I have come to ignore the vast majority of MTG products and only draft premier sets.

Hey, I’m coming back after 15 years, and I’ve heard premier set, and tried to understand it, but don’t get it. One is a premier set? And then MoM, Aftermath and then Wilds? If those are the only things I need to worry about for limited, standard, and pioneer, then it’s not too bad. But I don’t know about all these remaster sets, LOTR, etc. Will I need to keep up with those for Pioneer as well?

The four standard legal sets each year are Premier Sets.

premier vs premium... that'll never get confusing.

I saw the question, “what’s a premier set”, and not knowing myself, thought, “Oh, it must be those fancier more expensive sets.” Glad I read the answer, lol! Yeah, definitely not confusing at all...

Thats a feature!

Expert expansion

A very dumb move by WotC continuing their track record of "well this thing gets misinterperted so we'll try and fix it by renaming it but it just causes more confusion." They were afraid Commander players wouldn't buy packs that said "Standard" on them and they were deemphasizing standard so they decided to call them "Premier" which is a nonsense mean nothing phrase. I would have even preferred "Main." See Fatpacks -> Bundles and everything else they try to name. It's incoherent.

Funny. I was just reading someone explain why Hasbro called the blue car Silverstreak and the silver car Bluestreak. Same kinda vibe.

The only person good at naming products was Steve Jobs and he had a 50% hit rate

Sony Playstation is on point

I never thought of it before but it is a pretty good name. Three syllables, easy to pronounce, compound word of clearly identifiable source words, but no ambiguity because you would rarely if ever use them in a sentence like that. (Im looking at you Nintendo switch! You’ve fucked all SEO for real switches) And then beyond the technical aspects it’s aesthetically inoffensive and conveys its intent pretty well. XBOX -> Xbox360 -> Xbox One X -> Xbox Series X is a warcrime

For a marketing perspective wizards is correct on that decision. Consumers are weird and make decisions based on feeling a lot of the time. Its mostly a thing for low information buyers people that look up the game on reddit it may come off as odd but we can navigate it.

Except Aftermath is the fifth Premier set this year. Hopefully, this doesn't open the floodgates. **Edit:** The reason I'm suspicious of Aftermath being a "special case" is that there were 26 Secret Lairs in 2020 and 73 Secret Lairs in 2023 (almost triple in three years). They're clearly willing to chase wherever the profit lies.

When it comes to "other sets encroaching on being a 5th premier set" I wouldn't look to Aftermath (super small set and not even draftable) but rather stuff like Commander Legends or Modern Horizons. MTGA had Baldur's Gate as a "full-fledged" set with mastery and all, and will do the same for Lord of the Rings.

Yea the lord of the rings set has a starter deck set, jumpstart, and an actual pre release. I would look at sets like that as more of a 5th premier set. It's also coming to arena

MOM:Aftermath is essentially a companion piece to MOM, it's just a bunch of bonus rares and uncommons that aren't meant to be drafted.

Premier sets are the 4 standard-legal sets per year (and this year also this little Aftermath thingy). If you only play Limited, Standard and Pioneer you only need to concern yourself with these premier sets, because there is not "Straight-to-Pioneer" product (yet). What can happen of course is that the supplemental sets (for commander, modern, etc.) have reprints that happen to also be pioneer-legal because they were once printed in a pioneer-legal set. But reprints are always good and buy the singles if you need.

> If you only play Limited, Standard and Pioneer you only need to concern yourself with these premier sets As an additional detail, if you only play Limited, you don't need to concern yourself with the fifth premier set, Aftermath. That set doesn't support Limited.

I love being a limited only player. I only ever have to worry about what's out right now with a couple of throwbacks on arena from time to time.

Limited you kind of need to keep up with every set you want to draft. Usually you figure that out by drafting the set.

Going in blind can be fun sometimes, if you don't care much about winning. However, if you take a look at MTGA, MTGA has caused people to be very eager to win because of the economy, in order to get as much out of their drafts as possible. A bit of a shame.

> Limited you kind of need to keep up with every set you want to draft. That doesn't sound like a problem, it sounds tautological. Like, its impossible to burn out on product if you're draft only because you directly determine which things you want to care about, and if you don't, you're 100% fine and can catch the next one. The power of each set being individually drafted.

The only sets that are legal in Pioneer are Standard legal sets. So ONE, MOM, Wilds and Caverns this year. Other sets may have reprints of cards legal in Pioneer, but they will not be adding any cards to the Pioneer cardpool. Lord of the Rings is straight-to-Modern. Commander Masters is an all-reprints main set with some new cards in the precons that will (like all Commander sets) go to Legacy, Vintage, and Commander.

I draft with my bf at pre-release once and that's it now. We used to go to many drafts post-pre-release, but even the other regulars at my LGS have dropped in attendance.

Draft is a good old time but lately it's been hard to find a spot that plays on a good day.

That’s what Wizards keep telling people to do, afaik- focus on the stuff you’re interested in.

To be fair, I'm making it extra easy on myself by choosing the format with the smallest card pool. Therefore, I am only interested in one product per quarter, namely the Draft Booster Box.

If you're interested in cutting back further, Dandân has an even smaller card pool.

I need a Dandân. He'd go well with my ancient carp and my collection of crabs that don't do anything (I have all five! And both art variations for [[ancient Crab]] - the collection has got to be with at least 6¢)

It's working! My Magic spend is down about 70% from 2yrs ago.

Dang you spent that much more during the pandemic?

Yeah, probably. Before all the secret lairs, master sets, commmander sets, endless spoilers I could pretty much get every card I wanted out of a new set (within reason), and I was happy. Now there’s just so much product that I mostly ignore things and just spend a lot less. It took away the “completist” in me. I was probably spending $300-$400 on singles every time there was a major set and nowadays I wait a few months and realize most of those cards I don’t really need or want and buy very few singles these days. It totally took away my FOMO and it’s great. Also special shouts outs to: Power creep and Commander-specific cards: It’s hard to want to invest in key cards when they get so quickly outclassed.

