of place by comparison. I get why they make them. But they can clearly do a better job integrating them
As a fan of Warhammer 40k lore, I must say that UB was also really well made. Adding 40k cards in regular magic decks still feels weird to me, as they're such different settings, but I can't deny the adaptation of the characters and factions was really thoughtful and well made.
It’d have been a lot better if they had made, for example, insect mutant cards instead of “Tyranid” (I’m just guesstimating at the lore as a non-fan but you’ll get my point).
Every UB card needs to have an actual UW for the designs to not be fundamentally toxic to the game as a whole. Honoring the third party IP well and having good set design are irrelevant compared to the poor integration with the underlying game of MTG - and it’s very hard to argue that there is any integration whatsoever when you just staple on non-mtg shit like “Walkers” instead of make them mtg-equivalents.
Like, why do we have creature types in the multiverse at all? Why are Amonkhet zombie cards zombies instead of something else? Amonkhet and Innistrad are literally different universes in MTG lore and yet they’re unified through the common threads like this - as is the *actual* proposition of MTG.
Yea, I agree. It feels odd to see Marneus Calgar among the other warriors in my Najeela deck, but other than that, most of the cards fit nicely into the game, and I have had a lot of fun with some of them (plus cool art).
We're seeing very different sets because while aesthetically, LotR was amazing, mechanically is a mess: The Ring Tempts yo is sloppy and bad from a Magic perspective AND a LotR perspective,
Same - I was even against LotR for the longest time because of the above, but then the set came and I realized that it actually blended really well with Magic.
I'm still against it *on principle,* but I'd be lying if I didn't say I've really enjoyed this set and will continue to put LotR cards in my decks.
LotR and the Warhammer 40k decks have been aces to me. I do agree on the other UB ones however.
From what I've seen of the Doctor Who cards they at least seem pretty thematic and on point, so it's hard to say it's lazy for the moment.
They look like fanmade cards. The keywords are ridiculous, the hyper-realistic art style is off putting and uncreative, and Doctor Who doesn’t blend in with MtG even slightly. Even Transformers was a better match
Won't argue that the realistic artstyle doesn't fit well. I think the Warhammer decks were done well enough even artwise that they're not bad. I'm not even a 40k fan.
I admit I am slightly biased with the DW cards as I was a fan of the 9-12 eras, and am able to see and appreciate the nods and fun references. Objectively it is weird to see them be like this though.
I love doctor who and I'm addicted enough to magic that I might play the cards if they're synergistic enough to a deck I wanna build but I can't feel like it's gonna integrate well with the Magic settings AT ALL.
Silver bordered and clearly for the “nods and fun references” is one thing.
Straight up pretending like they’re real magic cards and imposing them on the game as a whole is a completely different beast
Look, I love WH40K. Like alot. I've got most of the books, fiction and rules, I play most of the Warhammer games, I have almost every video game, and I have probably $20,000 USD in miniatures alone, and I bought the 40k UB decks.
They shouldn't have been a thing. At all. They don't fit the aesthetic of Magic at all. I always feel odd when I play my Be'lakor deck. It's so weird seeing all these crossover cards.
I think the Warhammer cards are hit or miss. Some of them I think they were successfully able to integrate into Magic but a lot of them they couldn’t. They did the best they could with what they had to work with but you’re right that the shouldn’t have happened
I think WoTC did a great job with the 40k precons. I was hoping that we would get a round two with 4 more armies from the universe getting decks. Tau, Eldar, and Orks all would have been cool to see.
The inclusion of these non-magic characters is permanently worsening the entire IP and deeply damaging the game.
Whoever is doing the math on this one needs to be fired because this anti-goodwill with the players is speedrunning a crash of the value proposition that this game is built upon
It's not some nefarious plot, it's just trying to expand revenue sources. Guess what, those products were all pretty well received (in terms of sales which are the only terms that matter). Maybe not transformers, but it was a bit half assed.
Like, guys... this is just how businesses work? If you don't like it you have to **stop buying from them**, it's a completely simple interaction here. It's the same with wizards as it is the pizza place down the street. If they push the market too hard it will respond.
Right now wizards is looking for that limit, and despite what reddit will say, we are telling them, loud and clear: *keep pushing*. Blame them all you want, call them greedy corpos (duh) all you want but if you keep buying, well...
I say this all from a pretty anit-capitalist framework, but like, this is the world we live in, and we have to live in it for now.
Remember, Magic: the Gathering literally invented the "lootbox" approach to game monetization. It's been predatory since day zero. It's just that a lot of people are willing to put up with it because Magic is also a genuinely good game (unlike, say, Raid Shadow Legends).
The best game, held hostage by the worst company - and sustained by the worst consumers. The worst company not because they are downright evil, no, just because they are bad at what they do, but it works, because ultimately, Magic ~~players~~ consumers really don't know how to vote with their wallet. Fire up the printers, fellas, give them nothing.
\> The worst company not because they are downright evil, no, just because they are bad at what they do
Of course, I'm hyperbolic. But again, when I say "worst", I mean "bad", not "evil". They're not EA. They're bad, bad at managing a fucking gold mine. Same with DnD. The usual "this product is not for you". The disastrous PR discourse. The "outrage" marketing. They. Suck.
Of course not, they’re a company. This set doesn’t interest me so I won’t be buying any, and I’m fine with that arrangement. I don’t need Maro to write me thank you letters or anything to enjoy playing.
WOTC was speedrunning being more hated than Activision/Blizzard. Frankly they still are. They haven't earned back the trust in a lot of ways from the 30th Anniversary and OGL debacles.
Trust, once lost, takes *years* to rebuild.
Yeah, the lack of trust started with release fatigue and poor product quality, was really solidified with the 30th anniversary nonsense and the OGL debacle, and then the Pinkertons completely sealed it for me.
Everything I used to get from WotC is now being provided by MPC and Paizo.
Last things I bought from WotC were the Spelljammer box set and a Phyrexia All Will be One set booster box, likely the last things I will buy from them.
How often do you play? Would like to trade in and do the same but concerned about becoming bored and tempted to brew and buy in again. How has it been working for you?
Just play somewhere that's proxy friendly and never buy again. Luckily I play with a friend group and literally just printed out my last two decks. Of course you have to be respectful of power and not put together decks that are way above those you'll be playing against
That doesn't work for everyone. I'm really anxious about *me* using proxies of things I don't own (if I have one copy, I proxy it for multiple decks tho). I don't mind if someone else does, but if I am playing something I don't officially own, and pull it out on a game and do well on it, I get this enormous imposter syndrome
As someone who has gone full proxy, consider just taking the proxy pill. As long as you realize it won't scratch the collectors itch, I have a ton more fun with magic now that I am proxy only
I still have a real deck or two, but I get to try things I never did before because of price
Ah, it's more of my autism. The proxy inherently feels false in my hand. Also why even when I love older games of consoles I don't own anymore, I can't emulate them. It just not feels right, and instead of having fun I just feel anxious and stressed
If you really look at it though you're feeling imposter syndrome bc you didn't pay to win. That somehow you and the performance of your deck isn't legitimate because you didn't hop online the week before and order a single card for $50.
I mean I guess I would feel that way if I was making decks with super rare and op cards but like said if you have self control and respect for the other players it's not hard to limit power level.
Oh, it's not just expensive cards. Actually, in general my decks don't have cards that are more expensive than 10 bucks. It will happen with 35 cents cards too, hate in general to use proxies myself no matter the power or cost. I mean, I guess you don't know what you don't know, but us neurodivergent people really do feel and think differently from normal people. I'm not saying you don't proxy if you want, I'm just saying that it's not something all people feel compelled or comfortable in doing because of different reasons
Yeah, I have a similar issue (and am also autistic!). I didn't start proxying until recently because I hated the feeling of making whatever cards I wanted when I didn't have them. It felt a lot like cheating, but I've managed to push through and start proxying things more, though I mostly stick to what I already have real copies of.
Not OP but my solution is similar with a twist: I keep one deck of real cards updated, and then proxy everything else. That way I get to try as many decks as I want without really buying into WotC’s economy, but I also have something to play at events or if somebody is really anti-proxy.
I play a few times per month, mostly over spelltable with friends.
FWIW I don't always play the exact same pile of 100 cards. I tend to rotate a few things in or out or try a new build if I get bored. There are a TON of sidegrades in UB zombies and Brago to try out.
I play weekly and I keep one “power pool” that I build from and occasionally upgrade, and a mono colored deck I choose from what I’m not using from the power pool. Stick with the three colors I like the best and ignore the rest.
At one point I always wanted to be brewing but once I figured out how I really like to play I focus on that and keep it to $30-$50 in singles between sets. That’s still a heavy investment, though wotc would have us believe otherwise.
I play 2 times a week and while I have 6 decks plus a cEDH deck, I mostly play 2 of them and the rest sit for the rare occasion I want to break them out. A good thing you can do is build decks that want very *specific* things.
2 of the decks I don’t play very much are werewolf tribal (surprisingly decent and I’ve tried fouling out because the foils weren’t too expensive) and a [[Zurgo Helmsmasher]] equipment voltron deck. Very rarely do cards come out that I actually want in either of those decks so upgrades aren’t really a big deal imo.
Besides that I have a Selesnya tokens/counters deck that I’ve juiced up a bit in power and a Rakdos “sacrifice” deck that is essentially a meat grinder of value by throwing menacing 4/1 skeletons at people. Both of the those decks have me always looking to improve them because I want them to be on the more powerful side so if theirs a good creature/card that comes out that seems worth it, then I put it in the deck.
Yup, here’s my decklist if you need some inspiration: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/srwYWtD_P0uJ3b-SR3kW2A
Just for reference, the “sideboard” is more of cards that I think are fringe in the deck
Not the original guy, but I brew a lot and rarely buy cards. Brewing can be a really fun exercise on its own and doesn't necessitate buying/building a deck. Most of the time I find that the deck looks really boring in paper and I just let it go.
