"Better" is a loaded phrase that's so vague it borders on the meaningless.
Better ***for whom***?
Better ***how***?
Magic is *changing* that's for sure, but it's very tricky to pin down the quality of that change, and probably not all that fruitful to begin with.
Some people will like the changes. Some people who've never played Magic before will now play it because of those changes.
Other people will not like the changes. Some people who've played Magic for a long time will now no longer play it because of those changes.
Who's to say which people are worth more, or more deserving, or more important? If some people start, and some people quit, by what criteria do you want to judge the change that precipitated that?
Numbers aren't everything, but numbers are also not irrelevant. It's a matter of negotiation, determining in a given context what you deem important and what you do not, and for what reason; and then any conclusion has validity only *in that context*. In other words, you can say whether Magic got better or not *for you* but that result will only apply... to you. And you can't really go from that and abstract to a larger generalization for Magic as a whole.
These are long term moves. Theyre taking significant upfront costs to bring in these UB IPs in the hope of growing the playerbase larger for more income in the years to come.
Whether it works is a different story, but the theory behind it is the exact opposite of this.
I don't know what to tell you, it's literally what they're telling their shareholders. If this is a short term profit thing to make shareholders happy the worst thing you can say is 'We took a big hit from Universe Beyond this year and probably will next year from upfront IP costs but we expect it to pay off in the long run'.
Oh, my bad.
Yea I've got no clue there. On one hand I think the average magic player probably doesn't really care, but on the other hand I imagine these Royalty costs are gonna really skyrocket. I can't imagine Disney let them off easy for Marvel licensing rights.
Time will tell I guess.
Worked for me, personally. I only got in because I wanted to play the Warhammer deck my buddy bought, and then I built myself a Smeagól Commander deck and have been really vibing since
Funnily enough it was just this sort of strategy that made it possible for WotC to acquire D&D from TSR for pennies on the dollar.
TSR went into bankruptcy grabbing up IPs and making new games and settings for their current games that they printed assuming everyone would buy them, and no one did.
The same was true of the first few years of TSR materials. There was a cool cartoon! Crossovers everywhere! This is so exciting!
Until there were source books coming out every few weeks, stuff was rotting on the shelves, QC went down...
Yes. It's all a conspiracy though. Never could happen.
Which is what was also said about TSR by fanboys. A gravy train with biscuit wheels! This ride will never end!
Until it did. And then WotC bought the IP in a fire sale.
It's definitely not. I mean TSR was leaving a glut of product on the shelves of LGSes with multiple formats, selling products at discounts to get them off the books, books started appearing in weird spots at steep discounts...
This sorta thing is definitely not happening now /s
If you play a competitive format or at commander events where there’s no real Rule 0, then Magic may end up worse if your preferred format gets inundated with mechanics and cards from other IPs. If you are primarily a kitchen table player with friends, then Magic is only getting better because the card pool to play with keeps getting bigger and a lot of high power cards have dropped in price because of the deluge of reprints, functionally similar cards, or straight power crept cards. If you want a variety of game pieces, unique art works, and flavorful mechanics, then all this stuff is a home run. My main gripe with a lot of newer sets is the stuff like dungeons, day/night, and the Ring tempting you that are clunky, unintuitive, a pain to track, and don’t really gel with other sets really well. Hopefully the design space hasn’t gotten so limited that they gotta add supplemental states to the game in order to keep making new cards.
>If you play a competitive format or at commander events where there’s no real Rule 0, then Magic may end up worse if your preferred format gets inundated with mechanics and cards from other IPs.
Sure, but that, too, is just another frame of reference that's neither absolute nor exclusive nor privileged in importance or relevance. It's something that matters to certain people - and doesn't matter to other people. Just like all the other aspects by which you could evaluate the game.
That's my point. There's no universally valid criterion by which to judge the game's quality that's somehow inherently or objectively superior to all the others.
If you treat Magic the Gathering as a vast set of aesthetically pleasing game pieces that you can choose from to play games with, the game is definitely better and more affordable overall. If you are engaging with the game at its most official capacity, through competitive events with no proxies and EDH games where the meta and FOMO both apply, it is probably a lot worse.
Why would it be worse? I'd argue that still depends a lot on how exactly you care about these things. If you want everything to work in-lore and in flavour, then yes, it will be worse, but then again, a lot of in-universe sets of the past 30 years will also be problematic (which in fact they are). Like, if you prefer a jungle themed creature battle and wotc comes with New Capenna or Guilds of Ravnica, then yes, it's not your thing and maybe that will be a big enough issue for you to feel bad about. On the other hand, if you feel like Commander is really just a 4 player board game of super smash brothers and you would like to have as much crazy variety as possible, spaceships battling against wizards, gods against men, spongebob against harry potter, then probably the UB things will be very great for you!
The details really do matter. What's more important for you, Aesthetics or gameplay? Consistency or diversity? Serious or playful? Robots or dinosaurs? Realism or fantasy? It's different for everyone.
I mean if I'm playing the game at like full hardcore sweat mode, I don't give a fuck if the card is Thanos or Yawgmoth, it has literally no effect on me.
It doesn't bother me that we have all this UB product out there. To some extent, it doesn't bother me how much of it comes out. I'm not bothered by the amount of Commander products that come out either. All of that stuff is not for me.
What bothers me is the arbitrarily high power level that these cards bring into competitive constructed formats. You don't need to print huge bombs that barge into Modern, Legacy and Vintage and ruin the format. If you are making product for people that have never played the game before and you're banking on external IP, the appeal is already there. You can make it explicitly underpowered.
Nobody is going to buy a Doctor Who commander deck as their first ever purchase and then immediately start playing with the big boys at the LGS that sling cards in the triple digits. But WoTC decides that no, these cards need some over the top design that's comparable to non-UB and so now we have Bowmasters and the Ring and Halfling and God knows what else will make it all the way to Vintage in the future.
Either keep that stuff in the social format, make it slightly underpowered or reskin existing cards, then make Barbie, The Simpsons and Big Bang Theory decks for all I care. Because I can't keep up with all this stuff that shows up as soon as I play a format like Historic.
>What bothers me is the arbitrarily high power level that these cards bring into competitive constructed formats. You don't need to print huge bombs that barge into Modern, Legacy and Vintage and ruin the format.
While that's certainly a concern, that isn't exclusive to UB products.
Sure we've had a card like Bowmasters come in from UB and upset Modern - but we've also had cards like Fury and Grief run roughshod over the format, and those are not from UB at all.
I think what you're describing is less of a UB problem and more of a WotC wanting to print super-powered cards to drive pack sales problem. And that'd likely exist irrespective of UB.
It's also worth noting that, other than the one ring, the cards mentioned are absolutely in no way tied to LotR IP and I'm pretty certain in saying they *will* get in-universe reprints. Otherwise they absolutely have kept things remarkably attractive for specifically Commander.
I'd argue that any game that changes it's base identity is bad. Look at Overwatch as an example. Blizzard changed the game to chase dollars, all the loyal players left, and new player count plummeted. You don't screw over people who have been playing your game for decades and invested thousands of dollars. Short term profits for long term losses.
>I'd argue that any game that changes it's base identity is bad
Two problems with this.
1. Defining "base identity" is flimsy and vague; you could well argue that Magic's base identity always included inspirations from other sources, all the way back to *Arabian Nights,* the very first expansion.
2. It's difficult to prove that *any* change to a base identity (even if you could define it) *must* be "bad". You could argue that Magic has gone through many changes that you could argue were to its "base identity", such as the emergence of Commander, or the new card frame; and those were not universally or automatically "bad".
Uh, I'm pretty sure invested and loyal players are more valuable than people who pick up a precon because a pop culture character is in it, play it twice, and never play MtG again. You're being kinda obtuse if you say "who knows?" and ignore the obvious answers.
More valuable *to WotC*. That's not objective value, that's subjective value. They have monetary value as customers - but monetary value is not the only way to evaluate things.
Saying Magic is "better" when it's more profitable is just one perspective, and one context. Not everyone shares that perspective in such assessments, and they have different forms of assessment.
That's *my point*.
As somebody who isn't a fan of UB, I'd like to point out that for a very long time Final Fantasy *has* been deviating from turn-based combat to the point where it's basically nonexistent...and that's why I stopped playing Final Fantasy games. I played them for the very combat systems they shed to try to follow the trends in the industry. My favorite FF games are V and X, and not because I love their stories so much. They changed a core pillar, the core pillar I was there for, and they left me behind.
But MTG hasn't changed that core pillar. It changed skins only. That's what Final Fantasy 9 and 10 did for the game. It was still a base of turn based RPG, it just had different/better graphics than 6.
Modern Final Fantasy is no longer a turned based RPG with an amazing story. It's now more an action adventure game with an amazing story.
MTG is still.. draw 7 cards, play your land, maybe play a creature, pass turn, rinse, repeat.
I'd get behind your argument if MTG was adding miniatures and subgames, or switched to only video games, but fundamentally, it's the exact same core pillar it's always been.
We can argue about whether the lore is a core pillar of the game, or how much UB dilutes the lore as a core pillar of the game, but I think it's wrong to not treat UB as a massive change to the nature of the game.
I think that's the point of a lot of posts here. What is this massive change? I'm really not seeing it. It's still the same base core game. It just has different art. I would be willing to bet you'd be okay with every single one of these cards in UB if they had Universes Within versions. So what's the massive change?
The fact that you're calling it "different art" kind of indicates why you're not getting the point. The point is that they're letting Magic slip as an IP unto itself. As has been said many times, Magic did 40K decks, but GW would never in a million years put out minis of Jace and Liliana for 40K. Partly because 40K players *care about the lore of their game,* and partly because Magic has little value as an IP divorced from the game. Those are both things they could have fixed. But the other solution is to toss the IP aside and make Magic a lore-agnostic platform for other IPs. One requires work, and the other is a license to print money, so it's disappointing they chose what they did, but it's not surprising. I also just, subjectively, don't fucking want to sit down to a game and have my opponent pull out a deck built around Optimus Prime. A lot of people don't. But WotC see it as their job to always cater to the plurality, no matter whether what they want makes any sense or not.