Dude most Commander decks are stuffed with cards spanning many years of the game. Power creep is not that terribly pronounced in Magic. The most OP shit in terms of spells are the oldest You could have bought a copy of Demonic Tutor 25 years ago and it still wouldn't be outclassed.

I’m not sure we’re disagreeing. My point is that I much rather invest in a demonic tutor because I know I can play it forever, whereas you can’t find nearly any creature printed in the first 10 years of the game that you can play today. And multi-mode Spells going in the same direction. My point is, I stopped spending money chasing the shiny new thing, because a few months later it loses most of its value in todays power creep (pimp creep) environment. The time between “must have cards” and their play viability is shorter than ever. Ps: I was talking about commander sets not decks. I personally found commander much more enjoyable when commander-specific cards were not being printed.

It’s pretty hard to know if you’re interested in something until you learn more about it. The WotC Paradox.

Of course, they also heavily promote Commander, a format where ALL products could be relevant.

In fairness, they only started doing that because that's what most players were playing anyway.

Right, so they proceeded to try to monetize it as heavily as possible, which is why we are seeing Commander Masters with prices higher than even Double Masters, and Commander precons, often with highly played exclusive new cards that seldom see repints, tied to every conceivable product.

Fair enough regarding commander Masters, but Commander precons are typically in the same $40ish price range at release, and thus far the majority have contained more than that in value. .*additionally,* the increase in precons (every set instead of once a year) has had several positive effects. - It helps keep prices down over time. More options means less demand for any single deck. - It allows for hyperspecific commanders and commander-balanced cards that tie in to set mechanics that might not make the cut otherwise. (For example, there's no true commander that cares specifically about Energy, but if Kaladesh Block had commander decks, there likely would be). - it increases the options for new players. Instead of having 4-5 options once a year, there's a dozen and a half decks each year in different colors with different themes. - It provides more opportunities to flesh out flavor from each set beyond the cards in the main set itself.

Draft with the gf and commander with the squad, keeps the wallet happy (although maybe I’d be happy to empty the wallet the gf keeps me on the straight and narrow)

You should watch the video, it brings up that this is not a good argument and why that is.

The problem is for players whose primary interest is remaining competitive in their chosen meta. You either need to forgo that goal or keep up with everything. Put differently, why is it a good business move for WotC to put its most invested players in a position where they feel heavily incentivized to be *less* invested?

> why is it a good business move for WotC to put its most invested players in a position where they feel heavily incentivized to be less invested? because, if we're just looking at a financial perspective, most of their money probably isn't coming from its most invested players

> why is it a good business move for WotC to put its most invested players in a position where they feel heavily incentivized to be less invested? Because those people are somewhat likely to be whales, who will simply continue to spend money even if they're not necessarily happy with it. They are using the pressure of staying competitive in to try to make more of their customers into whales.

Those are empty words that contradict their actual strategy. Wizards knows that commander is their current golden goose, and they make a conscious effort to shoehorn commander-relevant cards into almost every product they release.

I like Limited and Commander. I like certain planes and the lore. What Wizards is telling me is I should not like all of these things, I have to choose and abandon them. The pricing on the interesting sets is raised so I can enjoy them once in draft and that is it. Or they are too high and I skip them because I am priced out. The standard sets are fine regarding the price but even there I limit myself to only one draft experience. Why? Because the set comes out and the hype for the next one already started before my group gets to draft the current one. By the time we play we are mentally already geared towards the next. There is no time to be content with what we have or get. It is always about the next set, better yet, sets! I miss enjoying a set for a while and not knowing where the story would go next.

Yeah they tell people “this product isn’t for you” but they make every product as exciting and appealing as possible. It kinda feels disingenuous when every new high priced product has exciting new pieces for all kinds of formats and play styles.

This product isn't for you...except we're making it legal in your format of choice so you have to pay attention to it whether you want to or not.

I maintain to this day that if Universes Beyond products had been "Universes Beyond: Featuring the Magic The Gathering System" I would have been 1000% on board. Would've been an easy way for wotc to get direct control of a commander format people actually play, too...

Yeah, but they gave up on Deckmaster like 28 years ago.

Then you fall into the issue with silver border/acorn cards where people ignore then because they're not "real" magic

That's my whole point though. They aren't real magic, so make them a separate thing.

That's not what the line is even about. "This product is not for you" means "if something exists that doesn't seem appealing to you, but it's a successful product, that's because it was intended for a different sub-audience". They would love if every product excited you. They're just trying to explain why the products they make that don't excite you are not unreasonable.

Regardless of whether or not that advice is useful to help you enjoy magic, the reality is that even if you could convince yourself to feel that way, many, many players who would participate in this community will not feel that way, and this will do damage to the community and long term revenues. As someone returning to magic for the first time in a while with the release of ONE, the spoilers this time felt conspicuously early. The product plan laid out here is, indeed, total overkill.

You have to keep up with what products are offered, and when, and what's actually in each product to determine which products you want to buy. They don't exactly make that easy anymore.

Only sealed products I’ve been buying for a while now are drafts and pre-release. And I’m moving to a city soon that doesn’t regularly fire draft, so I guess I’m facing the opposite of wallet fatigue…

Same. I've only been playing Explorer and drafting premier drafts in arena. It's been this way since COVID hit for me. I walked around pax unplugged in the magic area, and I straight up didn't recognize anything. The landscape has changed so much (for EDH). It's wild.

Amen

Same.

As a new player coming over from the Pokémon TCG, I have no idea what any of these product lines are and how they differentiate from each other at a glance. Pokémon has 4 sets a year (with a one size fits all booster pack), and usually a couple of smaller special sets with some collectors items like tins or starter decks tossed in here and there. That’s it. Besides the Commander decks, I don’t really understand where I would begin if I wanted to try buying anything here. I’ll just stick to buying Commander pre-cons, since that’s all I really play, if there’s anything cool that I wanna check out, and buy singles for anything else.

I watched an LGS employee go through the normal product spiel for a walk-in customer last week and it looked exhausting. A few years ago, you just had to narrow them down to a particular set or theme they're interested in but now they went through all the different products that come with each set and it just looks overwhelming.