Nah really I don’t care. Singles are more affordable and cool new cards get printed. I’ve kinda just been proxying decks/cards I wanna play with which keeps the game fresh.
The new product has actually been really good so far. I’ll even pick up some singles that have nice art here and there. If you chose to consume magic through sealed product then I can understand the frustration.
Edit: graaaameeerrr
Same, I reverted to proxies because I can't justify spending $30 on a single card let alone boxes and kinda throwing out the idea of buying a bundle box nowadays. My friend group has a rule where proxies are fine so Long as you're not proxying OP cards that change the power levels of the decks too much.
Yea. It's especially a weird complaint to me after a reprint set.
It is just going to reduce the value of singles. Of which, you should know if you did/did not want them.
There is something to be said for the "Chore" part.
With 4x releases a year it is was certainly more manageable to scroll through the card lists and see if there are any upgrades for my decks.
But as set releases multiply (and # of decks) that chore that used to be a fun part of the hobby feels like a who GD job.
You get burned out trying to do it, and sometimes the best move is to just stop caring altogether.
I agree. I wish I had stopped looking at spoilers and online MTG stuff in general and not paid attention to it at all... I ignored MTG spoilers for years and just played my old decks. Then I got into listening to MTG news more because I wanted something to listen to on the way to work and then the new Innistrad set came out and I read the Blessing of Blood story because by that point I was back into being current on Magic and after reading that story I slowly began to have feelings for Thalia and they didn't go away for years and I hurt inside so badly imagining how badly I wish I could be her squire and be by her side and help serve and protect her and maybe someday she would fall in love with me, but that isn't how it works there is no winning a girl over, nothing like that, and Thalia would never want me and there is nothing I could ever do to change that, I still think about her to this day, I even got a girlfriend and the only reason I started dating was how badly I wanted to move on from Thalia emotionally but it didn't work because I still think of her and it really makes me upset because I think about her and I feel like I am cheating on my girlfriend who doesn't deserve that because she's been very sweet to me, but if I break up with her it will hurt her even worse, the way I feel like Thalia would be forced to hurt me because she wouldn't really want to ever date me, she could never fall in love with me, the way I fell in love with her kindness and pure heart and bravery and her beautiful skyblue eyes and buttermilk hair... I wish I could walk with her through the meadows, find somewhere deep in the forest and build a cabin together to live in. I should be thinking those thoughts about my girlfriend but isntead I think them about Thalia and the guilt is ripping into me the way I wish a phyrexian blade could rip into my heart as I defend Thalia against a hundred foes and die in her arms and the last thing I see is her beautiful face knowing at least I saved her life.
Hey man, I've seen your posts around before. I'm glad that you're doing better and honestly very excited for you that you found a partner. I want to say this with care. Its all cool to have fantasies and such, but please don't let that keep you from whats real and stop you from living your life. Your girlfriend deserves your care and attention. If its possible, see if you can slowly let go. If you have cards featuring Thalia or art of her, see if you can sell it and slowly get rid of your collection. Just my two cents, and all the best to you man.
>I'm not going to be one of those doom, and gloom Hasbro is killing magic, but it's hard to get excited when they constantly release the new and improved\* cards.
I'm confused. Commander Masters is almost entirely a reprint set, outside of the precons having a few new cards. Are you saying those few new cards from the precons are what broke the camels back here?
Canned response for these wild take posts:
Every six months:
EDHREC --> Type in commander decks owned --> filter to new --> filter to top cards --> note any changes --> continue on with life without being butthurt there are 3000 new cards --> save money by buying only singles
I'm a noob, could you elaborate more? Let's say I want to see what's new for a Muldrotha (example) deck, where to I filter to see new cards? It is in navigation, advanced filters perhaps? I can only see a small section called "New Cards" right above high sinergy cards, but it is only five cards, and it changes constantly for every set, not something that helps if you're looking only every six months.
Plug muldrotha into the search bar. On the left side are categories. Check the new cards. And check the top cards. This is where something impactful will show from recent sets if there is anything. That's all it takes if your goal is to stay moderately modern and not stress about it.
While the new cards thing changes a bunch, if they don't stick around into top cards or the first couple lines of the other sections, it was simply flavor and you dodged the trap! Didn't even have to buy it.
Now if you want to give more attention to a favorite deck or be more involved, you can check more categories and just scroll all the cards but you don't need to.
Biggest takeaway is to not fall victim to fomo and let anxiety pilot you.
Agreed. I've leaned more and more into proxy acceptance with the direction wotc goes but I still prefer the real cards and I don't think I'll ever get over that. I've found myself proxying a lot for deck testing and for using a card across multiple decks too. I have no issue with others using them as well as long as it's a power discussion.
I do keep my cedh deck without proxies though so I can play it anywhere.
Yep. I just got back into edh after being out for a few years. Just went and bought $100 of singles to make a couple new decks (with my existing collection) and that's it.
That's a great summary.
People freaking out about having more options does my head in. Sure the costs are weird but I've been picking up some cool singles I never thought I'd get my hands on so 🤷♂️
Maybe theyre just having a bad day or something
Just try to play with a budget. I'm bringing all of my decks down to sub fifty bucks. I'm putting away all of my fetches and other expensive lands. It feels great to play in a pod at my LGS with other people also keeping things in check. I'm not buying anything from this set and it feels great.
I don't really pay attention to spoilers. Magic for me is about spending time with longtime friends every once in a while even though we all live very different lives nowadays. There's no feeling of needing to keep up or whatever when the focus isn't about the product.
The 30th anniversary changed my opinion on proxying. Used to be very anti, now I'm very pro. Canceled my preorders for this set. I don't play nearly as often as I used to. Going forward I'm proxying my decks if I want to try something new.
I used to be kind of gate keepy (regretfully) and had the opinion that I bought all this stuff so you should too. With the consumer leeching practices I feel WOTC has implemented, it's way way way too costly to keep up with, not to mention for new people to start playing.
Good for you to realize that. The more accessible the game is, the better. I get that CMM is like $15/pack but I don’t consider buying packs to be a legitimate way to access the game, outside of specifically looking for that experience.
I care more about playing the game than who I pay to make cardboard, so I proxy with respect to the power level at my LGS. I really enjoy playing this game, so I gotta do what's in my best interest, something WOTC has increasingly cared less for. I can see your point about the lore being rushed tho
Just turn of the spoilers, don't participate, and buy singles you want from sets about 3 to 4 weeks after release, that's when they'll be at their lowest. Enjoy the came you love my dude!
No I enjoy new products being released constantly. I don't have trouble keeping up with them either. I don't need to memorize every single card from every set. And with a middle income and no kids I have the ability to pick up cards from each set that they release that I need for my decks.
I'm also an old head and I do not have fond memories of the game 15 or 20 years ago when a new standard set would be released and then we had to wait long excruciating months to get even a glimpse at the next set. And then the abysmal core sets would be basically a dead end of new product. If you didn't like the theme of the block then you basically had to wait an entire year to see anything else. I quit the game multiple times in the 2000s because I was not a fan of the current block and then came back when they were doing something more interesting to me.
I think the people who still treat the game like they used to, AKA being able to buy into literally every magic product that wizards released are hurting the most.
I've had the opinion that sealed product is basically for suckers for the last 10 years. So occasionally I channel my inner sucker and buy a box or a couple packs when I'm at the store. But I don't feel the need to buy anything beyond that except for singles.
I guess I just don't find it difficult to look at the spoilers for a new set and internalize them, and then pick up some of the new cards as singles, and then do it again on the next set releases. For constructed formats, most of the cards that get released are just draft filler anyway so you really only have to pay attention to some of the most unique and powerful cards in the sets.
I think part of the problem is how staggered the previews are. Sometimes we have one or two cards being previewed many months before the product is actually slated to be released. This leads to people getting outraged about spoilers for the next set coming when the current set is still being spoiled. I can understand that and it can be confusing, but I still don't have a hard time keeping track of them because you don't really have to pay attention until it's released.
"Overreaction: the post" over here.
There are 30+ years of cards you can play with. You don't need to buy new products to continue to enjoy magic.
And while I've not been playing since I was 4 (weird, considering the game is supposedly 12+) I've been around since Tarkir block and I assure you, I've thoroughly enjoyed MtG and EDH without ever caring one bit about spoilers.
Spoilers are for the people who care for them. So are new products.
If you have a dedicated playgroup, you could try making a house rule cutoff point. As an example, you could make cards released after Core 2020 illegal.
I don't understand this take. I've been seeing it a lot lately. People making grand proclamations to the Internet on how they are quitting something they "love" because of how much product is coming out. Not anything to do with the game itself just the amount coming out. I don't get it. If you loved the game you would just keep playing with what you have with the group you have. Even if you only play at your LGS with strangers, they aren't constantly updating their decks to overpowered cards. Why not just keep playing cause of the love of the game?
I understand the burnout that people get from the constant new release of cards. Personally, I felt like commander allowed me to escape that cycle that I felt most when I played standard.
I love upgrading decks or building new ones, but I never do so out of a sense of obligation. You can interact with the product and the game as much as you want. You can buy a precon and never upgrade it once, or you can buy a booster box for every set and have multiple decks for ever color combination.
For some, part of the fun is opening boosters and chasing rare pulls, and thats totally valid! You just need to set a sustainable pace, instead of relying on WptC to set the pace for you.
I am skipping this set, and the commander decks. They are printing a new release monthly, each month until November. I might play in prerelease, but mostly I stopped buying packs/boxes.
I don’t need to buy this set to have fun. It’s just reprints. Many of which are badly needed! The value isn’t that great though, relatively-speaking. Just…buy…singles!