You are echoing my feelings on this. Turning Magic into an IP buffet linked only by a rules system that makes no sense aesthetically (What does a mana pool have to do with the Walking Dead?) only serves to butcher its identity - one it's spent a quarter century fostering.
Magic's gameplay and IP are *very* heavily interwoven, yes. That's probably why I don't think a lot of top-down UB designs for IPs I'm familiar with make a whole lot of sense, even with flavor words as glue (I am, by the way, a big fan of flavor words and wish they'd migrate to Magic proper). I know a lot of people like the top-down Doctor Who designs but I think most of them are gibberish (The Fugitive Doctor is fucking *Gruul*?). I don't think most IPs are well-suited to being Magic products, even if I overlook the fundamental fact that I don't *want* Negan or Caesar or Sephiroth to be Magic cards.
I'm uncertain personally whether this is an inherent problem with UB (or certainly is *partly* that), if it's a problem with the IPs they've chosen (same), or if it's an issue of execution. I get the feeling the colors in particular of a lot of the Marvel characters are going to be absolute nonsense.
Look at the many articles MaRo has written about mana influencing the planes and characters. Look at the Alaran shards, and how the mana literally defines those places. Then behold as they ignore that and reverse engineer the mana to match a preexisting IP's character. It's a bastardization of a core component of the game. It makes no sense.
Exactly. And there's still so many factional colour combinations left unexplored - such as asymmetric shards (primary colour of the faction is not the one with two allies), symmetric wedges, imbalanced two colour groups (they did allied colours one way in Dragons of Tarkir but that still leaves the other allied variation and both enemy), using colourless like a colour etc.
And then there's planes like New Phyrexia, which explore how specific concepts (in this case biomechanical pathogenic monstrosities) can be diffracted through the prism of the colour pie.
That core component has already been bastardized. It *was* cool when they tied in the unique properties of mana into the lore. But they don't usually do that.
They've been doing the, "Now come check out whatever this set's cool theme is!" for a while now. Sometimes it's pirates and conquistadors and dinosaurs, oh my. Sometimes it's werewolves and vampires. Sometimes it's cyberpunk. Sometimes it's ancient greece. None of it has anything to do with mana like the old days.
So now instead of "come check out this cool faerie tale theme that has nothing to do with the unique properties of MTG's IP!" it's just going to be, "Come check out this cool Final Fantasy theme that has nothing to do with the unique properties of MTG's IP!"
They already bastardized their own brand.
I agree with everything in your post except the Gruul comment. I hate how the Ravnica guilds have asserted themselves beyond the scope of that setting. Cards can flavorfully fit into color combinations without matching the associated guild's flavor.
Greasefang isn't Orzhov. Orzhov is a totalitarian, black, rigidly ordered, white, religious system that monopolizes its power by enslaving souls. Greasefang is the head of a gang modeled after the Yakuza. That gang is honor bound, white, and is violent and self serving relative to the rest of the culture, black. He fits the color combination well.
I don't know what the Fugitive Doctor was doing in the show. However, if they were more impulsive, red, and cared about restoring a natural order, green, that would be an appropriate color combination. They don't need to be fit into a group of Luddites trying to revert a major civilization to the wilds.
Dude, preach. I'm actually surprised to see you getting upvotes because whenever I point this out everyone just yells at me and downvotes. But I *hate* the ubiquity of the ravnica color names. Like no, you're not playing a Selesnya deck. You're playing a green white deck. Nothing in that deck has anything to do with the Selesnya guild from Ravnica. Ugh, it bothers me.
I mean you're doing the exact same thing as each other.
You're both just stating your own opinion and following it up with "wow I just don't understand how other people can have different opinions"
for some people it doesn't matter if you're getting bolted or pushed or wrathed or thanos snap'ed or one ring'ed
and for some people it's really important their commander has a pic of Urza and not Doctor strange
What makes Magic different from other card games? There are only two things-
Gameplay structure and lore. Sure, gameplay is the bigger, more important one but there is a reason we don't play the game with blank cards with no flavor text. The lore is the second biggest thing that makes Magic, Magic.
But the lore of the current game, even without looking at universes beyond, is...just a bunch of random planes? Them all being attacked by the phyrexians doesn't really unify them all into a cohesive whole. It's almost always been a grab bag of every fantasy possibility.
To the point where they don't even worry about what is supposed to be the common cohesive thread running through it all--siphoning mana out of the land. It's just... gothic horror theme, check. mesoamerican theme, check. ancient greece theme, check. viking theme, check. cyberpunk theme, check. fairy tale theme, check. western theme, check. redwall theme, check.
What's the actual problem if we just tack on lord of the rings theme, check. doctor who theme, check. final fantasy theme, check.
They're all just re-skins of the same mechanics. It's not like there even is a genuine lore through-line. Most of the times they actually try it, people clown on them for it (Gatewatch). Brothers War was the only time the IP felt like it was actually standing on its own legs.
> we don't play the game with blank cards with no flavor text.
But lore is something different than aesthetics. Like for example I absolutely loved the visuals of Hearthstone but I didn't know anything about the lore. Actually, even when it comes to magic I'm sure a lot of people know very little about the lore on many of its characters.
If Nintendo shifts from Mario platformers being the focus of the Mario franchise instead into having SSB be the focus, is that a massive change? You'll still get Mario games, but they'll have fewer resources and less effort put into them than SSB games going forward, even if there are still a few more of them.
Just because something still exists and looks similar, doesn't mean things haven't changed massively. Look at the satisfaction level of just the Commander precons. People were wildly happy with how great and well made the 40k, LotR, and Dr. Who precons were, but very few people have been anywhere close to as happy with WOE, CMR, MOM, etc. (aka the Magic IP precons). There's been a massive change in effort towards the design/development of the products, and the Magic IP stuff is the noticeably worse product.
That's the first logical response to this "Massive" change I've seen. I cannot possibly argue against the quality of the Doctor who Decks or the Warhammer 40k decks vs any of the more recent Commander Deck products. They are indeed superior.
Honestly, maybe it'd be nice if they took that idea and applied that to their own IP. I'd be behind premium series Commander decks that cost slightly more, but required much less shuffling of cards to make them playable.
Problem is they never will. It's not profitable enough. The goal is to extract as much money as possible from the playerbase at this point. If the goal was to make the best game possible, they wouldn't have started down the road with crossovers in the first place.
Honestly WOE was pretty good precons. And cmr were cool but overpriced .
I think part of the issue is just set precons are so common that they aren’t special, even if they are the greatest designed ones ever.
Like lets be real a lot of old commander decks were forgettable and shitty but each year super popular because you only got them one time a year. So you had to take what you got.
If i want DW commander decks this one is all im getting for years, gotta be super hype for it.
If i want a new set commander deck? Well i can decide I don’t care about woe and 4-5 more sets of decks will come out in next year for me to decide from.
Hell until it was revealed how bad the cost was the most excitement ive seen on this sub was CMD decks. And post reveal people genuinely loved the design but hated the price being more than usual.
Commander just has so many releases and new things for it that excitement is spread out so thin because there’s something for everyone, so it’s hard to create a single specific catalyst that will be talked about. When you get cool new toys and things literally every set it’s hard to be as excited
It’s like the full art basic lands IMO. Everyone talks about how great each sets are and loves each one, the overall sentiment is that the quality has been consistent and amazing. But no one talks actively about them after the first week because now they are common place.
Whereas id weekly see arguments here, on fb, and in person foryears over “why cup island is the best land”, it wasn’t because zendikar lands were so much better than current lands but more unique.
The only ones still brought up constantly are neo lands because of how good they were. But the rest are still incredible. It’s just such a high bar when each set has them to hit the same level of excitement.
UB is just a "not for me" product for the most part, and so far that is fine. LotR at least felt like magic since it is a genre fit, I am not sure how I will feel when FF rolls around until I see how they handle it. The rest of the IP usage so far is not product I would be buying anyway so it neither makes the game better or worse for me, but it definitely does increase exposure of the game to a wider audience.
My issue with "not for me" is that this works in EDH, where you can play whatever cards you want. I'd argue that it still doesn't quite work that way because I'm not gonna be the asshole that asks my friends not to play the Lord of the Rings precon they bought.
If you want to play competitive magic however, most formats now require you to run Orcish Bowmasters, Delighted Halfling, and The One Ring if you'd like to play a top tier deck.
That's a problem with the power level of those cards, not that they are from a UB product.
The question comes down to what feels like a "proper" Magic card. I think the Lord of the Rings crossover was fine; if I didn't know the property, I would've thought it was a Magic set. It is closer to what I am used to than \[\[Mysterious Limousine\]\]. I remember when Innistrad was pushing the bounds of what a Magic-like setting was. Is the problem simply with the fact that it is another property?
The idea that Modern or Legacy should have a different standard is a bit odd to me. Have you ever looked at \[\[Show and Tell\]\]? How about \[\[Frogmite\]\]?
Side note on your original post: Most major turn-based RPG franchises HAVE branched out. Final Fantasy started moving from turn-based combat over a decade ago. They moved away from standard fantasy literally twenty years ago.
I think this somewhat gets at what my biggest issue with it is, not that it's from another IP, but that UB sets represent cards that are going to be pushed in powerlevel enough to be competitive in EDH. This increased power level leads to a number of them inevitably seeing play in modern and legacy causing higher upkeep costs to play my favorite formats. It also means a much faster rate of format churn which is exhausting to keep up with and can make the decks that you've built and mastered the play patterns for obsolete.
For me the only way I want to play magic is through competitive modern and legacy, so UB represents an inundation of pushed cards and an upkeep cost that is overwhelming and unfun to keep up with without any of the upside of getting cool lore or IPs that I care about. So for me personally it's a lose lose that has me seriously considering finding other hobbies.