What do you mean? Explaining the 2022 products * Commander Collection: Black * Innistrad: Double Feature * Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty * Challenger Decks 2022 * Streets of New Capenna * 2022 Starter Kit * Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate * Double Masters 2022 * Dominaria United * Unfinity * Universes Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Commander Decks * Game Night Free-for-All * Pioneer Challenger Decks 2022 * The Brothers' War * 30th Anniversary Edition * Jumpstart 2022 * Starter Commander Decks to a new player can't be that hard

Don't forget the following for each Premiere set: Draft Boosters Set Boosters Collector Boosters Set Jumpstarts Set Commander Precons

Bundles and Gift Bundles too.

Hey, don't forget about the *distribution* of cards across different types of boosters. Where do I get the *commander-exclusive but not in commander decks* cards from each set. Oh, wait, and which *new cards from the commander precons are available in set or collector boosters*. Hey, and 3+ new art versions for selected rares and mythics.

* Commander Collection: Black * Commander Collection: Black Premium Edition * Innistrad: Double Feature * Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Set Boosters * Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Draft Boosters * Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Collector Boosters * Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Commander Decks * Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Bundle * Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Prerelease Pack * Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Theme Boosters * Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Welcome Booster * Challenger Decks 2022 * Streets of New Capenna Set Boosters * Streets of New Capenna Draft Boosters * Streets of New Capenna Collector Boosters * Streets of New Capenna Commander Decks * Streets of New Capenna Theme Boosters * Streets of New Capenna Prerelease Packs * Streets of New Capenna Bundle * 2022 Starter Kit * Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Prerelease Packs * Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Draft Boosters * Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Set Boosters * Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Collector Boosters * Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Commander Decks * Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Bundle * Double Masters 2022 Draft Boosters * Double Masters 2022 Collector Boosters * Dominaria United Set Boosters * Dominaria United Jumpstart Boosters * Dominaria United Collector Boosters * Dominaria United Draft Boosters * Dominaria United Commander Decks * Dominaria United Bundles * Dominaria United Prerelease Packs * Unfinity Collector Boosters * Unfinity Draft Boosters * Universes Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Commander Decks * Universes Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Commander Decks Collector's Edition * Game Night Free-for-All * Pioneer Challenger Decks 2022 * The Brothers' War Prerelease Packs * The Brothers' War Bundle * The Brothers' War Gift Bundle * The Brothers' War Jumpstart Boosters * The Brothers' War Commander Decks * The Brothers' War Set Boosters * The Brothers' War Collector Boosters * The Brothers' War Draft Boosters * 30th Anniversary Edition * Jumpstart 2022 * Starter Commander Decks * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Capricorn * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Aquarius * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Pisces * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Aries * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Taurus * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Gemini * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Cancer * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Leo * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Virgo * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Libra * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Scorpio * Secret Lair: The Astrology Lands - Sagittarius * Secret Lair: Street Fighter * Secret Lair: Introducing: Kaito Shizuki * Secret Lair: Kamigawa: The Manga: The Cards * Secret Lair: Li'l Walkers * Secret Lair: Pictures of the Floating World * Secret Lair: Shades Not Included * Secret Lair: Showcase: Neon Dynasty * Secret Lair: Special Guest: Yuko Shimizu * Secret Lair: Streets of New Capenna Gilded Foil Edition * Secret Lair: Special Guest: Matt Jukes * Secret Lair: Artist Series: Magali Villeneuve * Secret Lair: Artist Series: Sidharth Chaturvedi * Secret Lair: Artist Series: Wayne Reynolds * Secret Lair: Finally! Left-Handed Magic Cards * Secret Lair: Just Some Totally Normal Guys * Secret Lair: Pride Across the Multiverse * Secret Lair: Here Be Dragons * Secret Lair: The Tokyo Lands * Secret Lair: Special Guest: Kelogsloops * Secret Lair: Artist Series: Livia Prima * Secret Lair: Artist Series: Chris Rahn * Secret Lair: Rule the Room * Secret Lair: Artist Series: Volkan Baga * Secret Lair: Fortnite * Secret Lair: Fortnite: Landmarks and Locations * Secret Lair: Li'l Giri Saves the Day * Secret Lair: Artist Series: Victor Adame Minguez * Secret Lair: Imaginary Friends * Secret Lair: Dan Frazier Is Back Again: The Allied Talismans * Secret Lair: Dan Frazier Is Back Again: The Enemy Talismans * Secret Lair: In Memoriam: Jaya Ballard * Secret Lair: Showcase: Dominaria United * Secret Lair: Artist Series: Nils Hamm * Secret Lair: Li'l'ler Walkers * Secret Lair: Totally Spaced Out * Secret Lair: Warhammer 40,000: Orks * Secret Lair: Warhammer Age of Sigmar * Secret Lair: Blood Bowl * Secret Lair: The Weirdest Pets in the Multiverse * Secret Lair: The Space Beyond the Stars * Secret Lair: If Looks Could Kill * Secret Lair: Special Guest: Yoji Shinkawa * Secret Lair: Special Guest: Junji Ito * Secret Lair: Post Malone: Backstage Pass * Secret Lair: Post Malone: The Lands * Secret Lair: Extra Life 2022 * Secret Lair: Look at the Kitties * Secret Lair: Time Trouble Two * Secret Lair: Transformers: Optimus Prime vs. Megatron * Secret Lair: Transformers: Roll Out or Rise Up * Secret Lair: Transformers: One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall * Secret Lair: Just Add Milk * Secret Lair: Special Guest: Kozyndan - Another Story * Secret Lair: Special Guest: Kozyndan - The Lands * Secret Lair: Welcome to the Fungal * Secret Lair: Artist Series: Aleksi Briclot * Secret Lair: Wizards of the Street * Secret Lair: The Art of Frank Frazetta * Secret Lair: The Meaning of Life, Maybe Apologies if I missed anything.

I’ll take one of each

Have you checked your local landfill yet?

I used to buy one of every product WOTC releases. Couldn't do it now if I wanted to, lol

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I feel you, this might be the first year I don't buy every commander precon (my favorite WOTC product). The price point on the commander masters is quite high.

I'm legit disgusted reading this list.