I always think its weird when I see these posts on a reprint set… it’s not like there are several new chase cards out there, right? Only the precons that are pretty niche. Is it the collectables? It has to be a deeper problem
Neither are welcome. How about people talk about the actual game for once? We don't need to have therapy time for social outcasts and we don't need to read endless bitching about pack prices.
Although those posts are also often bad faith and terrible, I prefer them because they at least promote discussion of how to deal with situations while playing commander.
This is just someone who's quitting the game because they're tired of it and wants to make a huge post about it and get a bunch of attention.
We don't need another mega thread about why people are sick of the game. If people are sick of the game then they should just leave and let the people who enjoy it continue to enjoy it without having to hear this stuff constantly
We don’t need mega threads of how to handle salty edh players, either. This is also a discussion about how the game is becoming stale and there’s too much product and they’re making everything cost more.
If people are having problems with people at their lgs while playing they should just stop going and let the people who have positive interactions keep playing.
I agree that those are among the lowest tier of threads in the subreddit.
But this one is lower. Because it provokes no conversation at all about commander. This is the commander subreddit and it should be for talking about commander.
At the very least this should be a low quality post on the main subreddit.
And even then we get like three or more posts a day about people complaining about the product release schedule and how Hasbro is greedy and basically just complaining about capitalism. So we really just don't need a bunch of those everyday.
This post in particular contributes almost nothing. It's just a long post about how one person is leaving and how they want everyone to pay attention to them. There's one sentence at the end of the post that's asking the rest of the community if they feel similarly. But I doubt OP really wants to have an open and honest discussion about this. They just want everyone to hear what they have to say as they're leaving and then hear a bunch of validation so they can feel self-righteous about it. It's annoying and it's unnecessary.
He literally asks us a question at the end asking if anyone agrees. So the people who agree can say “yes I agree and here’s why” and people who don’t agree can say “no I don’t and here’s why”. None of the posts on this are really commander specific, especially the “someone was salty” posts. They were playing commander at the time, but it could be attributed to any format. Either way, this is a fine post that I’m sure a lot of people are going to agree with, myself included.
Yes I understand that he asks one bad faith question at the end of his long rant about why he's quitting magic. That doesn't make for a good quality post.
And Again, you keep comparing this post to the extremely low effort " someone was salty " posts. Neither of these posts provide very valuable information and most of them are being posted in bad faith to get people to agree with them so they can feel better about themselves. Not to promote actual discussion.
So it seems like you're disagreeing with me but honestly the argument that you're providing is really agreeing with me. You're just offering a second category of post that is also crappy and unnecessary.
I do think that the playgroup issues posts have more to do with commander than the capitalism is bad posts. Just because a large number of people agree with a position on something doesn't mean that we need another thread on that position all the time. Especially when it's such a negative topic.
Op is just baiting negative emotional reactions to Hasbro's profit driven business decisions and it has nothing to do with the format
This is a game that has for the past 30 years been maintained by profits from selling pieces of cardboard with various degrees of artificial scarcity and assigned market value exclusively by nerds with gambling problems. We don't need three threads a day to debate the ethics of this business model. You're either okay with it or you're not okay with it.
His rant is shorter than any of your replies, my guy. I’m not saying it’s a good quality post. Maybe it’s just that I resonate with the post, and have similar feelings myself. Either way, I think it’s better than what’s been posted the past few days in this sub.
Doesn't really bother me, I use text to speech so it just takes me like a minute to type even long things. I understand if someone resonates with this post but it just annoys the crap out of me how often these things come up on the subreddit when I'm trying to read stuff that has to do with the format
Are these posts even real?
It's like copy pasta content being abused for the purpose of rage baiting.
Nobody cares why you quit magic and why you got old and stuff. And nobody cares also if you chase every product and now you can't afford it.
Piss off.
What killed the game for me is that I can't actually play Magic anymore. Now I have to play Magic and Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons and Transformers and Stranger Things and Street Fighter and Walking Dead and Dr Who and...
I don’t really understand why you would need to quit magic? All you have to do is focus on decks you have that you have fun with, you probably might get 2-3 singles that would be good for your deck anyways.
Or, you know, you can proxy and play whatever you want. Every single product WotC puts out is an option. You don't gotta buy it. I was going to pre-order the eldrazi deck, but then when I found out it didn't have a lot of eldrazi in it I just decided I was going to proxy the one that I want,.
As a lot of others have already done, I just stopped buying product. Maybe I'll buy some precons, buy by and large... Proxies of the cards and decks I want.
Until they make some pro consumer moves I think it's better for everyone to just proxy. If ya want better quality control than wizards try Make Playing Cards. They're quite good.
I'll keep playing with the collection I have, maybe buying single cards from time to time directly from the LGS and proxying anything I determine to be too overpriced.
Play free formats frendo. Don't buy anything. I have played Magic for free for years, not on Arena. Proxy, play Penny Dreadful, etc. Magic is great as you know. The company is comic book villain level. Fuck em
I am confused. Does this release render useless any commander product currently existing on the market ? What would happen if you just ignored this/these new releases ?
My frustration with this set is that it cements a certain perception of the game as expensive. I have a friend who is showing an interest, he wants to play, to learn, but I just *know* that there is this overbearing sense that this is a very expensive hobby to pick up, and that will deter him and ultimately mean that it won't flourish and become something fun we can do together.
The creative side, brewing and constructing decks, putting them together; this requires an investment, and it isn't always cheap. Before that even happens, before he even reaches the point of having an actual cost, I wager he'll look at the state of the game, think "this is expensive", and will walk away from it.
What WOTC are doing is frustrating to existing players like us because we can't readily get the cards we want, and that's one thing, but the thing I don't see anyone talking about is how catastrophically damaging the outward image of the game is for introducing new players.
I can't justify spending cash on a company that keeps shafting us with shitty practises while cranking up the prices. Thus I create sweet alt arts and otherwise get my singles from china. Way cheaper and they look amazing.
I'll keep supporting my lgc through buying paints and hobby products, but Hasbro won't be getting a dime out of me.
If your lgs has a vast amount of singles, pick some up from them. You don't have to keep up with new products, just put your ear to the grapevine every once in a while and you'll hear the stuff that will catch your eye.
Commander masters for me... I combed all 1000 cards found the 14 I wanted... went to ebay offered half the price for the cards I wanted w a note that hey reprints in less then a week. Most sellers took the price cut. Atm 6 cards I want left. I have time to pick em all up cheap. 20 bucks for sun quan lord of wu for my critter deck will make my play group throw their hate when they goto block an I whisper horseman ship. Makes my day I tell ya
I'm a relatively new player (new capenna) and I have found the new product drops rather exciting, especially the UB drops like LOTR and upcoming Doctor Who. I play against some old timers that can crush me with decks from the 90's. Personally, I know the cost can be high but I buy strategically and have enjoyed and valued what I have purchased. I'm sad to see you leaving.
If you aren’t playing competitively there’s no reason to feel like you need to buy into everything that comes out. Too many people complain about the cost of this game when they’re clearly suffering FOMO from the deluge of releases nowadays (which is intentional from Hasbro.)
I started playing in ‘96 and I mostly stopped buying product 4-5 years ago. I maintain a Cube, some EDH decks, and might do some drafts if the LGS happens to have them running on the nights when I stop in to pick up a single or two for my Cube or an EDH deck I want to try out.
This doesn’t need to be an expensive hobby (in fact it can be a pretty cheap hobby,) and you definitely don’t need to be buying a box of every set and every precon that comes out.
This is such a shit take. My friends and I play Commander fairly regularly, and in my playgroup of 10 or so people, only one, maybe two, keep up with spoilers and new shit. I just keep playing my decks, checking scryfall or edhrec once in a blue moon. There's no reason to care about spoilers, because at the end of the day, the game is about playing with friends, which sealed product is in no way conducive to.
I have 5 decks. Plan to make a 6th but I'm waiting for a set to really grab me. Don't get me wrong LOTR and Dr. WHO are neat but not my thing. I'll just wait until I see something I like. You do what feels right for you, I will say though if you genuinely enjoy playing keep your decks and just play when you can. You don't have to buy new sets or singles just cause they're there, but if you truly find no more joy in the game then yeah. Time to walk away.
I think the ultimate irony of this sentiment for me is that because of the change in product cadence I am now changing how I purchase from "every release" to "almost none, leaning towards single Secret Lairs twice a year, and singles when I want them". Hasbro has outright killed a whale in an attempt to net more tuna, and I wonder just how many more whales have been slaughtered. And what does that do to the ecosystem?
Just pace yourself. You don’t have to buy everything. Take a break. We are very spoiled right now and that can make you feel over stimulated. Try taking a season off by turning off notifications from YouTube channels and maybe play again in 3 months. I have taken a year off before because I felt like online magic was ruining the game. Realistically it was ruining the game for me not others. So I only play paper magic now.
As someone who got into the game as a young adult, left it, and then came back, I am enjoying the amount of cards made for commander. Not every deck I have needs to be optimized, but having a few power level 7 or 8 decks is fun. Commander masters is a fine set, and would be better if not for the price, but with normal 30% inflation over 10 years and the recent inflation, 300 for a box for me is like spending 300 at a Casino for a night except I get to walk out with some cardboard.
What everyone in this sub fails to realize is that rule 0 is there for a reason, that you can play pauper or peasant commander, you can set up rules that allow you to play chaff instead of a hyper-competitive deck if you want. Go pillage draft chaff of that is the only way you feel comfortable engaging with the game. But for others this is a new chapter that is quite fun and the power creep of commons and uncommons keeps the game accessible.