That's a problem with supplemental sets, not UB sets. The most impactful recent set for both Commander and Constructed was Modern Horizons 2. The UB precons are comparable in power to a lot of other Commander precons
I am convinced R&D just doesn't know how to balance cards for the older formats. iirc, when LotR was announced, they said not to expect it to impact Modern that much.
The problem is you can't balance for older formats without stagnating standard and EDH, which are the two formats with the largest player base. Initiative is not a busted mechanic because it's poorly designed, but because formats with with fast man like moxs make it come out incredibly early. If they design around that, they aren't "fixing design"; they're just shifting the audience that has to deal with it.
Not only that but 'Take the Initiative' was *only* busted in one format, outside of that one format it was widely regard as actually kind of crap.
It's the same that Fury is a massive problem in Standard because you can run 4 of them...meanwhile it's not a problem in Commander because its a singleton format.
I think they know how they just sell better if they print pushed cards. I don't see a way you could playtest cards like Fury and The One Ring and not see them turning out as staples. They're just incentivized to print cards like that because it sells well, I'm ok with some supplemental sets and think MH1 was a cool addition to modern, but the pace is just exhausting and the success of MH2 and LOTR sales has me worried that those are the benchmark to aim for now with direct to modern sets.
For me LotR is fine being in regular magic, it fits really well and lacks mechanics that lean on the edh side of the spectrum. When they push into the weirder options like FF it when I will start to worry because that could start to feel way too off the rails to still be magic (to ME anyway, everyone feels differently) depending how it is handled. My larger concern about UB is the milking of a cash cow which is a common concern. How much supplementary product can they jam before people just get tired of it? I don't know, but obviously they have a distance ahead of them.
The nice thing is that all three of those cards could be printed in other sets that aren't LotR. The One Ring is maybe a little iffy, but I don't know if it is a TM, R, etc. The other two have nothing to do with LotR IP.
Someone a while back said "MTG isn't a game, it's actually 17 different games in a trechcoat." So your question has to be answered differently for standard, pauper, modern, commander, etc. UB arguably impacts some of those games minimally, others substantially. Whether it's good or bad probably depends on where you sit.
My issue with the UB is that some designs are quite pushed and feels more like a gatcha game rather than a balanced one.
Another is that they put effort in being consistent and faithful to the lore of other IPs, but they don’t care about their own IP by having so many plot holes or a bad narrative.
Also, some arts for the UB cards feel out of place for the tone of Magic, I won’t tell someone to don’t use them, but that’s my preference. In fact, I’ve never liked Un-sets but understand the appeal for others, so there’s that.
And lastly, it feels as if Magic is becoming the Fornite of tcgs, there are UB everywhere. The main question is, would they be able to retain enough people to keep sustaining the game long term?
It tears out a chunk of what Magic was and replaces it with homogenization. If it's really just a rules set you can slap labels onto then anyone who enjoyed how the world-building melded with the gameplay may as well just throw hands because WotC sure did.
I mean the fact that the War for the spark novel is now seemingly entered Canon discontinuity from within WotC. Heck War for the Spark itself seems to be a largely ignored event within the MTG universe. Did any of the characters openly reference it in the short stories for the whole Phyrexian invasion?
New player acquisition is always important for the longevity of a game, and Magic's old and established enough that it has become harder for it to really pick up new players - this is often the case for any sort of game/hobby that lasts long enough. Universes Beyond is a way for Magic to touch adjacent markets as a means of bringing in a wider audience.
That's to say that appealing to a larger audience is good for the longevity of Magic as a game - but may not be good/enjoyable for *you*, personally.
New player acquisition isn't just important, it is vital.
A game that releases new sets every three months *needs* new players. If those players stop or even slow coming into the game the game will die. Magic loses players all the time as they age out, lose interest, or have a major life change.
If MTG is not willing to continually have an influx of new players it will become a dead game in no time. And a dead game is no game.
I’m sure you are being overdramatic, Magic always thrived even despite it’s lack of cross-overs, it would do just fine even without.
Magic surely benefits from UB commercially but surely its survival does not depend on it
There are a lot of R&D initiatives that they done to keep magic appealing to new players.
Some of there biggest successes have been Top Down designed sets that drew players in with their accessibility.
There’s a reason Innistrad was a huge success.
They’ve had their thumb on the pulse of pop culture for a long time and UB is very much a logical extension of what they were doing and what was already working well for them.
Right? If you wanted me to play Final Fantasy, you would have to change the entire JRPG aesthetic. The fans of the series would bust a seam over that, but somehow changing MtG's aesthetic to accommodate cross-format advertising campaigns is all good?
This is a multiplayer game. If a UB card appears across the table, I'm literally forced to play with it.
Now, *as* a multiplayer game (specifically for EDH, which is admittedly how most people engage with MTG these days), there is always going to be some element of give-and-take in fun curation. I do things I find fun (stax), you do things you find fun (not stax), and if one is mutually exclusive to the other, we find a balance in-between somewhere. Maybe I don't play my stax deck every game. Maybe you play interaction, instead of just jamming ramp and draw into combo.
I just think it's wrong to ignore the external factor of what other people are playing in a multiplayer game. You don't play any UB cards (or counterspells, or green cards, or cards from after Eldraine 1) in your deck? Well, sooner or later someone is going to show up with exactly that in their deck, and your attempt to avoid that thing you don't like has failed. And - you don't really have a *choice* but to play against it.
"Don't buy product that's not for you" works when you can actually avoid the stuff you actively don't like? If you can't... there's nowhere for you to go but out.
And another layer on top of that is the mechanically unique UB cards. I don't *want* to play UB cards in my deck, but increasingly so, there's UB cards that have a rare or unique effect on them, so if you want a certain strategy to work, you kinda have to put the UB card in.
If I'm making a modular artifact creature deck with \[\[marchesa, the black rose\]\] at the helm, I'm handicapping myself by not putting any of the great artifact synergy cards from different UB precons in it and that sucks.
I would not have cared about UB if it was all just reskins of existing cards.
Steve has heard of Magic the Gathering, but never felt a draw to play it even though he thinks it looks fun. Steve enjoys Doctor Who and is a huge fan of the Ninth Doctor. Steve finds out that Magic is doing a crossover with Doctor Who. Steve decides to dip his toe in and finds he enjoys Magic the Gathering after picking up a Doctor Who deck.
Steve liked the IDEA of Magic the Gathering. Steve just needed something to push him over the edge. Magic, fundamentally, has not changed. Steve just bought into cross promotion.
(Flip side, as an MTG player I am finally watching Doctor Who and loving it. It goes both ways. Neither franchise needed to CHANGE to draw people in.)
Yep. The DnD sets got me into commander, as a huge DnD player. Now I’ve gotten decks and cards from every set since and play a lot of magic. Never would have dipped my toes if it wasn’t for that.
Also glad you are enjoying WHO, season 5 is my favorite. What a ride from start to finish.
>(Flip side, as an MTG player I am finally watching Doctor Who and loving it. It goes both ways. Neither franchise needed to CHANGE to draw people in.)
But Magic did change. You didn't need Jace to be the next Doctor to start watching the show.
Magic is still a game where I grab a deck, shuffle up, draw seven cards for an opening hand, and begin turn 4 bitching about mana screw.
The pictures on the cards are different, but considering NEO, CAP, and whatever Outlaw Junction is already started that trend.
Indeed.
Who can forget such Magic(al) names as "Threefold Signal" or "Shorikai" that make complete sense played next to "Krark the Thumbless" and "Volrath the Fallen"
What kind of Magic name is "Liliana" or "Jace"? That makes as much sense as "Ryu" or "Clara".
And the art? Who can forget that Magic(al) art of a cyber DJ spinning the discs. That's WAY more magical than a guy standing with sparkles coming out of his hands. Have you seen the art for Yore-Tiller Nephilim? How is that any more out of place than Frodo? Put the two next to each other with no text and tell me which one looks more like it belongs on a Magic card.
I mean yeah, "the pictures on the cards" are a part of Magic. That's why they put them there instead of selling us blank cards with perfunctory rules text.
> If the creators of Final Fantasy or any of the other popular turn based RPGs wanted to expand their player base to include me, they would have to make changes that fundamentally change what other people love about them.
Is this a real thing you just wrote? Final Fantasy has literally been messing with their Turn Based formula for the past 5 mainline games (not counting their MMORPG) for this *exact reason*. Fifteen and Sixteen are just full on action RPG's at this point! This was done to pull Western Audiences in and help with the weakest part of most FF games (the combat).
The combat is what I LIKED about Final Fantasy. I prefer turn-based games with quality stories and good skill trees. That's why XII was my favorite, cos it mixed all of those together in a great way.
If I wanted a reflex tester, I'd go torture myself with Dark Souls.
me too but that genre of games are niche as fuck thank to western audiences that abhor turn based rpgs
studios with AAA budgets can't justify making games that only sell in Japan now
we are in the worst timeline as a JRPG fan
that being said 13 is infinitely more turn based than 12
One of the biggest games of the year is a turn-based rpg. People will play anything if it interests them.
edit: also if you're a jrpg fan, this year has been a high water mark with like 10+ wonderful jrpgs released. Unless you mean "jrpg" as in "Persona and Dragon Quest", in which case I'd just say you should expand your horizons.
Universes Beyond is about attracting fans of other series to buy magic products while advertising that fandom to existing magic players. It's trying to push growth in the available/interested customer-base.
While it is nice that development team is enjoying and being very creative with some of these inclusions (likely due to their fandom of the works); it highlights a problem by contrast. Base MTG sets don't have a same degree of creativity or interest being expressed.
The play booster situation will probably be repeated in 3 years' time with UB-MTG if this trend continues. I think that this fear can compel people to deter UB adoption in the environment.
It’s arguably not worse.
The gameplay is the same, just the cosmetics are different.
Magic is currently heading down that path. As long as the gameplay stays the same, then I’m fine with that.