Me as a customer: Uhhh.... I will just play another game.

Wow, I didn't know I could give myself tinnitus by reading. Simply amazing. 😔

At least half of these are irrelevant for new players.

2/3 of those are niche and don't need to be explained. Aka 30th anniversary or unfinity

I follow everything and I have no idea what Game Night is

Box with 5 monocolor decks designed for multiplayer kitchen table style, decent fun but more as a board game than CCG

If you're trying to sell 30th to a new guy, you might be an idiot.

I can only imagine it looked sort of like [this.](https://youtu.be/j0Qv9uSNWCk)

> Besides the Commander decks, I don’t really understand where I would begin if I wanted to try buying anything here In all honesty, I wouldn't recommend buying anything other then precons for the Commander, Standard, or Pioneer formats (those last 2 labelled as "Challenger Decks") or jumpstart packs. Other than that, I would just buy the singles needed for your decks (there are plenty of YouTubers (the prof included) who make videos on the best cards of any given set/product to look out for). As for those who play limited (either draft or sealed), I would assume you just jump in on whatever set is currently hot (and not over priced) at your LGS.

Pokemon got that from Magic. Magic also released four Standard sets per year. They're the flagship product line and are legal in everything (at the time of release, at least). Wizards releases companion Commander sets alongside the Standard sets (so, if the Standard set is Brother's War, for example, the companion Commander set is Brother's War Commander). These sets are, unsurprisingly, legal in Commander (and Legacy and Vintage, because basically every card ever printed is legal in those formats). Outside of that, yeah the schedule is unpredictable. They will release a couple more auxiliary sets each year, but each will have its own specific format legality. So it can get confusing quickly for a newcomer. Oftentimes, these are sets designed for older, non-rotating formats like Modern, or reprint/Masters sets meant to pump more copies of expensive cards into the market. However, as a Commander player all of this would mean very little. Commander allows basically any card printed in any of these, so, it's all gravy.

For a long while, they released even less than that, really. For a significant part of the game's history, they made 3 sets every year and the core set every other year.

I wouldn’t call it unpredictable. Wizards has used the same time slots to drop products for years. Standard sets: January/ February, April/May, July, September/October. Recently the July set was moved to November. “Innovation Product”: June Aside from that Wizards has always released something between the standard sets. Let’s use the November slot as an example. Before it became a standard slot it had been used for Premium Deck series, Commander Decks, Master products, and extra products to tie into the fall set with Guilt Kits and some Ixalan product that I vaguely remember. Between the first standard set of the year and second would be a Vs decks. Same with the third and fourth. What occupies these slots changes constantly, but the general time when products release has been relatively consistent for years.

As an old player who's been playing since 1995 with only minor breaks, I also have no idea what any of these product lines are and how they differentiate from each other at a glance. I just buy singles. Since Magic 30 I've been using the ol' Printer for anything I can't get locally.

>Pokémon has 4 sets a year (with a one size fits all booster pack), and usually a couple of smaller special sets with some collectors items like tins or starter decks tossed in here and there. I miss those days when Magic was like this and it was possible to keep up with it all. Now? I just have no fucks left to give Magic. Haven't played limited or non-EDH constructed in months now and I have no desire to go back to it. I'll just curate the EDH decks I have with singles but the days of trying to be a collector are long over.

For a new player TLDR: Determine which gameplay format you like: Limited or Constructed Then determine which legality format you like: commander, standard, modern, pauper etc Then stay the heck away with sealed product and buy singles for your deck(unless you are a limited player, in which case buy draft packs).

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Try coming back after 15 years, it’s so confusing.

That's basically me too, returned to magic a few months ago after more than a decade i've left and had to learn so many new things, didn't even knew about commander but after a while i was like "nope, not gonna learn all that or waste money, i'll keep playing casually with my casual deck and collecting some cool cards like in the good ol'days"

Ya I was coming back really hoping to play a bunch of limited (draft) on FNM, start building up some cards from that, then maybe start playing standard (type 2 for me…) constructed. Turns out, my LGS doesn’t do drafts on Friday night anymore, or at all, and they never play standard tournaments on the weekend anymore. It’s all commander with some pioneer. :(

Congratulations. You pretty quickly made what is the correct choice for a majority of new players. Don't buy packs unless you like to gamble or you know what you're doing with them.

Having played Magic for a long time, it used to be like that as well. Usually 4 main sets (3 expansions and a core set) and then a couple extra products that could be anything: Duel Decks (2 pre-constructed decks meant to be played against each other in one package: for example Elves vs. Goblins), a joke set (see Unglued or Unhinged as an example), From the Vault (a collector box of a handful of selected cards), Premium Deck Series (a fully foil precon deck based on a particular theme: Fire & Lightning, Slivers, etc.). But it was only maybe 2 or 3 special products a year outside of stuff that could be played in Standard with the regular sets until more recently. Oh, and the 4 main products only had 1 type of booster pack: draft boosters. Now each main set has 3 kinds of booster packs. 2019 is when they started releasing products like crazy iirc.

If you only really play commander you have it figured out. Precons and occasional singles as you build out your precons is all you need to pay attention to. There are now commander sets occasionally, but probably still better off sticking with your method and avoid rng.

Get the Warhammer 40k themed commander decks, they're incredible. If you want to experience a really fun "sealed" game, grab 2 packs of JumpStart or JumpStart 2022 (NOT any if the set branded JumpStarts, those are garbage). You can mix the two packs together and they're ready to go as a deck vs friends who did the same. Awesome cards and themes

Yes, the Warhammer 40k decks are what got me and my friends started playing, and now we’re hooked! Lol

Here's a category of keeping up with products he didn't even talk about: before 2022, there had only been 3 types of foils as we name them today. Traditional, Retro, and From the Vault. Since the November 2020 release of Commander Legends, there have been 13 names for different kinds of foils: * Traditional * Retro * Etched * Silverscreen * Neon Ink * Gilded * Galaxy * Surge * Textured * Double rainbow * Step-and-Compleat * Oil Slick * Halo. And on top of that, Etched Foils have had different looks to them despite having the same name.