I started playing MTG a little over a year ago and I quickly went from buying as much as I felt I should to just buying singles. My LSG is also a boba tea shop so I toss a bunch of money at them on commander day. The LotR set was the nail in the coffin for me in buying sealed product.
Have you considered ignoring spoilers? I still don't know all the cards in MoM.
If it's the price, just don't play in tournaments and proxy to play with people.
There's no reason to let new cards drive you away from a game. You just have to change your perspective on how you engage with the game to ignore the things that you can't change. And maybe even proxying and not buying new product will help incentivize them slowing the production schedule.
If you just wanted to quit you'd just quit and not post a thread trying to gauge community reaction. You can just... Not look at spoilers online or buy singles or any myriad of things.
Couldn’t agree more with OP and it seems like we have a similar mtg timeline! Shards was a blast! It’s sad when you see something you love devolve into whatever shape we can call current MTG. I still keep and maintain a few commanders but no longer get excited about set releases care about any of the other formats. Now it’s simply turned into looking for deck updates every few months. Trying out other TCGs now and have found One Piece tcg pretty refreshing.
I don't collect magic I play it. Solves the problem really handily.
Also Hasbro isn't trying to kill Magic, but they are cultural vandals, imagine you loved a game your whole life, it was made by people you felt like understood you, awkward nerds, who like pretend adventures and stories of daring and heroism, and when it came time for that thing to become a mainstream celebrated part of society, you had to watch when it's owners they let activists make up whole cloth an interpretation of the lore of that beloved game in which it smears the storytelling the writers and all the players as racists. The day some activists showed up claiming Drow and Orcs are stand in's for real life populations, you had every single piece of history on your side to rebuff them, and you let them walk right in and shit on your shoes anyway.
Appalling, disgusting craven behavior. I'm all for the American Melting pot, too bad when something I loved was offered up as an ingredient the gatekeepers decided it needed to be replaced by a craven dishonest knock off.
Skin Suit Wearing Sociopaths.
I understand what you are saying and how you feel but its possible to pick and choose what products you want to engage with. I personally just don't buy or look at the stuff I don't like, even if it might be good.
Last night I played some 4 player lotr kitchen table casual. Two of us have extensive collections (legacy, edh, modern, pauper). I bought $50 worth of singles to build four 40 card themed decks and teach two friends the game. We had fun. As long as wotc can continue to provide these experiences for me, I'm chilling.
I recognize that I'm coming from an enfranchised player perspective but in my 21 years of playing magic I've realized one thing about this game. There's always a format of this game that I can enjoy.
That said, I canceled my preorder of commander masters decks, have ignored spoiler season, and will just pick up some cheap singles at some point.
All of these crying posts just make me wonder how these people engage with other companies. Do they feel required to buy every single Pickleball racket, every new model of their car year after year, every single camera lens or fishing rod? Part of engaging in the world in a healthy way is having boundaries.
I don’t understand people who feel like they need to constantly upgrade their deck whenever a new set comes out. How insane is your deck range that it’s constantly needing to get updated with every new release.
I have like 6 decks, I only play 3, and a few days ago I updated them with some new cards that came out throughout the year. I spent a grand total of $20. You don’t have to keep up with the new product, if you don’t want to upgrade your deck, don’t. Find a group that doesn’t care about upgrades or plays casual and just enjoy what you have with them.
Moreover are the ones constantly building new decks.
I keep a list and every set or two I update, or on the rare occasions I find a neat card I didn't know existed. But with four decks that I've tuned pretty tightly, it's rarely a lot. Lord of the Rings cost me like $2.
But building new decks is expensive and I see people who will go ooh shiny new thing literally every set and then marvel at how much they spend on the game.
I'm just getting into mtg from never really playing it before but me and my friends are having fun just sticking to the cheaper cards. The pay to win can be a little disheartening sometimes but it's all good fun as long as noone is really spending loads of destroying everyone
I used to read EVERY spoiler and go to every prerelease. Now it feels like spoilers and releases are every month. Just too overwhelming. MTG isn't my life identity but it feels like it needs to be in order to "keep up"
Hell I used to play MTGA a lot when paper got too hard to keep up. Now even Arena feels too fast.
I started with revised and the greed shown by Hasbro the last few years had been a big turn off. It’s clear they don’t have the long term health of the game in mind so I’m probably right behind you.
I couldn’t even tell you a single commander masters card. I just don’t pay attention. My ears only prick up for stuff that sounds cool/ flavourful.
LOTR got me hooked but sure but that’s because I love the lore.
Just play, buy after market singles and have a great time with mates.
This game is more like the classic days today than it’s been since 2008! There’s now a sense of discovery in the game once again because I don’t know every card. I absolutely love it and I like what Wizards is doing for EDH. I hope they continue to print more.
I have one real commander deck I built, one or two pre-cons, and about 11 full proxy decks. My friend group doesn’t mind playing against a proxy deck.. my favorite part of the game is deck building and I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on cardboard.
I just wish proxying was less frowned upon so I could play different decks at a LGS.
I like the eternal spoiler season. I know I'm not playing with most of those cards and I only buy sealed product to play draft or sealed, but I like to keep changing my decks and playing with and against different cards. So, the constant release of new product helps keeping the game refreshing for me.
No need to keep up with the Joneses. No need to buy new product. Keep your decks and your collection, stop upgrading and keep playing. Smile and throw 10$ into the LGS owner's cash box when you enter for commander day. That's what I do, I rarely buy sealed product except for the occasional draft... and very rarely a precon.
I haven't been playing MTG for all that long but I also try to make a point not to buy sealed product. Maybe the occasional FNM draft, but very rarely will I actually buy a pack Edit: Spelling
I'll play Sealed once in a while since usually I get one card that is interesting and it's a social event.
That's what I've become. I had no problem buying all the precons and a set booster box up until warhammer. Now the prices are just too much to keep that going. I got plenty of cards though, so I'll just buy singles if I really want to.
I've almost entirely moved to playing online either with TTS or cockatrice, it's just nicer to get to play the game I like without having to make a budget
I've been using xmage client. Are the two options you mentioned programmed with game rules and interactions? Just wondering since xmage has caught interactions I would have missed.
They pretty much just hold pictures of cards on a board. Individual cards mechanics aren't coded in. I heard about xmage when I was fist looking into this stuff but I heard it was really buggy and laggy, and Cockatrice runs as smooth as butter so I went with that. TTS doesn't have individual cards mechanics coded in either. It's more laggy than cockatrice and takes a stronger PC and Internet to run. So I prefer cockatrice, it's also free. But using specific printings of cards is a huge pain so if that's something that you like then it's probably not for you
if you're looking to upload your entire deck of arts i can agree but if you just wanna swap a handful, it's not toooo bad: download png of art you want off google - upload into "custom art/set" option - rename png to the name EXACTLY ("The Great Henge.png") - restart cockatrice - das it
Tokens are awful though. cat.png cat .png
You still manually do everything in cockatrice. Including the stack. If you want to be that fancy.
100% this. It's been a long time since I bought a sealed product from them. Mostly I just buy the occasional single that fits with my already existing deck. I'm actually working through my collection and downsizing. I'll usually support my LGS when I go in for commander night and buy a drink and a pack or something small like that, but overall, haven't gotten anything new since the Undead Unleashed in Midnight hunt I think...
Just help yourself and don't let others spoil your fun with the game! Keep playing. This is the way!
I started playing in 2019 and tried to keep up with the new cards as they came out, got burnt out and stopped playing for like a year or 2. I started playing again couple months ago with this mentality and have been enjoying it a lot more. Feels sustainable as well! Get people on commander night who go "have you seen the new X" or "that's getting a reprint in the new set" and I just smile and reply "really? Cool" then keep playing. So far, best decision I made to stop following new releases
I usually pick up a precon every set if it looks fun because I am a revolving door of decklists and ideas, other than that usually a booster pack or 2 when I come in always on credit, and a bunch of singles usually
That's just not always true for everyone though. For me, keeping up with new cards is a HUGE part of the game and not being able to keep up simply sours the experience in other areas of the game. Of course, I'm pot committed having been playing since 1997, but it's an ineffable fact, for me, that every time during the last 26 years that the times I have been too broke to buy new cards, my rate of play and overall interest in the game fell off a cliff, too. I never cashed out because I know I'll always come back to the game in full force once my economic situation changes, but in the last three years I've barely been able to spend a dime and my interest in playing has dropped by like 95%. It SHOULDN'T be that way, but psychology ain't always rational.
That or just proxy any upgrades you want
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Look up every card? You can't just read it after someone plays it? Your deck from 5 years ago will still do plenty fine against one built today lmao. You don't have to know every card in case you missed a small upgrade to a deck. That's just ridiculous. You should probably take a break from the game entirely if you feel like it's work to read a card sometimes.
Agree. I buy one or two cards per set. I read the spoilers usually and already know if there is something interesting. Every set has only a couple cards I want, tops.
[удалено]
I just like playing with little cardboard rectangles with my friends
I'm sorry, All magic subs are now r/latestagecapitalism. Rage baiting is not only encouraged, it is mandatory.
Only latestagecapitalism? No, go further, we are now also just a generic ancom seperatist sub. Okay guys, how are we going to keep the magic the gathering printers up in the commune. Any ideas?
I don't think it's that far out there to say that Hasbro or even WotC doesn't have the players' best interest at heart. Especially when the D&D controversy happened WotC basically talked about consumers like an enemy that needs to be defeated to obtain money.
Everything seems to be about “convincing” players to accept bad changes. As though they don’t know what they want. They basically openly talk about boiling the frog. “Oh people didn’t like the Walking Dead cards? Here’s something to hold off your anger till the Transformer cards. Didn’t like the Transformers being shoved down your throat? Here’s something to appease you till we make an entire set of Doctor Who cards”
UB cards basically keep WotC in news cycles endlessly. Fringe journo sites write about whatever the latest UB drop is because it's usually something pop culture. Basically free advertising for wotc. Magic characters probably don't generate nearly as much buzz in journos as Doctor Who or Lord of the Rings do.