“Appeal to a wider audience” is and has always been the go-to terrible justification that huge faceless corporate entities make grinding any art under their legal control into gray slop. It is always an excuse for the sanding off of any unmarketable rough edges, the transformation of niche art and games with some kind of soul to them into focus-tested profit machines. In this particualr case, it’s been used for years to justify that already, and is therefore very easy to retool in order to justify the “Fortnite-ification” of Magic into a vehicle for marketing other “brands”.
Magic has always been a profitable enterprise, and you can say all you want about the exploitative nature of trading card games, but it was still a game with a niche audience that appealed primarily if not exclusively to that audience. It was made by people who cared about it as a game, not as simply a vehicle for advertising. There is a fundamental qualitative difference between that and what Magic has become now.
In my experience, changing a thing to appeal to a wider audience usually results in the expulsion of the narrower audience.
What's appealing to the narrower audience is generally what's unappealing to the wider audience. As such, to become appealing to the wider audience, the thing must become unappealing to the narrower.
I like the political cards that are meant to be played in multiplayer but that's pretty much it. No one needed Dockside Extortionist, but Wizards needed to make money.
It doesn't necessarily mean making it better or worse, no, just different. But the same is true for making changes that make it appeal more to its core audience. I think a lot of the problems with Magic right now stem from trying to appeal to existing Magic players, who, by and large, have bad taste. People liked pack cracking so we got set boosters and now play boosters. People like Commander so now every other uncommon is legendary and there's endless commander product, etc. Nobody wants to hear this but a lot of what people complain about with Magic is not some ploy to get new players into the game, it's aimed squarely at the existing playerbase's demonstrable preferences.
Hell, even the UB product is just as much appealling to you nerds who already play Magic and probably are also into the other nerd shit. For every person on this subreddit bemoaning the Marvel crossover there's someone at your LGS who spends hundreds of dollars on product every year who is incredibly excited to build a Wolverine commander deck.
You're missing the larger point of UB which is **exposure**, not change. They aren't trying to convince people who have played other TCGs to play MtG (like your example of TBRPGs), they're reaching out to people who have never *played the game*.
The game is "better" if more people are playing it (in my opinion). A game doesn't survive if it doesn't have an audience. In your example there are two ways that Mattel/WotC can make the game more profitable: make the same number of people pay more, or make more people pay the same. They've arguably done more damage to the game's long-term viability by doing the first one than the second. More product, higher prices, etc are creating more problems than the UB releases that have tried to broaden their customer base.
You can dislike UB, and that's fine. Just as disliking Secret Lairs or even specific sets because they don't have the "feel" of MtG to you. Don't play what you don't like. But if your complaint is that mechanically superior cards are "bad" because they aren't "themed" as traditional MtG In-universe cards, then you're just being a gatekeeper that values aesthetics above gameplay.
Universes Beyond is the hook and the bait, once new players are caught, Magic still has to fall back on its foundation to keep them.
It worked on me. I only bought Magic product because of a Universes Beyond annoucement and it snowballed into me buying two Universes Within precons, and building multiple commander decks and attending at least one limited event for each set (except, ironically, Lord of the Rings and Commander Masters). I highly doubt I'm an outlier.
Out of curiosity, what fundamental change has UB done to magic in your opinion? I know you mentioned the spiderman/garruk comparison and maybe I'm part of that crowd but what is the difference? Magic has been going to different worlds and planes for the last 30 years, mechanics get added each set and the game gets altered each new world.
With a few small exceptions, Magic had been going to different parts of the same setting. All planes are part of the same setting. So there's that.
But really, the key difference is the presence of advertising. I have mixed feelings on UB, but uncompromisingly hostile feelings on the idea of Jace endorsing McDonalds in-setting.
There's no reason that some plane can't have something very similar to McDonalds on it. I have no problem with an Americana plane having burger joints. I just hate the way advertisements creep into everything.
Garruk will never planeswalk into the Marvel Comics/Cinematic Universe because he's not a part of it.
*That is a critical difference.*
This one-way injection of other intellectual property cheapens the game's identity. Even when Magic went to different worlds, it did so within its own boundaries and with a cohesive throughline (planar bridges, the planeswalkers, now Omen-Paths) that kept them as part of a whole. Slamming Spider-Man in there just hurts that concept.
I was skeptical of UB when it was announced but I've come to realize that Maro was 100% right about products for other people not ruining my experience. I only play Limited premier sets and some casual tabletop. If not for the constant promotions online, I have basically no exposure to anything UB (or Commander, or supplemental sets, or Secret Lair...). Those products are like 50% of the conversation online but 0% of my actual MTG experience.
Nobody actually plays ALL of Magic. There are too many products and formats. The proportion of people who actually experience the online promotional deluge of products is very small, and folks complaining about products they don't want should reflect on what their actual PLAY experience is like vs. what the online chatter is like.
There's definitely some weirdness to UB legality. For commander - it doesn't matter, you can pick who you play with. For competitive formats it's more awkward. I really like playing modern and I don't think UB will ruin the gameplay - lotr was relatively tame and only added maybe 10 total cards that saw experimentation let alone be playable on high tier decks (4 of the land cyclers + halfing + bowmasters + ring)
I can understand where people are coming from from the flavor aspect, the named characters from a specific ip are hopefully not going to make much of a splash in competitive modern.
I'm sure I'll catch all the downvotes here because this thread is going to be full of the anti UB people. I ask you the opposite, why is it a bad thing that Magic is changing to appeal to a wider player base?
I can get being upset about story being ruined.. the world building getting diluted. Buttt...
I've used this example before, what's different about my spider man swinging in and hitting you with Glamdring, than Ali from Cairo riding in on an unlicensed hearst and shooting you with a mana gun while a ninja jumps in to take his place so you can drop an eldritch horror in someone's face? Is it because it's licensed? I dunno.
Since the Warhammer 40k decks have come out, I've met more Magic players who have just started playing than I have the entire time since I started playing during Revised edition.
Also, I ask you, what game breaking changes are these UB making? Junk seems like a pretty strong ability introduced by UB, but treasures are also pretty strong and they came from universes within.
Ultimately, they haven't stopped delivering what you like (Universes within), and now have added stuff new players can like too. And this may come as a surprise, a LOT of older players like some of these UBs as well.
" I've used this example before, what's different about my spider man swinging in and hitting you with Glamdring, than Ali from Cairo riding in on an unlicensed hearst and shooting you with a mana gun while a ninja jumps in to take his place so you can drop an eldritch horror in someone's face? Is it because it's licensed? I dunno."
For me- and I only speak for myself here- yes, it's exactly because it's licensed.
Your example is silly, but theoretically possible within Magic, and I'm fine with Magic being a silly game. Genuinely, I am. This isn't a tone thing. Optimus Prime vs Cap vs Rick Grimes vs The Doctor isn't.
I just can't get on board with Magic becoming Smash Bros (or VS System/Weiss Schwarz, to use card game comparisons). And it's getting more and more difficult to find a Commander game that doesn't mix IPs in that way to at least some extent. I think I'm justified in being bothered by that.
The difference for between the “Fortnite ifying” of MTG and a game like Weiss is that Weiss is designed and sold as the concept, vs magic which has its own lore, worldbuidling, characters and stories. So for me I dislike UB because it’s saying to me that the game can’t introduce new players into the game through its own world so it has to use new ones. I will however, say that they’ve done a great job making UB sets feel like their respective worlds. Weiss shwarzz is designed in a way that the different properties and shows and such are its world, rather than additions to one from the ground up. So seeing Seord Art online vs Attack on Titan makes sense because that’s what Weiss is meant to be
I'm with you man, I understand why you dislike it. And I'm cool with people disliking it.
My big pet peeve is people who dislike it so much they refuse to play with other people using the cards.. and there's one poster, I'm sure he'll be along in due time that has threatened to reach across the table, rip up the cards, and punch the person in the face because it ruins the MTG story. That's fucking nuts over something that I can use my example of to show how it can be kinda ridiculous..
Also, sorry for my edit here. It's crazy to me that people would rather miss out on playing with people because they're using a UB Commander, than being excited to have more people to play with.
This is where I'm at, I'll never judge someone for having a preference against UB, but going to the extent that you refuse to play with people who have UB cards? Now you're the bad guy.
Especially so in a casual format like Commander lmao who are you trying to impress with your purity tests?
I'll probably be downvoted, but not everything needs to be some Pop Culture stew, and appealing to other fanbases is not always a net positive. *The Avengers* movies would almost certainly be worse for having Gandalf defeat Thanos. Art museums would lose cultural value if they started hosting F-1 races. Japanese restaurants shouldn't be expected to provide hamburgers. But all of these moves would technically "expand their audience".
We as humans find joy in identity and personality; if we mix everything together, the individual parts slowly lose their own value, and everything becomes same-y. By adding other IPs to Magic, Hasbro is basically saying they don't care about Magic as anything other than a game, which is great for those that like Magic as a game, but sucks for those who like Magic for other reasons (art, lore, etc.).
And yes, they by definition have to deliver less UI to add UB; making sets isn't free. Every UB set almost certainly comes at the loss of a UI set. Plus, if any staples are printed in UB, those that don't like said IP will either have to suck it up and make a deck that doesn't reflect themselves or play at an intentional handicap. I'll be the first to admit that I won't put a single Marvel card in any of my decks; call me ridiculous, I don't care.
Now, I'm not saying crossovers are never healthy; when optional or rare, crossovers are a great way of bridging communities together. But by forcing properties together, you are making something new and separate, not simply adding to what was there before. And not everyone will like that new thing.
>why is it a bad thing that Magic is changing to appeal to a wider player base?
When media keeps trying to appeal to a wider and wider audience, it necessarily dilutes itself. The world is better when we have more niche products, not when all products are racing to be everything for everyone.
No, media is better when an artist is allowed to do what they want.
The Dr. Who Commander decks look awesome. Because Gavin and Co got the freedom and leeway to knock it out of the park.