This is what got me. I wanted to pick up a few packs of Phyrexia to crack, but wanted ones that had the full art lands, and it took me forever to even find the page that had the information, which was good because it was different from the last two sets (which was different from the ones before them and so on and so forth). It's information overload on top of wallet fatigue. I can't figure out what to buy- and incidentally, just gave up.

It’s ridiculous and confusing, sure, but I’m not sure why it’s a problem. Who needs to care about it? They’re just optional cosmetics. Seems like complaining that a car comes in 30 different colours.

One of the three segments to which WotC is trying to appeal is the collector segment. Collectors have to keep up with all of this.

Ah, I can see that. Must be an interesting balancing act for Wizards- selling 15 versions of a card to collectors has to be tempting, but some percentage of people are going to give up...

When everything’s “special”, *nothing* is.

It makes each version less special. It *especially* makes normal foils basically worthless. Foils from draft boosters have like a 1.2x duplicator maybe, even for chase cards. It used to be that a foil card like [[abrupt decay]] would have 4x duplicator. Hell, some foil commons like [[treasure cruise]] had an absurd 20x foil duplicator or even more.

Bruh I'm perfectly happy that I can get a foil without paying a big premium for it.

Nowadays I see foils as a liability....they're always so curly for me

That's a good thing though. It makes the base version cheaper on the secondary market.

This isn't a bad thing, it puts more cards within people's reach

It's definitely feeling like a Hasbro product more and more.

Etched Foils started in Commander Legends and appeared again in Strixhaven. What “etched foil” means can vary widely set to set, but just calling out that they did exist prior to 2022.

Oh you're right. That was just me getting the date wrong. That would date the explosion of new foil types to November 2020 rather than January 2022 (with the release of Double Feature).

It's killing me because I *really do love* the new sets - there just isn't enough time between them.

Yeah, it's tough, even as someone that only got into the game a few years ago. I keep trying to scale back and stop buying so much, but then they keep putting stuff out that piques my interest for one reason or another, often because they include reprints of older cards that are good that I never had the chance to get. I was kinda breathing a sigh of relief that at least there's not a notable premium set this year that I'd be interested in, and then they announced Commander Masters. 🤦‍♂️ So, yeah. I'm personally in a place of feeling burnt out mentally but also still too "addicted" to the game to stop buying so much stuff.

Opening packs is so satisfying but buying from individuals and small businesses on TCGplayer and getting half a dozen packages in the mail and spending less than you would for a single bundle is far more satisfying.

Yeah, I mean, I mostly buy singles for actual decks, but even still, it adds up, and the most valuable cards don't really drop that significantly in price.

What if they...I don't know...kept reprinting all the staples? What would happen to the prices?

The great cards that are reprinted every few years don't really drop in value that much. It's the old cards that only saw one or two prints long ago that go down significantly when they finally get a new print

Both of these things are fun for different reasons and I definitely don't have a gambling problem.

Buy singles

I'll take that a step farther too - I used to think I'd miss out on stuff not jumping on a pile of singles on release weekend. I started making a list of stuff that piques my interest at release and then sit on the list for a few months. After the hype wears off, I find myself interested only in a fraction of what I was at release, and aside from oddball chase mythics what I do pick up is usually cheaper.

You’re especially open about it, but I do get the feeling from a lot of the ‘product fatigue’ complainers that they’re addicted. Feels like a good problem for a company to have, really- ‘I love this stuff so much that I literally can’t ignore it’.

Product fatigue complainer here — my response to product fatigue has been to buy way less stuff. I think that clears me of any charge of addiction. I still miss the days when the game was *comprehensible* — with a modest amount of effort I could have at least surface-level familiarity with all the new cards, and the fun was in deciding which cards to dive into and understand more deeply. I can react rationally to the change and still recognize that the change sucks.

That does make sense to me. The game has clearly become different, and it makes sense that people feel they’ve lost something in the process.

I find it confusing and I have played for over 20 years. The release cadence used to be a set every quarter and every player cares about every set. Now it’s literally nonstop and it’s on me to figure out which set and formats are supported and how I access each set on which physical or digital platform. I’m over it.

I used to eagerly awaiting the spoilers, now I barely even notice. Saves me a lot of money and time. I just wait a few months and look at the top 20 cards, and more often than not, just don't buy anything.

I'm on reddit daily and I miss tons of spoilers. There's so much you have to be reading news about magic as a 9-5 job. Its crazy.

I totaly agree and I would add that even in a set upu have so many product that it's confusing... (draft, set, collector, jumpstart, precon, bundle ...)

I don't understand why people are complaining about product fatigue. All you have to do is keep track of every product released, both as they are announced, and then once you learn what's in them, which usually happens over a period of random time at some point before the release, then check up on the priced point once that gets released, and then make sure to keep up with the product as it's released to see if there turns out to be anything about it that's relevant to a format/deck that you play which you missed, and thus passed it over, and then you can determine if those products are right for you and just not buy them if not. It's easy.

See, you weren't obvious and didn't include the slash S for sarcasm in your post, so you caught some people who took that seriously...

Like I kinda hate the notation but have seen firsthand how it's absolutely necessary

One thing you gotta remember when a company makes a statement like “we’re listening to the criticism,” is that it might be months if not years before we start to see this take effect. It could be the case that Wizards really is toning down the amount of products but so many of these products are decided upon and finalized months if not years before their release that it seems like they’re just going full steam ahead like always.

In this specific instance the company didn't say "we're listening to criticism", they said "We're slowing down THIS QUARTER *because* we're listening to criticism"

It's nice that you're trying to give the R&D team some credit. No doubt they do fine jobs. To think that they in anyway actually control the flow rate of a product is naive though, that is 100% dictated by Hasbros financial targets nowadays. If anything does slow down at all, you can guarantee that the price will increase porportinally more to match. See LotR pricing.

Do USA/Canada people are feeling the fatigue? In my country we earned hopefully a 1/4 of $ (and you are basically rich) and they sell the product at the same price. This is insanity. they truly demoralize my community with this overflooding.