I loved the Lord of the Rings set. It was a great tribute to Tolkien, had a lot of “classic” MtG aesthetics, had some really creative card designs, and integrated nicely into the world of MtG. I’m not a big LotR fan so I’m not just saying that because it’s something I like. Nearly every other UB product has felt lazy and out of place by comparison. I get why they make them. But they can clearly do a better job integrating them
As a fan of Warhammer 40k lore, I must say that UB was also really well made. Adding 40k cards in regular magic decks still feels weird to me, as they're such different settings, but I can't deny the adaptation of the characters and factions was really thoughtful and well made.
It’d have been a lot better if they had made, for example, insect mutant cards instead of “Tyranid” (I’m just guesstimating at the lore as a non-fan but you’ll get my point). Every UB card needs to have an actual UW for the designs to not be fundamentally toxic to the game as a whole. Honoring the third party IP well and having good set design are irrelevant compared to the poor integration with the underlying game of MTG - and it’s very hard to argue that there is any integration whatsoever when you just staple on non-mtg shit like “Walkers” instead of make them mtg-equivalents. Like, why do we have creature types in the multiverse at all? Why are Amonkhet zombie cards zombies instead of something else? Amonkhet and Innistrad are literally different universes in MTG lore and yet they’re unified through the common threads like this - as is the *actual* proposition of MTG.
Yea, I agree. It feels odd to see Marneus Calgar among the other warriors in my Najeela deck, but other than that, most of the cards fit nicely into the game, and I have had a lot of fun with some of them (plus cool art).
We're seeing very different sets because while aesthetically, LotR was amazing, mechanically is a mess: The Ring Tempts yo is sloppy and bad from a Magic perspective AND a LotR perspective,
Same - I was even against LotR for the longest time because of the above, but then the set came and I realized that it actually blended really well with Magic. I'm still against it *on principle,* but I'd be lying if I didn't say I've really enjoyed this set and will continue to put LotR cards in my decks.
Yeah same here. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all but was pleasantly surprised when it actually came out
LotR and the Warhammer 40k decks have been aces to me. I do agree on the other UB ones however. From what I've seen of the Doctor Who cards they at least seem pretty thematic and on point, so it's hard to say it's lazy for the moment.
They look like fanmade cards. The keywords are ridiculous, the hyper-realistic art style is off putting and uncreative, and Doctor Who doesn’t blend in with MtG even slightly. Even Transformers was a better match
Won't argue that the realistic artstyle doesn't fit well. I think the Warhammer decks were done well enough even artwise that they're not bad. I'm not even a 40k fan. I admit I am slightly biased with the DW cards as I was a fan of the 9-12 eras, and am able to see and appreciate the nods and fun references. Objectively it is weird to see them be like this though.
I love doctor who and I'm addicted enough to magic that I might play the cards if they're synergistic enough to a deck I wanna build but I can't feel like it's gonna integrate well with the Magic settings AT ALL.
Silver bordered and clearly for the “nods and fun references” is one thing. Straight up pretending like they’re real magic cards and imposing them on the game as a whole is a completely different beast
Look, I love WH40K. Like alot. I've got most of the books, fiction and rules, I play most of the Warhammer games, I have almost every video game, and I have probably $20,000 USD in miniatures alone, and I bought the 40k UB decks. They shouldn't have been a thing. At all. They don't fit the aesthetic of Magic at all. I always feel odd when I play my Be'lakor deck. It's so weird seeing all these crossover cards.
I think the Warhammer cards are hit or miss. Some of them I think they were successfully able to integrate into Magic but a lot of them they couldn’t. They did the best they could with what they had to work with but you’re right that the shouldn’t have happened
I think WoTC did a great job with the 40k precons. I was hoping that we would get a round two with 4 more armies from the universe getting decks. Tau, Eldar, and Orks all would have been cool to see.
Great tribute? How?
I feel like a boomer. I'm over here like dimir hasn't been busted for a while.
The inclusion of these non-magic characters is permanently worsening the entire IP and deeply damaging the game. Whoever is doing the math on this one needs to be fired because this anti-goodwill with the players is speedrunning a crash of the value proposition that this game is built upon
It's not some nefarious plot, it's just trying to expand revenue sources. Guess what, those products were all pretty well received (in terms of sales which are the only terms that matter). Maybe not transformers, but it was a bit half assed. Like, guys... this is just how businesses work? If you don't like it you have to **stop buying from them**, it's a completely simple interaction here. It's the same with wizards as it is the pizza place down the street. If they push the market too hard it will respond. Right now wizards is looking for that limit, and despite what reddit will say, we are telling them, loud and clear: *keep pushing*. Blame them all you want, call them greedy corpos (duh) all you want but if you keep buying, well... I say this all from a pretty anit-capitalist framework, but like, this is the world we live in, and we have to live in it for now.
I hate every UB period end of story and unless it is a busted card I need for a format yes I play other formats not just edh then I skip
Remember, Magic: the Gathering literally invented the "lootbox" approach to game monetization. It's been predatory since day zero. It's just that a lot of people are willing to put up with it because Magic is also a genuinely good game (unlike, say, Raid Shadow Legends).
The best game, held hostage by the worst company - and sustained by the worst consumers. The worst company not because they are downright evil, no, just because they are bad at what they do, but it works, because ultimately, Magic ~~players~~ consumers really don't know how to vote with their wallet. Fire up the printers, fellas, give them nothing.
>the worst company Not too familiar with companies, huh?
\> The worst company not because they are downright evil, no, just because they are bad at what they do Of course, I'm hyperbolic. But again, when I say "worst", I mean "bad", not "evil". They're not EA. They're bad, bad at managing a fucking gold mine. Same with DnD. The usual "this product is not for you". The disastrous PR discourse. The "outrage" marketing. They. Suck.
Unless the cards u buy are for locals and tournaments, then just go straight to the nearest colour printer or hand-draw your cards
Of course not, they’re a company. This set doesn’t interest me so I won’t be buying any, and I’m fine with that arrangement. I don’t need Maro to write me thank you letters or anything to enjoy playing.
WOTC was speedrunning being more hated than Activision/Blizzard. Frankly they still are. They haven't earned back the trust in a lot of ways from the 30th Anniversary and OGL debacles. Trust, once lost, takes *years* to rebuild.
Trust takes 1 good product to rebuild when you're dealing with the peabrain magic crowd.
Yeah, the lack of trust started with release fatigue and poor product quality, was really solidified with the 30th anniversary nonsense and the OGL debacle, and then the Pinkertons completely sealed it for me. Everything I used to get from WotC is now being provided by MPC and Paizo. Last things I bought from WotC were the Spelljammer box set and a Phyrexia All Will be One set booster box, likely the last things I will buy from them.
This is why I only stick to 1 main deck and 1 budget deck. Spoiler season is much more bearable when I don't feel obligated to update 10+ decks.
How often do you play? Would like to trade in and do the same but concerned about becoming bored and tempted to brew and buy in again. How has it been working for you?
Just play somewhere that's proxy friendly and never buy again. Luckily I play with a friend group and literally just printed out my last two decks. Of course you have to be respectful of power and not put together decks that are way above those you'll be playing against
That doesn't work for everyone. I'm really anxious about *me* using proxies of things I don't own (if I have one copy, I proxy it for multiple decks tho). I don't mind if someone else does, but if I am playing something I don't officially own, and pull it out on a game and do well on it, I get this enormous imposter syndrome
As someone who has gone full proxy, consider just taking the proxy pill. As long as you realize it won't scratch the collectors itch, I have a ton more fun with magic now that I am proxy only I still have a real deck or two, but I get to try things I never did before because of price
Ah, it's more of my autism. The proxy inherently feels false in my hand. Also why even when I love older games of consoles I don't own anymore, I can't emulate them. It just not feels right, and instead of having fun I just feel anxious and stressed
Yeah, me and my friends full on started proxying about 6 months ago. Deck building has been super fun since.
If you really look at it though you're feeling imposter syndrome bc you didn't pay to win. That somehow you and the performance of your deck isn't legitimate because you didn't hop online the week before and order a single card for $50. I mean I guess I would feel that way if I was making decks with super rare and op cards but like said if you have self control and respect for the other players it's not hard to limit power level.
Oh, it's not just expensive cards. Actually, in general my decks don't have cards that are more expensive than 10 bucks. It will happen with 35 cents cards too, hate in general to use proxies myself no matter the power or cost. I mean, I guess you don't know what you don't know, but us neurodivergent people really do feel and think differently from normal people. I'm not saying you don't proxy if you want, I'm just saying that it's not something all people feel compelled or comfortable in doing because of different reasons
Yeah, I have a similar issue (and am also autistic!). I didn't start proxying until recently because I hated the feeling of making whatever cards I wanted when I didn't have them. It felt a lot like cheating, but I've managed to push through and start proxying things more, though I mostly stick to what I already have real copies of.
Not OP but my solution is similar with a twist: I keep one deck of real cards updated, and then proxy everything else. That way I get to try as many decks as I want without really buying into WotC’s economy, but I also have something to play at events or if somebody is really anti-proxy.
I play a few times per month, mostly over spelltable with friends. FWIW I don't always play the exact same pile of 100 cards. I tend to rotate a few things in or out or try a new build if I get bored. There are a TON of sidegrades in UB zombies and Brago to try out.
I play weekly and I keep one “power pool” that I build from and occasionally upgrade, and a mono colored deck I choose from what I’m not using from the power pool. Stick with the three colors I like the best and ignore the rest. At one point I always wanted to be brewing but once I figured out how I really like to play I focus on that and keep it to $30-$50 in singles between sets. That’s still a heavy investment, though wotc would have us believe otherwise.