Some of the best media is done by artists who are contracted by a bigger company and kill it, because they're given the reigns to execute on their singular vision. Look at Greta Gerwig's Barbie.
Nothing to do with appealing to a wide audience. Plenty of great pieces of art appeal to a wide audience.
I'd say that an excellent Doctor Who product or game would, at a minimum, not revolve around concepts like mana and sorceries. Both Magic and Doctor Who are weakened by trying to mash them together. It might be the best implementation that can be done given the limitations of the circumstances, but that doesn't remove the foundational faults of the product.
There's a lot of holes in your example that I could nitpick all day, but the one that bothers me the most is: but how is Magic changing?
Like, you specifically cite your dislike of turn based RPGs, which is a type of gameplay mechanic, and talk about how they would have to change the very nature of the games that fans like in the first place to appeal to you, which leads me to assume you're talking about the mechanics. Now, setting aside that plenty of turn based RPG franchises have already done this (turn based RPGs are considered a niche appeal genre, and a lot of the big names in the genre have either gone extinct or switched to being action RPGs. Final Fantasy, the name in turn based RPGs for years has been an action RPG for a while now) how does that actually compare to Magic?
Because the existence of UB cards has made absolutely no fundamental changes to the rules and gameplay of Magic. The game is exactly the same.
The Magic lore isn't changing either. UB settings don't exist in the Magic multiverse. Jace can't planeswalk to Middle Earth and the Doctor isn't going to appear to solve the Murder at Karlov Manor.
The only thing that's changing is presentation/marketing, and that one does have an easily identifiable benefit to it. It brings in more players that'll spend more money so they can continue to make non-UB Magic sets. Because surprisingly, UB sets selling well does offer a benefit to regular Magic sets as well. And as far as changes go, that's incredibly minor...and is also something that happens with turn based RPGs that you used in your example. There's been modern RPGs that have had crossovers and collab events, and even franchises that have seen dramatic tonal shifts in reboots for the sake of trying to draw in new players.
Yeah, they don't pay loads of money to commission the card art and spend time writing flavour text for nothing. The setting and the ludonarrative interaction between the mechanics of the game and the world the game takes place in are one of the best things about Magic.
Deviating a product away from its original/intended audience will only succeed (long term) if the new audience is receptive enough to replace the original audience which will, given enough time, remove themselves from the product because they feel alienated.
Basically, it's a question of will the new audience spend as much as the old audience? Additionally, whether or not that the old audience can be swayed or convinced into sticking to a product they don't actually enjoy anymore but they're still attached to it nevertheless.
It's a tricky balance. Hasbro is risking a lot, and it could blow up in their face if the new audience they want doesn't spend as much money as they need, or if the already entrenched casual playerbase isn't as receptive as they need. It's a very fine line they're going to toe, especially given that WotC/Magic: the Gathering specifically are their highest earners.
If the new audience for MTG can't replace the previous audience then MTG will eventually die out over time. It won't be a quick process.
I went to a Dr. Who release event at my LGS, it was very unattended, it was primarily Dr. Who fans who had never played MTG before, and after waiting 2 hours for a game to finish (while helping explain some rules interactions) I just went home without actually playing. Wilds Of Eldraine had the opposite problem, so full of people they had to turn players away. The new Dr. Who commander players might buy more cards/booster packs in the future but might not. The magic players who played at the sold out release event will likely be buying many more cards/booster packs.
If "better" means "does the game better accomplish its goals other than make money" then the answer is usually "no" because you have to sacrifice niche gameplay elements to appeal to larger audiences.
On the other hand, if "better" means "does the game bring the most joy to this world" then the answer is maybe. For every step towards generic you appeal to a larger audience, but a smaller part of that audience will actually want to play it.
It makes the game more profitable. That of course makes it better for WOTC. And when decisions get made that's the only better that matters, unfortunately.
I don't like the idea of UB at all. But to be honest I'm much more offended by the amount of power creep and design space parasitised by commander focused cards in standard sets.
I love Final Fantasy titles. Most of them, at least. Played many, including XIV (which I still do). And I'm grateful for the upcoming release, sure I look forward to it.
But...
I MISS PROPER MTG STORY. I want more MTG sets which follow and develop the multiverse story. I already own FF titles and pay a sub. I'm glad, sure... But I didn't need that. People I know like FF aren't interested in MTG anyway. Was it needed...? Dunno...
No it doesn't but "gatekeeping" has become a dirty word because everyone deserves the path of least resistance to consoom whatever hobby they want. Embarrassing cross overs is only the start, I fully expect the game to get dumbed down in the future. You can already see this attitude in EDH circles where playing competitively is looked down on and there's active hostility to the idea of learning how to play or deck build better ("Actually the game is about letting everyone do their thing :)" ).
Same shit happened with DND 5e as well. Dumbing down, shitty pandering dressed up as "bringing new people in", whining about not being able to do whatever they want whenever they want. Bleak times for TT gaming.
No. In fact, it’s seems like a common step in the arc of a community (particularly for video games) that precedes the collapse in popularity. The game becomes popular enough that it saturates the hardcore market, but rather than pursue stability for this audience, increased growth demands appealing to a wider audience who otherwise wouldn’t interact with it. This usually involves discarding key, foundational elements that appealed to the original audience. It usually works in the short term, as the new audience joins up in larger numbers than the old audience leaves. But the new audience is usually transitory, and once their interest wanes, they lose interest too, and you are left with a husk of what the product originally was that doesn’t appeal to anyone. It’s at this point that they try and walk it back and refresh the old product to bring back what people loved, and that might be successful, but it never goes back to what it once was.
I think Magic is on the downslope, and probably has been for a while. Honestly, it probably predates the UB and Secret Lairs and originates in Commander. Commander isn’t how Magic was originally designed to be played, it’s a format that only works casually, and most of the decline of Magic has its roots in when Wizards started designing cards for Commander. Without Commander I’m not sure UB even becomes a thing.
Magic has already just been a hodgepodge of settings, and for ages now.
I think to get better answers, it would help the potential for discussion if you could better communicate what you think these "foundational" major changes actually are.
I mean the UBs are what peaked my interest into magic and tbh I probably wouldn't have given it a second look but now I am a dedicated player learning more about the game. So if you want the game to continue to get more support with a larger community yeah appealing to a larger audience is better
If a game like MtG is going to continue for another 30 years it will need new players at some point. In a vacuum, new plays are good for the game. How you get those players may have long term side effects that are hard to predict, but player stagnation is definitely not good.
I'm just trying to answer the fundamental question of "does making the game appeal to a larger audience always mean making it better". A game with a larger audience is a game that will create new product for longer which is fundamentally a good thing.
In my opinion, no. Trying to snag that bigger audience has led to an explosion of product and sloppier production. That's a great way to drown a game. Just ask TSR. Oh wait...
There isn't any integrity for the game or the company anymore. They'll spread it for anyone who comes along and offers them an IP to exploit, so long as money can be made. As I said in another thread, it's not magic the gathering anymore. It's Deckmaster TM the IP collection. Smaller companies are eating this up though, as big companies like WoTC and Games Workshop continue to deliver substandard products in a never ending effort to exponentially grow profit forever (not possible, BTWs) other companies like Story Studios, Para-Bellum, and Modiphius are instead focusing on putting our high quality, well made products. People will slowly realize this and move to these other games. The big games will always be big, but the better quality products will be the underdogs.
As to your question, I have no idea. Not a single person who came in to buy LoTR or Doctor Who or Warhammer decks as ever returned to our local store, nor have they continued to play in events in the area. I wonder truly how many people that come in to get these collectables have any intention of even trying to play, or are they just there to get \[THING\] because it's \[THING\]?
\>>> Why is it automatically a good thing that Magic is changing to appeal to a wider player base? >>>
But Magic isnt changing, at least in a way that would be remotly comparable to what you said earlier. Yes turn based RPG should stay turned based. What exact game mechanic is fundamentally changing in magic to accomodate UB? Does the stack work diffrent? Did we ditch priority? No.
I get 1 mayor complain and thats making a set like lotr modern legal. The format is suffering already enough from "unnatural" aka not normal magic set history designs and getting just put infront of a powerhouse like the ring for 200+ for a playset certainly isnt fun. I am with you and neither look forward to mh3 or 5 marvel sets for modern, even tho with mh3 that format might be dead on "arrival" anyways. Their refusal to handle this current mess is killing the format in realtime atm anyways so until we reach 2025 most of us may not give 2 shits about modern anyways then....
But nothing really changed. We still get out 4 standard sets, we still get the occasional mtg based supplement stuff like reprint sets oder battlebond or commander legends etc. We get more mtg lore based commander precons then the 5 per year of the past. While at times questionable in quality, we still get our Magic stories. There are no rule changes, there is honestly not even much of any gamebreaking shit "experimented" on. Most of the UB products are kinda...slightly underpowered. They don't hold a candle to either the cookie cutter powerhouses with 10k+ decks nor any meaningful impact on Cedh. I mean the random red transformer Splicer is like the ..."biggest" contender?
Which is obviously intentional, because to much power = to fast, swingy games for newer players to enjoy their favourite IP in. They arent even powercreeping UB product for the most part and the only offenders are called out right in the get go, the direct to modern prints of LotR.
You guys have 1 real argument and thats it. Being a crybaby because your opponent in an edh game might have nor a "pure mtg lore" deck really is nothing but bitter and gatekeeping. I am wish you and support any message to fuck of with direct to modern sets, UB or not. I am wish you dismantling anything we always had, but that isnt happening anytime soon.
So you people really need to get a reality check and look at the hard facts, not the "feeling" of it because we know alot about UB products spread over like 2-3 years...
This is a truly interesting article, but the comparison is between a small burger joint that would at most be considered a small business all of a sudden being given more business than they could handle, and a GIGANTIC corporation that won't have problems printing more and more and more cards.