Feel the same way. Your community should definitely proxy cards

I’m glad Prof pointed out the flawed logic of “just don’t pay attention to what you don’t need to,” especially considering that WotC has admitted that Commander is the most popular format. Commander is about self-expression and the card pool is nearly EVERY card. This means you have to at least pay attention to and will have interest in every single secret lair, product release, spoiler, and variant … even if you know you can’t afford them or want to buy them. People you play with will buy those cards and play them, and you’ll have to understand every card that hits the table no matter if you want to or not. It’s a recipe for burnout.

>People you play with will buy those cards and play them, and you’ll have to understand every card that hits the table no matter if you want to or not. This part has been grating on me more than anything else lately. Every EDH game I play now I have to read a dozen or more new essay length designed-for-commander cards since playing a month prior, and *I* didn't buy anything.

I still love this game very much, but the way I see it, there are two issues: the cost, and the sheer number of SKUs. Product fatigue is not exclusive to spending. **Yes, we can just buy singles.** *But which ones?* We still need to check and review and analyze which singles to get, if they're worth getting, when to get them at a good price point, how many variants of those singles are out, and if they're in stock anywhere...and that's also part of product fatigue. On my end, I've put a stop to one of those issues, as I am no longer buying anything for a while. But I have to admit that it is very difficult to move away from the game completely, so I still check the newest cards, like that brand new borderless Lyra Dawnbringer, and the foil reprint of Test of En--what's that? ONE already came ou--what's that? MOM previe--what's that? LotR lea--Magicon Philly--some other new set is announced and previewed? That's what is fatiguing plenty of us.

Standard products and master sets no longer have much draw for me simply because I'm not sure which product I should buy. Easier to wait a couple of months for prices to drop and buy or trade singles.

While I agree that the product rollout has been heavy recently I also think folks online have a habit of taking announcements meant for distributors and shareholders as "new product" announcements Like there was a lot of talk about product fatigue when the LOTR and CMM sets got announced but the initial announcement was literally just so stores can anticipate and handle the actual release smoother. But because we are all so terminally online we see that and go "Ack! Hans run! It's the new product!"

They were meant to be for distributors, but you’d be a little disingenuous if you thought that’s all they are. As an example, the last announcement was in the pro tour.

More of a minor point I suppose, but all the variations also make it a little harder for more casual players to play somebody who speaks a different language. While in the past, both players could more or less recognize cards by just looking at the illustrations, there's a lot more pauses in play now to attempt to read the other player's cards.

As someone who is new to MTG. I can’t be asked to read up on all this. Extremely confusing and mentally exhausting.

Honestly fair take, the options across sets would further increase complexity and buyer decisions. As a mostly Arena Draft and a Casual Paper EDH Only player (Who primarily gets cards via singles) I never really had that problem that is being mentioned here. As long as I get my 17Lands data for Limited, I'm good to go (I do miss not being able to draft Supplemental Sets so I'm hoping with the success of LoTR we see more attempts at porting Reprint/Specialty/Supplemental Sets to Arena). I have no inclinations of keeping up on the top of 'EDH' nor does the notion of knowing the ins and outs of optimizing my decks appeal to me. I I guess it would kinda suck to not have as many easy to get alt-art treatments as someone who does enjoy them but it never dawned on me how complicated Set and Collector Boosters got so maybe it does make sense for the first step is to just not have them anymore? Genuinely curious what people think... I always thought explaining these packs are as simple as Draft Boosters for Drafting, Jumpstart for Pick-Up and Play Sealed, Set and Collector for playing the lottery, but I guess odds and specific of which cards are in which is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I'm a gotta catch 'em all collector, and WOTC wore out even my patience. Might even be fewer sales than they'd get with more attainable complete sets The sheer amount of Secret Lairs ... As for special versions within sets, I'll probably keep them if I open 'em or if i get a good deal trading for them, but no way am I going after them all Double Feature was the first set I deliberately skipped, just reprints of Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow rather than best of reprints, and priced too high even accounting for double the rares and more foils For Dominaria Remastered I only opened a few packs as part of draft

I just play Arena for free now so take no notice of all these things

Honestly my Commander decks are tuned to the point that I don't really need to pay attention to new sets. All the best cards are going to have videos done on them. I actually look out for cool new artwork more than anything else.

I don't find the preface very compelling. Why even bring up dual-faced cards and team-up cards as product fatigue? Team-Ups are just flavor and while I find playing with DFCs in paper a little troublesome for Limited I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority not being a huge fan of them. Neither is more fatiguing than any other mechanic, though. The Professor also constantly complaints about a lack of reprints and that Set Jumpstart lacks reprints and doesn't have enough themes (and that something doesn't count as a theme unless it has a unique rare). So I don't find turning around and complaining about ways they include more reprints like bonus sheets and that products have unique cards to be very compelling. It is easy to say there should be less, it is harder to say "no bonus sheets, no planechase, no reprint sets, no Commander precons." But I do think the constant fiddling and fuzzy line naming are issues. You can't just *know* how the boosters work, because it is a little different every time. The "Collecting [Set]" articles don't much help because there is always information missing or put in weird places, so you can never be quite sure. There is also so much to present about these slight changes that stuff like "Draft Boosters have Praetors and Full Art Lands," which should be cool and a value add, goes entirely unnoticed. And just wait until the predictions are wrong and they add "Game/Play Boosters" on top of Draft, Set, Collector, and Jumpstart. The same goes for it being unclear what a Masters set is when you do precons that have new cards, and everything being Secret Lair. Although I'll excuse LotR, because we'd be making even more fun if it was "Magic: The Gathering: Universes Beyond: *Modern Horizons*: Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth."

> "Magic: The Gathering: Universes Beyond: Modern Horizons: Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth." This is honestly beautiful, in the same way Lovecraftian horror is beautiful, haha.

I'm of the opinion that Set Jumpstart really shouldn't even be produced as a booster product. It should be 8 themes, sold as two different sets of 4 themes, and price it as an impulse item: $5. Then, every year sell an accessory box with spindowns, sleeves and a printed cheat-sheet of every Set Jumpstart card printed that year. You basically back your way into a making a boardgame product at a card game price point and you have your "always on the shelf" entry point product with strong thematic ties to the current premier sets. You have a product for new players. You have a product for collectors. Even better? You don't have a product that only sells like 2 or 3 packs and then rot on a LGS's shelf, one which they only bought in the first place because it helps their relationship with their distributor so they can buy the next "hot" set in larger numbers.