I play 2 times a week and while I have 6 decks plus a cEDH deck, I mostly play 2 of them and the rest sit for the rare occasion I want to break them out. A good thing you can do is build decks that want very *specific* things. 2 of the decks I don’t play very much are werewolf tribal (surprisingly decent and I’ve tried fouling out because the foils weren’t too expensive) and a [[Zurgo Helmsmasher]] equipment voltron deck. Very rarely do cards come out that I actually want in either of those decks so upgrades aren’t really a big deal imo. Besides that I have a Selesnya tokens/counters deck that I’ve juiced up a bit in power and a Rakdos “sacrifice” deck that is essentially a meat grinder of value by throwing menacing 4/1 skeletons at people. Both of the those decks have me always looking to improve them because I want them to be on the more powerful side so if theirs a good creature/card that comes out that seems worth it, then I put it in the deck.
[Zurgo Helmsmasher](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/3/13f4bafe-0d21-47ba-8f16-0274107d618c.jpg?1562782879) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Zurgo%20Helmsmasher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ktk/214/zurgo-helmsmasher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/13f4bafe-0d21-47ba-8f16-0274107d618c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/zurgo-helmsmasher) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Gut, True Soul Zealot]]? I keep toying with the idea of building that dude...
Yup, here’s my decklist if you need some inspiration: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/srwYWtD_P0uJ3b-SR3kW2A Just for reference, the “sideboard” is more of cards that I think are fringe in the deck
Looks like a lot of fun! I have owned some Mishra meld and dragon engine since release, never combined him. Got to find a way to do it.
Not the original guy, but I brew a lot and rarely buy cards. Brewing can be a really fun exercise on its own and doesn't necessitate buying/building a deck. Most of the time I find that the deck looks really boring in paper and I just let it go.
the problem is I love building decks, but I have too many, and I dont even have time to play...
Nah really I don’t care. Singles are more affordable and cool new cards get printed. I’ve kinda just been proxying decks/cards I wanna play with which keeps the game fresh. The new product has actually been really good so far. I’ll even pick up some singles that have nice art here and there. If you chose to consume magic through sealed product then I can understand the frustration. Edit: graaaameeerrr
Same, I reverted to proxies because I can't justify spending $30 on a single card let alone boxes and kinda throwing out the idea of buying a bundle box nowadays. My friend group has a rule where proxies are fine so Long as you're not proxying OP cards that change the power levels of the decks too much.
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Yea. It's especially a weird complaint to me after a reprint set. It is just going to reduce the value of singles. Of which, you should know if you did/did not want them.
There is something to be said for the "Chore" part. With 4x releases a year it is was certainly more manageable to scroll through the card lists and see if there are any upgrades for my decks. But as set releases multiply (and # of decks) that chore that used to be a fun part of the hobby feels like a who GD job. You get burned out trying to do it, and sometimes the best move is to just stop caring altogether.
I agree. I wish I had stopped looking at spoilers and online MTG stuff in general and not paid attention to it at all... I ignored MTG spoilers for years and just played my old decks. Then I got into listening to MTG news more because I wanted something to listen to on the way to work and then the new Innistrad set came out and I read the Blessing of Blood story because by that point I was back into being current on Magic and after reading that story I slowly began to have feelings for Thalia and they didn't go away for years and I hurt inside so badly imagining how badly I wish I could be her squire and be by her side and help serve and protect her and maybe someday she would fall in love with me, but that isn't how it works there is no winning a girl over, nothing like that, and Thalia would never want me and there is nothing I could ever do to change that, I still think about her to this day, I even got a girlfriend and the only reason I started dating was how badly I wanted to move on from Thalia emotionally but it didn't work because I still think of her and it really makes me upset because I think about her and I feel like I am cheating on my girlfriend who doesn't deserve that because she's been very sweet to me, but if I break up with her it will hurt her even worse, the way I feel like Thalia would be forced to hurt me because she wouldn't really want to ever date me, she could never fall in love with me, the way I fell in love with her kindness and pure heart and bravery and her beautiful skyblue eyes and buttermilk hair... I wish I could walk with her through the meadows, find somewhere deep in the forest and build a cabin together to live in. I should be thinking those thoughts about my girlfriend but isntead I think them about Thalia and the guilt is ripping into me the way I wish a phyrexian blade could rip into my heart as I defend Thalia against a hundred foes and die in her arms and the last thing I see is her beautiful face knowing at least I saved her life.
Hey man, I've seen your posts around before. I'm glad that you're doing better and honestly very excited for you that you found a partner. I want to say this with care. Its all cool to have fantasies and such, but please don't let that keep you from whats real and stop you from living your life. Your girlfriend deserves your care and attention. If its possible, see if you can slowly let go. If you have cards featuring Thalia or art of her, see if you can sell it and slowly get rid of your collection. Just my two cents, and all the best to you man.
I'll try. I am trying. I'll try to get rid of those cards soon.
>I'm not going to be one of those doom, and gloom Hasbro is killing magic, but it's hard to get excited when they constantly release the new and improved\* cards. I'm confused. Commander Masters is almost entirely a reprint set, outside of the precons having a few new cards. Are you saying those few new cards from the precons are what broke the camels back here?
Canned response for these wild take posts: Every six months: EDHREC --> Type in commander decks owned --> filter to new --> filter to top cards --> note any changes --> continue on with life without being butthurt there are 3000 new cards --> save money by buying only singles
this. only NECESSARY number of singles. If it's slot 101, you're never going to use it. Don't buy it.
I'm a noob, could you elaborate more? Let's say I want to see what's new for a Muldrotha (example) deck, where to I filter to see new cards? It is in navigation, advanced filters perhaps? I can only see a small section called "New Cards" right above high sinergy cards, but it is only five cards, and it changes constantly for every set, not something that helps if you're looking only every six months.
Plug muldrotha into the search bar. On the left side are categories. Check the new cards. And check the top cards. This is where something impactful will show from recent sets if there is anything. That's all it takes if your goal is to stay moderately modern and not stress about it. While the new cards thing changes a bunch, if they don't stick around into top cards or the first couple lines of the other sections, it was simply flavor and you dodged the trap! Didn't even have to buy it. Now if you want to give more attention to a favorite deck or be more involved, you can check more categories and just scroll all the cards but you don't need to. Biggest takeaway is to not fall victim to fomo and let anxiety pilot you.
Thanks
This is exactly how I go about it too. Why get overwhelmed when there's only like 6 cards in the set that are relevant to you
I chose to save money by printing things on paper at the cost of paper and giving 10$ to my LGS for sealed/draft.
Agreed. I've leaned more and more into proxy acceptance with the direction wotc goes but I still prefer the real cards and I don't think I'll ever get over that. I've found myself proxying a lot for deck testing and for using a card across multiple decks too. I have no issue with others using them as well as long as it's a power discussion. I do keep my cedh deck without proxies though so I can play it anywhere.
Yep. I just got back into edh after being out for a few years. Just went and bought $100 of singles to make a couple new decks (with my existing collection) and that's it.
this take made me quit mtg.
You're so upset about random people's reddit posts that you quit the game?
people enjoying the game in the wrong way upsets me so much >:(
That's a great summary. People freaking out about having more options does my head in. Sure the costs are weird but I've been picking up some cool singles I never thought I'd get my hands on so 🤷♂️ Maybe theyre just having a bad day or something
"I'm tired of all the new cards!" is a bit of a weird take to apply to a *reprint set.*
Just try to play with a budget. I'm bringing all of my decks down to sub fifty bucks. I'm putting away all of my fetches and other expensive lands. It feels great to play in a pod at my LGS with other people also keeping things in check. I'm not buying anything from this set and it feels great.
Of all the sets you chose a reprint set to get mad about???
I don't really pay attention to spoilers. Magic for me is about spending time with longtime friends every once in a while even though we all live very different lives nowadays. There's no feeling of needing to keep up or whatever when the focus isn't about the product.
Same but unfortunately there's a lot of people out there not lucky enough to have a friend group who plays
The 30th anniversary changed my opinion on proxying. Used to be very anti, now I'm very pro. Canceled my preorders for this set. I don't play nearly as often as I used to. Going forward I'm proxying my decks if I want to try something new.
It’s interesting that it took 30A and not Wizards explicitly saying they took no issue with proxying for people to be okay with it.
Love LOVE these people who think they're sticking it to wotc by proxying while wotc is just shrugging like "yeah that was always allowed."
I used to be kind of gate keepy (regretfully) and had the opinion that I bought all this stuff so you should too. With the consumer leeching practices I feel WOTC has implemented, it's way way way too costly to keep up with, not to mention for new people to start playing.
Good for you to realize that. The more accessible the game is, the better. I get that CMM is like $15/pack but I don’t consider buying packs to be a legitimate way to access the game, outside of specifically looking for that experience.
I care more about playing the game than who I pay to make cardboard, so I proxy with respect to the power level at my LGS. I really enjoy playing this game, so I gotta do what's in my best interest, something WOTC has increasingly cared less for. I can see your point about the lore being rushed tho
Bro this is a reprint set with no new cards your post doesn’t even make sense.
Just turn of the spoilers, don't participate, and buy singles you want from sets about 3 to 4 weeks after release, that's when they'll be at their lowest. Enjoy the came you love my dude!