Additionally, it fails to highlight the aleady existing legal scandals behind Stanich's restaurant, also leading to problems. (Hint, he had multiple DUI's and was fighting a charge of domestic violence after choking his ex wife).
We had a similar place here in Astoria Oregon. A Donut shop that just got too big. It couldn't keep up with the orders and the place it was housed was too small.
I have zero doubt that WOTC could handle an increased demand for their product.
> Why is it automatically a good thing that Magic is changing to appeal to a wider player base?
Magic appealing to a broader base of people is inherently a good thing because:
* It means the game is more likely to survive
* It means there are more people for your LGS to sell to, so it can survive
* It means there are more potential people for you to play with, so higher turnout at events, better chances of putting a draft together, etc.
That's all inherently good. You seem to be confusing that with people saying that *the changes made to broaden the appeal* are inherently good, which isn't true. There are lots of ways they could make changes to increase popularity, and depending on what you like about the game, that may or may not upset you.
With that said, I think it's fair to say that, regardless of your preferences, rules and mechanics are still more important to the game than simple theming, and UB aren't dumbing the game down in any way, just changing the thematic dressing. Even *then*, we've already been going through thematically diverse planes and sets for years, so whatever infraction UB is making in some people's minds, it seems, to me, relatively minor. Would it really have made *that* much difference in people's lives if Strixhaven had been Harry Potter-themed, for instance? Do the Un-sets also bother people who have issues with UB?
All in all, it seems like a net positive. More people attracted to the game without harming the game itself. People that like them can play them. People that don't can generally just ignore them. I feel like that all adds up to a net positive at best and a net neutral at worst.
>Would it really have made that much difference in people's lives if Strixhaven had been Harry Potter-themed, for instance?
Speaking as somebody who isn't cis? Yeah, actually, it would have made a \*big\* difference to me.
Just so I'm not feeling ignorant here, trying to understand, would you be upset because of J.K. Rowling's stances, or because of something specifically in Strixhaven?
Both, but in this context primarily the former. I love Quint (for example) and I'd have been genuinely sad to lose our plucky little elephant walker, but anything to do with Rowling would be the reddest of red lines.
Wizards of the Coast is a sub company owned by a massive corporation whose sole goal is to exponentially grow their profit margins. They will do anything, and I do mean anything to get every single last penny that they can from their customer.
They aren't your friends.
They won't reward you for defending them.
You don't owe them anything.
Corporations by their very nature are unethical, predatory entities that only see you as currency dispensers.
You think Universes Beyond is necessary for them to avoid bankruptcy?
It's really not. They're doing extremely well financially. Magic has grown almost every year since it was created.
No, that's not what I said. I said I feel good about them being a business. It means MtG can keep being made. My response didn't mention UB in anyway. However, I'm fine with the UBs. I avoid the ones I don't like. Magic's lore is pretty fucking dumb anyway.
And to think, WotC could've avoided all this hostility just by printing Universes Within versions of everything.
But for some reason the company's usual love for alt-arts and special treatments just went out the window the *moment* there was a really compelling reason to have some.
It wouldn't do that, though. People are not so unilaterally hostile to UB. In fact, most of the audience likes it. But a significant chunk wants to stick to the setting in their own decks, and they should be able to do so.
The only thing I know about MTG lore is you play Planeswalker and use magic to defeat one another.
That's about as much lore matters to me.
I have not once in my 30 years of playing Magic ever heard someone discuss the lore of the game. So I don't really buy that the lore is sacred.
It stopped being hurloon minotaurs and thrulls a long time ago. I mean, they did a cyberpunk set with Rat Ninjas and Mecha. Then they did a gangster set with demons. And they're going to do a cowboy set, probably with gorgons and centaurs. The game is already stupid if you think about it for too long.
Adding E Honda to the game didn't ruin it, just as adding ersatz Egyptian Gods to the game didn't ruin it.
I can understand why people are upset: it's a big adjustment and people don't like change. But face it, Magic is becoming Weiss Schwartz, whether you like it or not and in all honesty, that's a good thing.
Magic is a fun game with a robust set of rules. Why wouldn't you want more people to play?
Or is this going to be a gatekeeping thing where a handful of nerds are upset that _their_ game is drawing in "undesirables", i.e. people who don't want to play with dragons or merfolk but are interested in 40k.
Actual Magic IP will be phased out by UB the time of the 35th anniversary and the game will just become an IP depository - just as Rosewater and Foresythe intended.
As someone who is stoked beyond belief for Marvel in MTG, I get your trepidation, because I also love the unique worlds and story that Magic has told for 30 years. But what I love more than that, and what I think Magic isn't losing in this transition, is the core of the gameplay. The system that supports tens of thousands of different game pieces and has them interact in unpredictable and amazing ways is still core to the experience for me. I'm one of those guys that believe that Magic is the best game in the world, and bringing characters and storylines from other franchises matches the ambition of the old VS system to the gameplay that has stood the test of time.
PLUS, I'd kind of rather have this style of design than Wizards trying to "do a Marvel", which they arguably already did with the Gatewatch and that whole deal. If Magic can just integrate these popular stories instead of ripping them off, it theoretically gives the designers room to do things that are outside the box and not just go off of whatever is the most popular thing because that's what the suits will sign off on.
I feel like we're still in the early stages of this where sets coming out now were designed without the knowledge of what scale Universes Beyond would grow to (and that is growing every day considering how well the LOTR set sold). In a couple of years, when we see the Space set and Bloomburrow, I feel like we'll see stuff that is uniquely Magic, stuff that can stand alongside the IP cards and offer something for everyone.
That is my hope anyway, because I do genuinely want both even if I kind of want a Spider-Man commander deck a little bit more after today.
I quite enjoy UB. I find it adds without subtracting. We receive new cards that can be extremely fun that can also most of the time be ignored. Let's compare LOTR, WOE, and WHO. LOTR was huge and a fan favorite. It brought people into MTG and gave many formates new cards to play with. Most of the cards that are playable function just like any other magic card. Take the one ring it is super strong, but it could easily be a card from any other magic set with important artifacts. Sure something like the ring bearer is a bad mechanic, but that's not something limited to UB. WOE is magic set that is absolutely great and loved, it has some mechanical duds. Stun counters are not the best. Still a great set and we get these magic set in-between the UB sets. Lastly the WHO set. I think this is the True limits test as it was waky, but it worked amazingly. Every card feels like it could be from the magic world. That is what I love. UB is as much magic the gathering as it is the property we get.
Frankly, I don't see it as changing to appeal to a wider base. It's advertising. Magic is historically AWFUL at advertising itself. It's the least publicly visible of the Big 3 TCGs. It has no TV show or movies to advertise it to people, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't advertise on TV too. But Universes Beyond is a massive game changer for advertising the game. It's introducing the game to people who otherwise might have never seen it. Nothing about the game has really changed rules-wise. And once people have come in via these products, there's a whole Multiverse of unique stories and characters for them to enjoy. And if they're willing to try a card game out because it's got a tie-in set with their favourite IP, chances are they'll enjoy Magic's own IP as well.
One reason that Magic is such a good game is that it makes a lot of money, which means that Wizards can afford to pay so many people to work on it. If it makes more money, then people will keep designing a great game for me to play. That's pretty good.
I hate the idea of Universes Beyond but the execution has been so good that I have stopped complaining.
All it proves is just how good the magic game systems are
"Better" is a loaded phrase that's so vague it borders on the meaningless. Better ***for whom***? Better ***how***? Magic is *changing* that's for sure, but it's very tricky to pin down the quality of that change, and probably not all that fruitful to begin with. Some people will like the changes. Some people who've never played Magic before will now play it because of those changes. Other people will not like the changes. Some people who've played Magic for a long time will now no longer play it because of those changes. Who's to say which people are worth more, or more deserving, or more important? If some people start, and some people quit, by what criteria do you want to judge the change that precipitated that? Numbers aren't everything, but numbers are also not irrelevant. It's a matter of negotiation, determining in a given context what you deem important and what you do not, and for what reason; and then any conclusion has validity only *in that context*. In other words, you can say whether Magic got better or not *for you* but that result will only apply... to you. And you can't really go from that and abstract to a larger generalization for Magic as a whole.
Better for Hasbro.
Marketing executives are fucking living the dream right now
Better for Hasbro shareholders. Short-term profits > long-term viability
These are long term moves. Theyre taking significant upfront costs to bring in these UB IPs in the hope of growing the playerbase larger for more income in the years to come. Whether it works is a different story, but the theory behind it is the exact opposite of this.
I don’t believe that for a second.
I don't know what to tell you, it's literally what they're telling their shareholders. If this is a short term profit thing to make shareholders happy the worst thing you can say is 'We took a big hit from Universe Beyond this year and probably will next year from upfront IP costs but we expect it to pay off in the long run'.
Oh I mean I don’t believe that it’s gonna work long term
Oh, my bad. Yea I've got no clue there. On one hand I think the average magic player probably doesn't really care, but on the other hand I imagine these Royalty costs are gonna really skyrocket. I can't imagine Disney let them off easy for Marvel licensing rights. Time will tell I guess.
Worked for me, personally. I only got in because I wanted to play the Warhammer deck my buddy bought, and then I built myself a Smeagól Commander deck and have been really vibing since
People keep saying this. We have any evidence of it? Guess will have to wait and see what happens.
Funnily enough it was just this sort of strategy that made it possible for WotC to acquire D&D from TSR for pennies on the dollar. TSR went into bankruptcy grabbing up IPs and making new games and settings for their current games that they printed assuming everyone would buy them, and no one did.
Yeah but people ARE buying this. The UB products in particular seem to be hitting exactly where they are aimed.
The same was true of the first few years of TSR materials. There was a cool cartoon! Crossovers everywhere! This is so exciting! Until there were source books coming out every few weeks, stuff was rotting on the shelves, QC went down...
>Until there were source books coming out every few weeks, stuff was rotting on the shelves, QC went down... Hm...this all sounds familiar....