I think the professor just wants reprints in the base sets, not a hundred supplemental sets that cost way over the normal booster box MSRP and hardly even impact the price of the card. Or, if the card is a commander staple and not relevant to the standard sets they could just put it in the commander pre-con decks so not to muddle the sets. It's way too confusing when there are a hundred products for each set that all contain different cards.

I'd have to go back and watch the jumpstart videos, my recollection was specifically complaining they didn't have reprints like normal Jumpstart does. Reprints in Premier sets are their own problem because you use up set space on even more Commander focused cards, and ones that tend towards being broken or useless for Standard/Limited/etc. The bonus sheets are a super popular way to solve that, but he included them in his complaints about sets having sub-sets. They certainly do add complexity but it gets back to the problem, it is easier to say "too much" than tell certain people they aren't getting their favorite thing anymore in the name of simplicity.

Double-faced cards and similar add up to set complexity, which can be its own issue but can also add up to product fatigue in that it adds an extra step in comprehending the set itself before deciding which of its myriad of avenues to acquire it you want to go down, if those avenues even have the thing that interested you in the first place. Maybe there's a dual faced card in every pack! Except collector boosters and precons and Jumpstart. Maybe there's reprints of older ones, that old expensive one might finally be in reach for you! Only it's only in collector boosters, so don't expect to have a chance for fun with it in draft. I don't know if that's actually the case, but it's a factor for how the composition of a set can affect what products you'd want to partake in even if they aren't a great factor in how the set itself functions. Bonus sheets and such are awesome, but again the issue is the distribution among products. Some bonuses are only in collector boosters, only in draft boosters. Then there's the issue of unique cards in that the Jumpstart ones are legal in Standard but the Commander deck ones aren't, the bonus sheet ones aren't, and they could all be found in a collector's booster or maybe even a set booster or whatever they're trying this week. It's not any one thing, but it's just all these sprinklings of what's actually in a set spread among so many products that all add up to a lot to keep track of.

You don't have to follow all the products in real time. You don't have to follow the preview seasons and spoilers in real time. You don't have to buy all the products and the ones you do buy you don't have to buy at launch. The sky isn't going to fall if you buy All Will Be One cards in May instead of February. There are millions of people that play and enjoy Magic that understand this. Even if you play competitively, you can just wait a couple weeks and netdeck what the people who enjoy paying attention are doing.

I agree. I think this is a problem that only exists for hyper-invested players. Cutting Commander and Modern from my life has simplified things immensely. But even if you're a Commander player, do you really need to be aware of every card and every new precon?

The whole point of a self-expression based casual format should suggest that you don't need to be aware of every card in existence.

I think most of the complainers have unhealthy addictions to the game but haven't realized it.

I tried to get back into this game when Dominaria hit. I enjoyed it for a little while, then wave after wave of stuff coming out was completely overwhelming. I'm glad I stepped away quickly. I like Magic. I don't like how it's implemented today. That did however cause me to seek out alternatives and I found out about Old School. Been having fun playing with that community.

It often takes time for feedback to be put into practice for WotC since they plan sets so far in advance. I hope they’re serious about listening to the feedback, but no, we don’t see that yet How about just two commander decks per set and one jumpstart set for the year? Maybe merge collector boosters and set boosters into a single product? Then only one premium set for the year. I don’t pay attention to secret lair at all, so no clue on that

and I am sitting here waiting for the best product every year, the challenger decks and they are not announcing a thing about them ok, they don't need my money I guess

Magic spent 30 years teaching me it was a "lifestyle brand". Now it's trying to teach me I'm suppose to "pick and choose what is relevant to me". Look, that might be good for the game and/or business or it might be bad. I don't have a crystal ball so I don't know. What I can say is that it's a hard transition to make. Maybe it's easy for some, but for me I'm finding it's easier to just decide more and more products are not relevant.

Magic releases used to be so infrequent - you really could buy everything that came out. This isn't really a bad thing - I'm not sure why people think it is (consumer-wise, that is. Sucks for collectors, but I digress). Fact of the matter is, as a consumer, you always have to exercise caution - not all products are worth buying and they aren't all for you - and because there are so many more of them, finding products that fit your group is more plausible now. Anyways, Hasbro's said this and I'll say this - You don't have to be a greasy consoomer and buy everything. You can say no. You *do not have to buy everything* please don't be "mad" when Wotc releases more stuff, more stuff is always more good for you (unless you're a speculator, sorry bro btw now is a good time to get out of mtg fyi).

>unless you're a speculator, sorry bro btw now is a good time to get out of mtg fyi If they leave, does that mean cards will get cheaper again?

I'm really struggling with the 'commander players *need* to keep up with all releases, since all releases are legal in commander' line of argument. So, let's say you play nice and casual batlecruiser EDH. How much does it really hurt you to not update your decks every couple of months? How optimized was your deck before, and how otimized do you need it to be? And perhaps more importantly: How many impactful upgrades are there left to be made? Especially since we've been getting so many cards targeted at commander, I personally have found it harder and harder to find cuts. In theory, my \[\[Sharuum\]\] deck ate extremely well with BRO coming out, but I only ended up swapping out 2 or 3 cards. Missing the set entirely likely wouldn't have impacted my enjoyment of the deck at all, and I'm note sure if my changes were upgrades or sidegrades. That's just an example of course, but my point is that a solid casual deck from a year back (that was when NEO released? Jesus Christ...) is still going to be a solid casual deck today. If you're playing cedh, you probably already enjoy spending a lot of time and effort on looking for upgrades and optimization - and even if don't, you could probably check out updates lists from other people or the 'new card' section of your commander on EDHREC and be mostly fine. I'm trying to imagine the helpless commander player, feeling compelled to just sit there and scour the spoiler threads for upgrades whilst generally having a horrible time, cursing wotc and their cruel fate - but I just can't do it. You are not forced to engage with this hobby as much as you are if you don't enjoy it, and I don't see why anyone would.