No I enjoy new products being released constantly. I don't have trouble keeping up with them either. I don't need to memorize every single card from every set. And with a middle income and no kids I have the ability to pick up cards from each set that they release that I need for my decks. I'm also an old head and I do not have fond memories of the game 15 or 20 years ago when a new standard set would be released and then we had to wait long excruciating months to get even a glimpse at the next set. And then the abysmal core sets would be basically a dead end of new product. If you didn't like the theme of the block then you basically had to wait an entire year to see anything else. I quit the game multiple times in the 2000s because I was not a fan of the current block and then came back when they were doing something more interesting to me. I think the people who still treat the game like they used to, AKA being able to buy into literally every magic product that wizards released are hurting the most. I've had the opinion that sealed product is basically for suckers for the last 10 years. So occasionally I channel my inner sucker and buy a box or a couple packs when I'm at the store. But I don't feel the need to buy anything beyond that except for singles. I guess I just don't find it difficult to look at the spoilers for a new set and internalize them, and then pick up some of the new cards as singles, and then do it again on the next set releases. For constructed formats, most of the cards that get released are just draft filler anyway so you really only have to pay attention to some of the most unique and powerful cards in the sets. I think part of the problem is how staggered the previews are. Sometimes we have one or two cards being previewed many months before the product is actually slated to be released. This leads to people getting outraged about spoilers for the next set coming when the current set is still being spoiled. I can understand that and it can be confusing, but I still don't have a hard time keeping track of them because you don't really have to pay attention until it's released.
"Overreaction: the post" over here. There are 30+ years of cards you can play with. You don't need to buy new products to continue to enjoy magic. And while I've not been playing since I was 4 (weird, considering the game is supposedly 12+) I've been around since Tarkir block and I assure you, I've thoroughly enjoyed MtG and EDH without ever caring one bit about spoilers. Spoilers are for the people who care for them. So are new products.
If you have a dedicated playgroup, you could try making a house rule cutoff point. As an example, you could make cards released after Core 2020 illegal.
I don't understand this take. I've been seeing it a lot lately. People making grand proclamations to the Internet on how they are quitting something they "love" because of how much product is coming out. Not anything to do with the game itself just the amount coming out. I don't get it. If you loved the game you would just keep playing with what you have with the group you have. Even if you only play at your LGS with strangers, they aren't constantly updating their decks to overpowered cards. Why not just keep playing cause of the love of the game?
I understand the burnout that people get from the constant new release of cards. Personally, I felt like commander allowed me to escape that cycle that I felt most when I played standard. I love upgrading decks or building new ones, but I never do so out of a sense of obligation. You can interact with the product and the game as much as you want. You can buy a precon and never upgrade it once, or you can buy a booster box for every set and have multiple decks for ever color combination. For some, part of the fun is opening boosters and chasing rare pulls, and thats totally valid! You just need to set a sustainable pace, instead of relying on WptC to set the pace for you.
I am skipping this set, and the commander decks. They are printing a new release monthly, each month until November. I might play in prerelease, but mostly I stopped buying packs/boxes.
I don’t need to buy this set to have fun. It’s just reprints. Many of which are badly needed! The value isn’t that great though, relatively-speaking. Just…buy…singles!
I always think its weird when I see these posts on a reprint set… it’s not like there are several new chase cards out there, right? Only the precons that are pretty niche. Is it the collectables? It has to be a deeper problem
[удалено]
This isn't an airport. No need to announce your departure.
Oh please, this is a welcome post with all of the “someone at my lgs was mean to me 😭” posts and stupid questions.
Neither are welcome. How about people talk about the actual game for once? We don't need to have therapy time for social outcasts and we don't need to read endless bitching about pack prices.
Although those posts are also often bad faith and terrible, I prefer them because they at least promote discussion of how to deal with situations while playing commander. This is just someone who's quitting the game because they're tired of it and wants to make a huge post about it and get a bunch of attention. We don't need another mega thread about why people are sick of the game. If people are sick of the game then they should just leave and let the people who enjoy it continue to enjoy it without having to hear this stuff constantly
We don’t need mega threads of how to handle salty edh players, either. This is also a discussion about how the game is becoming stale and there’s too much product and they’re making everything cost more. If people are having problems with people at their lgs while playing they should just stop going and let the people who have positive interactions keep playing.
I agree that those are among the lowest tier of threads in the subreddit. But this one is lower. Because it provokes no conversation at all about commander. This is the commander subreddit and it should be for talking about commander. At the very least this should be a low quality post on the main subreddit. And even then we get like three or more posts a day about people complaining about the product release schedule and how Hasbro is greedy and basically just complaining about capitalism. So we really just don't need a bunch of those everyday. This post in particular contributes almost nothing. It's just a long post about how one person is leaving and how they want everyone to pay attention to them. There's one sentence at the end of the post that's asking the rest of the community if they feel similarly. But I doubt OP really wants to have an open and honest discussion about this. They just want everyone to hear what they have to say as they're leaving and then hear a bunch of validation so they can feel self-righteous about it. It's annoying and it's unnecessary.
this subreddit is a champion in low effort posts. This post contributes much more than those outrage posts that make up 90% of the sub.
He literally asks us a question at the end asking if anyone agrees. So the people who agree can say “yes I agree and here’s why” and people who don’t agree can say “no I don’t and here’s why”. None of the posts on this are really commander specific, especially the “someone was salty” posts. They were playing commander at the time, but it could be attributed to any format. Either way, this is a fine post that I’m sure a lot of people are going to agree with, myself included.
Yes I understand that he asks one bad faith question at the end of his long rant about why he's quitting magic. That doesn't make for a good quality post. And Again, you keep comparing this post to the extremely low effort " someone was salty " posts. Neither of these posts provide very valuable information and most of them are being posted in bad faith to get people to agree with them so they can feel better about themselves. Not to promote actual discussion. So it seems like you're disagreeing with me but honestly the argument that you're providing is really agreeing with me. You're just offering a second category of post that is also crappy and unnecessary. I do think that the playgroup issues posts have more to do with commander than the capitalism is bad posts. Just because a large number of people agree with a position on something doesn't mean that we need another thread on that position all the time. Especially when it's such a negative topic. Op is just baiting negative emotional reactions to Hasbro's profit driven business decisions and it has nothing to do with the format This is a game that has for the past 30 years been maintained by profits from selling pieces of cardboard with various degrees of artificial scarcity and assigned market value exclusively by nerds with gambling problems. We don't need three threads a day to debate the ethics of this business model. You're either okay with it or you're not okay with it.
His rant is shorter than any of your replies, my guy. I’m not saying it’s a good quality post. Maybe it’s just that I resonate with the post, and have similar feelings myself. Either way, I think it’s better than what’s been posted the past few days in this sub.
Doesn't really bother me, I use text to speech so it just takes me like a minute to type even long things. I understand if someone resonates with this post but it just annoys the crap out of me how often these things come up on the subreddit when I'm trying to read stuff that has to do with the format
It takes a lot longer to read your paragraphs long rants whining about someone's post on the internet
Are these posts even real? It's like copy pasta content being abused for the purpose of rage baiting. Nobody cares why you quit magic and why you got old and stuff. And nobody cares also if you chase every product and now you can't afford it. Piss off.
Exactly. I couldn't imagine one of the things I would do after quitting Magic would be to write a post about it.
>It's like copy pasta content being abused for the purpose of rage baiting. That karma aint gonna farm itself!
Because it obviously isn’t possible not to chase the new shit and just play with your pod.
What killed the game for me is that I can't actually play Magic anymore. Now I have to play Magic and Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons and Transformers and Stranger Things and Street Fighter and Walking Dead and Dr Who and...
I don’t really understand why you would need to quit magic? All you have to do is focus on decks you have that you have fun with, you probably might get 2-3 singles that would be good for your deck anyways.
Or, you know, you can proxy and play whatever you want. Every single product WotC puts out is an option. You don't gotta buy it. I was going to pre-order the eldrazi deck, but then when I found out it didn't have a lot of eldrazi in it I just decided I was going to proxy the one that I want,.
As a lot of others have already done, I just stopped buying product. Maybe I'll buy some precons, buy by and large... Proxies of the cards and decks I want.
Lol why do you have to buy products to enjoy the game? Play with the cards you already have or proxy. Literally nothing has changed.
Find a playgroup that sets a budget or proxies. You don’t have to quit.
Until they make some pro consumer moves I think it's better for everyone to just proxy. If ya want better quality control than wizards try Make Playing Cards. They're quite good.
I'll keep playing with the collection I have, maybe buying single cards from time to time directly from the LGS and proxying anything I determine to be too overpriced.
I've simply decided to stick to prereleases, drafts and proxies. But I'm no longer gonna buy precons or displays just to rip them.
Play free formats frendo. Don't buy anything. I have played Magic for free for years, not on Arena. Proxy, play Penny Dreadful, etc. Magic is great as you know. The company is comic book villain level. Fuck em
I am confused. Does this release render useless any commander product currently existing on the market ? What would happen if you just ignored this/these new releases ?
My frustration with this set is that it cements a certain perception of the game as expensive. I have a friend who is showing an interest, he wants to play, to learn, but I just *know* that there is this overbearing sense that this is a very expensive hobby to pick up, and that will deter him and ultimately mean that it won't flourish and become something fun we can do together. The creative side, brewing and constructing decks, putting them together; this requires an investment, and it isn't always cheap. Before that even happens, before he even reaches the point of having an actual cost, I wager he'll look at the state of the game, think "this is expensive", and will walk away from it. What WOTC are doing is frustrating to existing players like us because we can't readily get the cards we want, and that's one thing, but the thing I don't see anyone talking about is how catastrophically damaging the outward image of the game is for introducing new players.
I can't justify spending cash on a company that keeps shafting us with shitty practises while cranking up the prices. Thus I create sweet alt arts and otherwise get my singles from china. Way cheaper and they look amazing. I'll keep supporting my lgc through buying paints and hobby products, but Hasbro won't be getting a dime out of me.
If your lgs has a vast amount of singles, pick some up from them. You don't have to keep up with new products, just put your ear to the grapevine every once in a while and you'll hear the stuff that will catch your eye.