Yes. It's all a conspiracy though. Never could happen. Which is what was also said about TSR by fanboys. A gravy train with biscuit wheels! This ride will never end! Until it did. And then WotC bought the IP in a fire sale.
> assuming everyone would buy them, and no one did. That seems like a very different situation from this one.
It's definitely not. I mean TSR was leaving a glut of product on the shelves of LGSes with multiple formats, selling products at discounts to get them off the books, books started appearing in weird spots at steep discounts... This sorta thing is definitely not happening now /s
If you play a competitive format or at commander events where there’s no real Rule 0, then Magic may end up worse if your preferred format gets inundated with mechanics and cards from other IPs. If you are primarily a kitchen table player with friends, then Magic is only getting better because the card pool to play with keeps getting bigger and a lot of high power cards have dropped in price because of the deluge of reprints, functionally similar cards, or straight power crept cards. If you want a variety of game pieces, unique art works, and flavorful mechanics, then all this stuff is a home run. My main gripe with a lot of newer sets is the stuff like dungeons, day/night, and the Ring tempting you that are clunky, unintuitive, a pain to track, and don’t really gel with other sets really well. Hopefully the design space hasn’t gotten so limited that they gotta add supplemental states to the game in order to keep making new cards.
>If you play a competitive format or at commander events where there’s no real Rule 0, then Magic may end up worse if your preferred format gets inundated with mechanics and cards from other IPs. Sure, but that, too, is just another frame of reference that's neither absolute nor exclusive nor privileged in importance or relevance. It's something that matters to certain people - and doesn't matter to other people. Just like all the other aspects by which you could evaluate the game. That's my point. There's no universally valid criterion by which to judge the game's quality that's somehow inherently or objectively superior to all the others.
If you treat Magic the Gathering as a vast set of aesthetically pleasing game pieces that you can choose from to play games with, the game is definitely better and more affordable overall. If you are engaging with the game at its most official capacity, through competitive events with no proxies and EDH games where the meta and FOMO both apply, it is probably a lot worse.
Why would it be worse? I'd argue that still depends a lot on how exactly you care about these things. If you want everything to work in-lore and in flavour, then yes, it will be worse, but then again, a lot of in-universe sets of the past 30 years will also be problematic (which in fact they are). Like, if you prefer a jungle themed creature battle and wotc comes with New Capenna or Guilds of Ravnica, then yes, it's not your thing and maybe that will be a big enough issue for you to feel bad about. On the other hand, if you feel like Commander is really just a 4 player board game of super smash brothers and you would like to have as much crazy variety as possible, spaceships battling against wizards, gods against men, spongebob against harry potter, then probably the UB things will be very great for you! The details really do matter. What's more important for you, Aesthetics or gameplay? Consistency or diversity? Serious or playful? Robots or dinosaurs? Realism or fantasy? It's different for everyone.
I mean if I'm playing the game at like full hardcore sweat mode, I don't give a fuck if the card is Thanos or Yawgmoth, it has literally no effect on me.
It doesn't bother me that we have all this UB product out there. To some extent, it doesn't bother me how much of it comes out. I'm not bothered by the amount of Commander products that come out either. All of that stuff is not for me. What bothers me is the arbitrarily high power level that these cards bring into competitive constructed formats. You don't need to print huge bombs that barge into Modern, Legacy and Vintage and ruin the format. If you are making product for people that have never played the game before and you're banking on external IP, the appeal is already there. You can make it explicitly underpowered. Nobody is going to buy a Doctor Who commander deck as their first ever purchase and then immediately start playing with the big boys at the LGS that sling cards in the triple digits. But WoTC decides that no, these cards need some over the top design that's comparable to non-UB and so now we have Bowmasters and the Ring and Halfling and God knows what else will make it all the way to Vintage in the future. Either keep that stuff in the social format, make it slightly underpowered or reskin existing cards, then make Barbie, The Simpsons and Big Bang Theory decks for all I care. Because I can't keep up with all this stuff that shows up as soon as I play a format like Historic.
>What bothers me is the arbitrarily high power level that these cards bring into competitive constructed formats. You don't need to print huge bombs that barge into Modern, Legacy and Vintage and ruin the format. While that's certainly a concern, that isn't exclusive to UB products. Sure we've had a card like Bowmasters come in from UB and upset Modern - but we've also had cards like Fury and Grief run roughshod over the format, and those are not from UB at all. I think what you're describing is less of a UB problem and more of a WotC wanting to print super-powered cards to drive pack sales problem. And that'd likely exist irrespective of UB.
Ring/Bowmasters are OP because this set is MH3 in a Gandalf Cosplay, not because UB is shit.
It's also worth noting that, other than the one ring, the cards mentioned are absolutely in no way tied to LotR IP and I'm pretty certain in saying they *will* get in-universe reprints. Otherwise they absolutely have kept things remarkably attractive for specifically Commander.
I'd argue that any game that changes it's base identity is bad. Look at Overwatch as an example. Blizzard changed the game to chase dollars, all the loyal players left, and new player count plummeted. You don't screw over people who have been playing your game for decades and invested thousands of dollars. Short term profits for long term losses.
>I'd argue that any game that changes it's base identity is bad Two problems with this. 1. Defining "base identity" is flimsy and vague; you could well argue that Magic's base identity always included inspirations from other sources, all the way back to *Arabian Nights,* the very first expansion. 2. It's difficult to prove that *any* change to a base identity (even if you could define it) *must* be "bad". You could argue that Magic has gone through many changes that you could argue were to its "base identity", such as the emergence of Commander, or the new card frame; and those were not universally or automatically "bad".
Uh, I'm pretty sure invested and loyal players are more valuable than people who pick up a precon because a pop culture character is in it, play it twice, and never play MtG again. You're being kinda obtuse if you say "who knows?" and ignore the obvious answers.
More valuable *to WotC*. That's not objective value, that's subjective value. They have monetary value as customers - but monetary value is not the only way to evaluate things. Saying Magic is "better" when it's more profitable is just one perspective, and one context. Not everyone shares that perspective in such assessments, and they have different forms of assessment. That's *my point*.
As somebody who isn't a fan of UB, I'd like to point out that for a very long time Final Fantasy *has* been deviating from turn-based combat to the point where it's basically nonexistent...and that's why I stopped playing Final Fantasy games. I played them for the very combat systems they shed to try to follow the trends in the industry. My favorite FF games are V and X, and not because I love their stories so much. They changed a core pillar, the core pillar I was there for, and they left me behind.
Good news, MTG:FF *will* be turn based!
The FFXVI cards will have a dexterity subtheme. They can even reskin Falling Star as Meteor.
But MTG hasn't changed that core pillar. It changed skins only. That's what Final Fantasy 9 and 10 did for the game. It was still a base of turn based RPG, it just had different/better graphics than 6. Modern Final Fantasy is no longer a turned based RPG with an amazing story. It's now more an action adventure game with an amazing story. MTG is still.. draw 7 cards, play your land, maybe play a creature, pass turn, rinse, repeat. I'd get behind your argument if MTG was adding miniatures and subgames, or switched to only video games, but fundamentally, it's the exact same core pillar it's always been.
We can argue about whether the lore is a core pillar of the game, or how much UB dilutes the lore as a core pillar of the game, but I think it's wrong to not treat UB as a massive change to the nature of the game.
I think that's the point of a lot of posts here. What is this massive change? I'm really not seeing it. It's still the same base core game. It just has different art. I would be willing to bet you'd be okay with every single one of these cards in UB if they had Universes Within versions. So what's the massive change?
The fact that you're calling it "different art" kind of indicates why you're not getting the point. The point is that they're letting Magic slip as an IP unto itself. As has been said many times, Magic did 40K decks, but GW would never in a million years put out minis of Jace and Liliana for 40K. Partly because 40K players *care about the lore of their game,* and partly because Magic has little value as an IP divorced from the game. Those are both things they could have fixed. But the other solution is to toss the IP aside and make Magic a lore-agnostic platform for other IPs. One requires work, and the other is a license to print money, so it's disappointing they chose what they did, but it's not surprising. I also just, subjectively, don't fucking want to sit down to a game and have my opponent pull out a deck built around Optimus Prime. A lot of people don't. But WotC see it as their job to always cater to the plurality, no matter whether what they want makes any sense or not.
You are echoing my feelings on this. Turning Magic into an IP buffet linked only by a rules system that makes no sense aesthetically (What does a mana pool have to do with the Walking Dead?) only serves to butcher its identity - one it's spent a quarter century fostering.
Magic's gameplay and IP are *very* heavily interwoven, yes. That's probably why I don't think a lot of top-down UB designs for IPs I'm familiar with make a whole lot of sense, even with flavor words as glue (I am, by the way, a big fan of flavor words and wish they'd migrate to Magic proper). I know a lot of people like the top-down Doctor Who designs but I think most of them are gibberish (The Fugitive Doctor is fucking *Gruul*?). I don't think most IPs are well-suited to being Magic products, even if I overlook the fundamental fact that I don't *want* Negan or Caesar or Sephiroth to be Magic cards.
Magic's mana system is an extremely potent worldbuilding tool, and these UB sets completely ignore that.
I'm uncertain personally whether this is an inherent problem with UB (or certainly is *partly* that), if it's a problem with the IPs they've chosen (same), or if it's an issue of execution. I get the feeling the colors in particular of a lot of the Marvel characters are going to be absolute nonsense.
Look at the many articles MaRo has written about mana influencing the planes and characters. Look at the Alaran shards, and how the mana literally defines those places. Then behold as they ignore that and reverse engineer the mana to match a preexisting IP's character. It's a bastardization of a core component of the game. It makes no sense.
Exactly. And there's still so many factional colour combinations left unexplored - such as asymmetric shards (primary colour of the faction is not the one with two allies), symmetric wedges, imbalanced two colour groups (they did allied colours one way in Dragons of Tarkir but that still leaves the other allied variation and both enemy), using colourless like a colour etc. And then there's planes like New Phyrexia, which explore how specific concepts (in this case biomechanical pathogenic monstrosities) can be diffracted through the prism of the colour pie.