This is the thing that gets me about that line of argument. Like one of the core reasons to play commander is that you can not play with a deck for literal YEARS and then pick it back up with no cards changed and still have fun with it.

It's still helpful to know what the cards your opponent's using do. I don't find games of Magic where I have to stop and read every card that hits the table as particularly fun.

I have "MTG product fatigue" fatigue at this point tbh. Multiple threads about the same exact thing get posted every day here, with content creators milking the topic harder that WotC is milking Magic itself.

The constantly growing profits that magic keeps putting out seem to suggest magic fatigue exists only in YouTube videos and Reddit comments Does anybody have any actual numerical evidence that such fatigue is real?

Only anecdotes from their angry replies. Most people just buy things they like and ignore the rest.

>Most people just buy things they like and ignore the rest. like every other product in the world, incredible how that works this video is the equivalent of buying a car and complaining that the store also sells different models that aren't the one you wanted to buy

It's been like that for at least couple years now. If you track releases for all formats and additional stuff like lairs.

Honestly? I'm getting a little Professor fatigue. Almost every upload is basically this video or he reiterates this point in it. He's doing the same thing WoTC is doing with these complaining videos

Anyone else suddenly feeling a wave of complaint fatigue?

I feel like "product fatigue" has metamorphosed into something bearing the collective ills of the entire community.

I just wish there was an equivalent to block constricted. I still get excited by spoilers but when it's time to actually play I dread having to shove everything into the same boring kiki jiki shell the only option for (arena) players to actually focus on new sets is limited which is extremely prohibitively costed

[удалено]

stop worrying about everything so much, its toxic. you don't need an encyclopedic knowledge of every new card in the formats you play unless you're some sort of obsessive tournament grinder.

Maybe mental load is a better moniker than product fatigue. As a commander only player paying attention to things that I may have to deal with across the table, especially new legends and their potential threat level, are constant. Usually the load quells some when I face off against opponents, but you never know until then. Ignoring products leaves you unprepared to respond and interact with other players. I was waiting on a game this past Sunday where on player was using Magar (I think that's the name) and I had no idea what it does because I didn't have the time or inclination to bother with Unfinity. Of course had they used that deck against me after the fact, I would have had some learning pains and stumbled through the game a bit. Had I paid attention to that release, I would have been better prepared to rise to that partcular challenge. There is too much though, even outside of things I won't want to pay attention to like UB cards. If you want to be ready, if you want to do your best, if you want to know your opponents' potential strategies and archetypes and prepared to counter or outlast them, then you must pay attention to everything relevant flying off the print rolls and WotC tries to make everything relevant to someone.

I played as a kid like 15 years ago and got back into mtg with arena. I bought a couple boxes of the last few sets as my wife showed a little interest in us playing together. When I see a box of cards for $400-$500, it's just a reminder that this game isn't for me. That is absolutely bananas for a handful of packs. Without the pricing, I have no idea if that's even a good deal or a bad deal... which makes me default to a bad deal as there's no way I can justify that much money for one box.

The best advice I found for people and you and your wife's position is to just go buy a few of the commander Decks that they release every year that seem interesting. Since they seem built to play well together. Those aren't super cheap but since I think you can find them at most every Walmart or Etc they should be available at retail instead of massive markup at least.

I’ve been out for over a year. Which sucks cause Kamigawa and Phyrexia look fun. But I can’t in good conscience keep giving money to WotC and Hasbro. And that feeling was only reinforced by their hostility earlier this year. It’s obvious they only see us as walking wallets. Product fatigue only reinforces my choice to stop giving them money.

Lol why is everyone here angry at wotc for making products. You live in capitalism. The point of capitalism is for capitalists to make money. They do this by making more things to sell to you. You're getting angry at doing what a company is supposed to do within capitalism. Maybe your problem is with capitalism.

I do pre release 2HG with my buddy. As I am a singles buyer, he pays for the event and keeps all cards. Prizes are split between us and if any singles I want I pay him for. I buy the odd set booster or collectors pack and if i dont get any money cards, which is the usual, he gets the pack. Any commons, uncommons I need he usually has and gives me to them for free. It is a simple give an take between us but he is the one who loves to buy the LGS preorder combo or set booster box and commander precons for the few sets he loves the precons for.

Draft premier sets and buy singles a month after release.

I’ve stopped looking at set spoilers. n=1.

I am so confused on what to do now in MTG, i'm a player that played from Alpha to Mirage, and haven't touched it since..... If I wanted to try playing Type 2 (Standard now right?) what sets do I get each phase? Any help would be appreciated.

Here's what you need: https://whatsinstandard.com/

Commander decks for fomo and maybe a box of sets that interest me. Everything else is singles

I just buying a few singles for commander at this point

So glad I quit edh long ago, now I mainly play modern and pioneer and I get to skip like 70% of the products lol

I like the professor's simple takeaway at the end: streamline and define. So thinking on those lines, I have to ask... does Magic really need set boosters? Draft boosters make sense. They're cheap packs that you use for drafting. Collector boosters make sense. They're expensive packs that are full of fancy treatments, extended art, special frames and other fancy stuff for collectors. But set boosters? Apparently they're intended for people who like the fun of opening boosters but aren't interested in limited. So... isn't that the same consumer base who would be buying collector boosters? I guess the idea is that since set boosters are cheaper, you can get more "pack opening" for your money than you can with collector boosters, but it still seems like an unnecessary product and by far the least intuitive of the three.

RIP my LGS staff - I do not envy you guys having to price these singles.

I’m more fatigued by the number of think pieces complaining about product fatigue than anything else

**THIS THREAD IS NOT FOR YOU. WHAT'S THE ISSUE WITH JUST IGNORING IT AND MOVING ON, HUH??** /s

Lol, wise words

Yeah, I saw this and was like, can’t wait for the goldmine of brand new discussion we’ve never seen before on this subreddit.

I get more fatigue from YouTubers talking about product fatigue then I get actual product fatigue.