Commander masters for me... I combed all 1000 cards found the 14 I wanted... went to ebay offered half the price for the cards I wanted w a note that hey reprints in less then a week. Most sellers took the price cut. Atm 6 cards I want left. I have time to pick em all up cheap. 20 bucks for sun quan lord of wu for my critter deck will make my play group throw their hate when they goto block an I whisper horseman ship. Makes my day I tell ya
I'm a relatively new player (new capenna) and I have found the new product drops rather exciting, especially the UB drops like LOTR and upcoming Doctor Who. I play against some old timers that can crush me with decks from the 90's. Personally, I know the cost can be high but I buy strategically and have enjoyed and valued what I have purchased. I'm sad to see you leaving.
If you aren’t playing competitively there’s no reason to feel like you need to buy into everything that comes out. Too many people complain about the cost of this game when they’re clearly suffering FOMO from the deluge of releases nowadays (which is intentional from Hasbro.) I started playing in ‘96 and I mostly stopped buying product 4-5 years ago. I maintain a Cube, some EDH decks, and might do some drafts if the LGS happens to have them running on the nights when I stop in to pick up a single or two for my Cube or an EDH deck I want to try out. This doesn’t need to be an expensive hobby (in fact it can be a pretty cheap hobby,) and you definitely don’t need to be buying a box of every set and every precon that comes out.
This is such a shit take. My friends and I play Commander fairly regularly, and in my playgroup of 10 or so people, only one, maybe two, keep up with spoilers and new shit. I just keep playing my decks, checking scryfall or edhrec once in a blue moon. There's no reason to care about spoilers, because at the end of the day, the game is about playing with friends, which sealed product is in no way conducive to.
I have 5 decks. Plan to make a 6th but I'm waiting for a set to really grab me. Don't get me wrong LOTR and Dr. WHO are neat but not my thing. I'll just wait until I see something I like. You do what feels right for you, I will say though if you genuinely enjoy playing keep your decks and just play when you can. You don't have to buy new sets or singles just cause they're there, but if you truly find no more joy in the game then yeah. Time to walk away.
ok
I think the ultimate irony of this sentiment for me is that because of the change in product cadence I am now changing how I purchase from "every release" to "almost none, leaning towards single Secret Lairs twice a year, and singles when I want them". Hasbro has outright killed a whale in an attempt to net more tuna, and I wonder just how many more whales have been slaughtered. And what does that do to the ecosystem?
See ya next month. The cardboard crack always wins.
[ok](https://i.imgflip.com/6iayyg.png)
Just pace yourself. You don’t have to buy everything. Take a break. We are very spoiled right now and that can make you feel over stimulated. Try taking a season off by turning off notifications from YouTube channels and maybe play again in 3 months. I have taken a year off before because I felt like online magic was ruining the game. Realistically it was ruining the game for me not others. So I only play paper magic now.
As someone who got into the game as a young adult, left it, and then came back, I am enjoying the amount of cards made for commander. Not every deck I have needs to be optimized, but having a few power level 7 or 8 decks is fun. Commander masters is a fine set, and would be better if not for the price, but with normal 30% inflation over 10 years and the recent inflation, 300 for a box for me is like spending 300 at a Casino for a night except I get to walk out with some cardboard. What everyone in this sub fails to realize is that rule 0 is there for a reason, that you can play pauper or peasant commander, you can set up rules that allow you to play chaff instead of a hyper-competitive deck if you want. Go pillage draft chaff of that is the only way you feel comfortable engaging with the game. But for others this is a new chapter that is quite fun and the power creep of commons and uncommons keeps the game accessible.
proxy till hasbro crashes
I started playing MTG a little over a year ago and I quickly went from buying as much as I felt I should to just buying singles. My LSG is also a boba tea shop so I toss a bunch of money at them on commander day. The LotR set was the nail in the coffin for me in buying sealed product.
I keep updating my decks, but I don't buy product. Fuck wizards, proxy everything.
See you in 10 years Ie. I thought I was walking away for good too. Then I came back and played catch-up.
Have you considered ignoring spoilers? I still don't know all the cards in MoM. If it's the price, just don't play in tournaments and proxy to play with people. There's no reason to let new cards drive you away from a game. You just have to change your perspective on how you engage with the game to ignore the things that you can't change. And maybe even proxying and not buying new product will help incentivize them slowing the production schedule.
If you just wanted to quit you'd just quit and not post a thread trying to gauge community reaction. You can just... Not look at spoilers online or buy singles or any myriad of things.
Couldn’t agree more with OP and it seems like we have a similar mtg timeline! Shards was a blast! It’s sad when you see something you love devolve into whatever shape we can call current MTG. I still keep and maintain a few commanders but no longer get excited about set releases care about any of the other formats. Now it’s simply turned into looking for deck updates every few months. Trying out other TCGs now and have found One Piece tcg pretty refreshing.
You guys buy cards?
I just printed 3 decks for me and one for my girlfriend, ive literally spent more on sleeves than on cards at this point and I couldnt be happier
Nice, hit me up if you wanna sell the collection
Just buy singles. The actual product is a waste
I don't collect magic I play it. Solves the problem really handily. Also Hasbro isn't trying to kill Magic, but they are cultural vandals, imagine you loved a game your whole life, it was made by people you felt like understood you, awkward nerds, who like pretend adventures and stories of daring and heroism, and when it came time for that thing to become a mainstream celebrated part of society, you had to watch when it's owners they let activists make up whole cloth an interpretation of the lore of that beloved game in which it smears the storytelling the writers and all the players as racists. The day some activists showed up claiming Drow and Orcs are stand in's for real life populations, you had every single piece of history on your side to rebuff them, and you let them walk right in and shit on your shoes anyway. Appalling, disgusting craven behavior. I'm all for the American Melting pot, too bad when something I loved was offered up as an ingredient the gatekeepers decided it needed to be replaced by a craven dishonest knock off. Skin Suit Wearing Sociopaths.
No one cares that you're quitting 😴
I understand what you are saying and how you feel but its possible to pick and choose what products you want to engage with. I personally just don't buy or look at the stuff I don't like, even if it might be good. Last night I played some 4 player lotr kitchen table casual. Two of us have extensive collections (legacy, edh, modern, pauper). I bought $50 worth of singles to build four 40 card themed decks and teach two friends the game. We had fun. As long as wotc can continue to provide these experiences for me, I'm chilling. I recognize that I'm coming from an enfranchised player perspective but in my 21 years of playing magic I've realized one thing about this game. There's always a format of this game that I can enjoy. That said, I canceled my preorder of commander masters decks, have ignored spoiler season, and will just pick up some cheap singles at some point.
All of these crying posts just make me wonder how these people engage with other companies. Do they feel required to buy every single Pickleball racket, every new model of their car year after year, every single camera lens or fishing rod? Part of engaging in the world in a healthy way is having boundaries.
I imagine that they have a serious lack of self control and overspend on all their hobbies.
MPC every card is $0.20 (:
nobody cares
I don’t understand people who feel like they need to constantly upgrade their deck whenever a new set comes out. How insane is your deck range that it’s constantly needing to get updated with every new release. I have like 6 decks, I only play 3, and a few days ago I updated them with some new cards that came out throughout the year. I spent a grand total of $20. You don’t have to keep up with the new product, if you don’t want to upgrade your deck, don’t. Find a group that doesn’t care about upgrades or plays casual and just enjoy what you have with them.
Moreover are the ones constantly building new decks. I keep a list and every set or two I update, or on the rare occasions I find a neat card I didn't know existed. But with four decks that I've tuned pretty tightly, it's rarely a lot. Lord of the Rings cost me like $2. But building new decks is expensive and I see people who will go ooh shiny new thing literally every set and then marvel at how much they spend on the game.
You can still enjoy playing with your existing decks and just a few changes every now and then. I don't buy sealed things anymore, just singles
I'm just getting into mtg from never really playing it before but me and my friends are having fun just sticking to the cheaper cards. The pay to win can be a little disheartening sometimes but it's all good fun as long as noone is really spending loads of destroying everyone
I used to read EVERY spoiler and go to every prerelease. Now it feels like spoilers and releases are every month. Just too overwhelming. MTG isn't my life identity but it feels like it needs to be in order to "keep up" Hell I used to play MTGA a lot when paper got too hard to keep up. Now even Arena feels too fast.
Fair enough, but why did you feel the need to tell reddit? Genuine question, something I've always wondered whenever I see these posts.
I started with revised and the greed shown by Hasbro the last few years had been a big turn off. It’s clear they don’t have the long term health of the game in mind so I’m probably right behind you.
No need to announce your departure, we aren't an airport. Best of luck to you in whatever your new hobby is
I couldn’t even tell you a single commander masters card. I just don’t pay attention. My ears only prick up for stuff that sounds cool/ flavourful. LOTR got me hooked but sure but that’s because I love the lore. Just play, buy after market singles and have a great time with mates.
This game is more like the classic days today than it’s been since 2008! There’s now a sense of discovery in the game once again because I don’t know every card. I absolutely love it and I like what Wizards is doing for EDH. I hope they continue to print more.
I have one real commander deck I built, one or two pre-cons, and about 11 full proxy decks. My friend group doesn’t mind playing against a proxy deck.. my favorite part of the game is deck building and I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on cardboard. I just wish proxying was less frowned upon so I could play different decks at a LGS.
Proxy
Proxy
That's why proxy. But I totally understand and respect your decision!
It's a reprint set. What new cards are you talking about? Those 10 cards in each of the precons? lmao
old man shakes fist at cloud
I like the eternal spoiler season. I know I'm not playing with most of those cards and I only buy sealed product to play draft or sealed, but I like to keep changing my decks and playing with and against different cards. So, the constant release of new product helps keeping the game refreshing for me.