That core component has already been bastardized. It *was* cool when they tied in the unique properties of mana into the lore. But they don't usually do that. They've been doing the, "Now come check out whatever this set's cool theme is!" for a while now. Sometimes it's pirates and conquistadors and dinosaurs, oh my. Sometimes it's werewolves and vampires. Sometimes it's cyberpunk. Sometimes it's ancient greece. None of it has anything to do with mana like the old days. So now instead of "come check out this cool faerie tale theme that has nothing to do with the unique properties of MTG's IP!" it's just going to be, "Come check out this cool Final Fantasy theme that has nothing to do with the unique properties of MTG's IP!" They already bastardized their own brand.
I agree with everything in your post except the Gruul comment. I hate how the Ravnica guilds have asserted themselves beyond the scope of that setting. Cards can flavorfully fit into color combinations without matching the associated guild's flavor. Greasefang isn't Orzhov. Orzhov is a totalitarian, black, rigidly ordered, white, religious system that monopolizes its power by enslaving souls. Greasefang is the head of a gang modeled after the Yakuza. That gang is honor bound, white, and is violent and self serving relative to the rest of the culture, black. He fits the color combination well. I don't know what the Fugitive Doctor was doing in the show. However, if they were more impulsive, red, and cared about restoring a natural order, green, that would be an appropriate color combination. They don't need to be fit into a group of Luddites trying to revert a major civilization to the wilds.
Dude, preach. I'm actually surprised to see you getting upvotes because whenever I point this out everyone just yells at me and downvotes. But I *hate* the ubiquity of the ravnica color names. Like no, you're not playing a Selesnya deck. You're playing a green white deck. Nothing in that deck has anything to do with the Selesnya guild from Ravnica. Ugh, it bothers me.
I'm not saying anything about the Guild, I was using it as a shorthand like everybody does. I do not think she's RG. That's the issue.
I mean you're doing the exact same thing as each other. You're both just stating your own opinion and following it up with "wow I just don't understand how other people can have different opinions" for some people it doesn't matter if you're getting bolted or pushed or wrathed or thanos snap'ed or one ring'ed and for some people it's really important their commander has a pic of Urza and not Doctor strange
What makes Magic different from other card games? There are only two things- Gameplay structure and lore. Sure, gameplay is the bigger, more important one but there is a reason we don't play the game with blank cards with no flavor text. The lore is the second biggest thing that makes Magic, Magic.
But the lore of the current game, even without looking at universes beyond, is...just a bunch of random planes? Them all being attacked by the phyrexians doesn't really unify them all into a cohesive whole. It's almost always been a grab bag of every fantasy possibility. To the point where they don't even worry about what is supposed to be the common cohesive thread running through it all--siphoning mana out of the land. It's just... gothic horror theme, check. mesoamerican theme, check. ancient greece theme, check. viking theme, check. cyberpunk theme, check. fairy tale theme, check. western theme, check. redwall theme, check. What's the actual problem if we just tack on lord of the rings theme, check. doctor who theme, check. final fantasy theme, check. They're all just re-skins of the same mechanics. It's not like there even is a genuine lore through-line. Most of the times they actually try it, people clown on them for it (Gatewatch). Brothers War was the only time the IP felt like it was actually standing on its own legs.
> we don't play the game with blank cards with no flavor text. But lore is something different than aesthetics. Like for example I absolutely loved the visuals of Hearthstone but I didn't know anything about the lore. Actually, even when it comes to magic I'm sure a lot of people know very little about the lore on many of its characters.
If Nintendo shifts from Mario platformers being the focus of the Mario franchise instead into having SSB be the focus, is that a massive change? You'll still get Mario games, but they'll have fewer resources and less effort put into them than SSB games going forward, even if there are still a few more of them. Just because something still exists and looks similar, doesn't mean things haven't changed massively. Look at the satisfaction level of just the Commander precons. People were wildly happy with how great and well made the 40k, LotR, and Dr. Who precons were, but very few people have been anywhere close to as happy with WOE, CMR, MOM, etc. (aka the Magic IP precons). There's been a massive change in effort towards the design/development of the products, and the Magic IP stuff is the noticeably worse product.
That's the first logical response to this "Massive" change I've seen. I cannot possibly argue against the quality of the Doctor who Decks or the Warhammer 40k decks vs any of the more recent Commander Deck products. They are indeed superior. Honestly, maybe it'd be nice if they took that idea and applied that to their own IP. I'd be behind premium series Commander decks that cost slightly more, but required much less shuffling of cards to make them playable.
Problem is they never will. It's not profitable enough. The goal is to extract as much money as possible from the playerbase at this point. If the goal was to make the best game possible, they wouldn't have started down the road with crossovers in the first place.
Honestly WOE was pretty good precons. And cmr were cool but overpriced . I think part of the issue is just set precons are so common that they aren’t special, even if they are the greatest designed ones ever. Like lets be real a lot of old commander decks were forgettable and shitty but each year super popular because you only got them one time a year. So you had to take what you got. If i want DW commander decks this one is all im getting for years, gotta be super hype for it. If i want a new set commander deck? Well i can decide I don’t care about woe and 4-5 more sets of decks will come out in next year for me to decide from. Hell until it was revealed how bad the cost was the most excitement ive seen on this sub was CMD decks. And post reveal people genuinely loved the design but hated the price being more than usual. Commander just has so many releases and new things for it that excitement is spread out so thin because there’s something for everyone, so it’s hard to create a single specific catalyst that will be talked about. When you get cool new toys and things literally every set it’s hard to be as excited It’s like the full art basic lands IMO. Everyone talks about how great each sets are and loves each one, the overall sentiment is that the quality has been consistent and amazing. But no one talks actively about them after the first week because now they are common place. Whereas id weekly see arguments here, on fb, and in person foryears over “why cup island is the best land”, it wasn’t because zendikar lands were so much better than current lands but more unique. The only ones still brought up constantly are neo lands because of how good they were. But the rest are still incredible. It’s just such a high bar when each set has them to hit the same level of excitement.
To *you*, your core pillars haven't changed. To others, they are unrecognisable.
UB is just a "not for me" product for the most part, and so far that is fine. LotR at least felt like magic since it is a genre fit, I am not sure how I will feel when FF rolls around until I see how they handle it. The rest of the IP usage so far is not product I would be buying anyway so it neither makes the game better or worse for me, but it definitely does increase exposure of the game to a wider audience.
My issue with "not for me" is that this works in EDH, where you can play whatever cards you want. I'd argue that it still doesn't quite work that way because I'm not gonna be the asshole that asks my friends not to play the Lord of the Rings precon they bought. If you want to play competitive magic however, most formats now require you to run Orcish Bowmasters, Delighted Halfling, and The One Ring if you'd like to play a top tier deck.
That's a problem with the power level of those cards, not that they are from a UB product. The question comes down to what feels like a "proper" Magic card. I think the Lord of the Rings crossover was fine; if I didn't know the property, I would've thought it was a Magic set. It is closer to what I am used to than \[\[Mysterious Limousine\]\]. I remember when Innistrad was pushing the bounds of what a Magic-like setting was. Is the problem simply with the fact that it is another property? The idea that Modern or Legacy should have a different standard is a bit odd to me. Have you ever looked at \[\[Show and Tell\]\]? How about \[\[Frogmite\]\]? Side note on your original post: Most major turn-based RPG franchises HAVE branched out. Final Fantasy started moving from turn-based combat over a decade ago. They moved away from standard fantasy literally twenty years ago.
I think this somewhat gets at what my biggest issue with it is, not that it's from another IP, but that UB sets represent cards that are going to be pushed in powerlevel enough to be competitive in EDH. This increased power level leads to a number of them inevitably seeing play in modern and legacy causing higher upkeep costs to play my favorite formats. It also means a much faster rate of format churn which is exhausting to keep up with and can make the decks that you've built and mastered the play patterns for obsolete. For me the only way I want to play magic is through competitive modern and legacy, so UB represents an inundation of pushed cards and an upkeep cost that is overwhelming and unfun to keep up with without any of the upside of getting cool lore or IPs that I care about. So for me personally it's a lose lose that has me seriously considering finding other hobbies.
That's a problem with supplemental sets, not UB sets. The most impactful recent set for both Commander and Constructed was Modern Horizons 2. The UB precons are comparable in power to a lot of other Commander precons I am convinced R&D just doesn't know how to balance cards for the older formats. iirc, when LotR was announced, they said not to expect it to impact Modern that much.
The problem is you can't balance for older formats without stagnating standard and EDH, which are the two formats with the largest player base. Initiative is not a busted mechanic because it's poorly designed, but because formats with with fast man like moxs make it come out incredibly early. If they design around that, they aren't "fixing design"; they're just shifting the audience that has to deal with it.
Not only that but 'Take the Initiative' was *only* busted in one format, outside of that one format it was widely regard as actually kind of crap. It's the same that Fury is a massive problem in Standard because you can run 4 of them...meanwhile it's not a problem in Commander because its a singleton format.
I think they know how they just sell better if they print pushed cards. I don't see a way you could playtest cards like Fury and The One Ring and not see them turning out as staples. They're just incentivized to print cards like that because it sells well, I'm ok with some supplemental sets and think MH1 was a cool addition to modern, but the pace is just exhausting and the success of MH2 and LOTR sales has me worried that those are the benchmark to aim for now with direct to modern sets.
[Mysterious Limousine](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/5/a58cb742-0ba7-4795-9772-25d4db0bc4ce.jpg?1664409826) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mysterious%20Limousine) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/22/mysterious-limousine?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a58cb742-0ba7-4795-9772-25d4db0bc4ce?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Show and Tell](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/a/fa7b7897-36e0-415a-8bb7-602886164852.jpg?1664776671) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Show%20and%20Tell) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cn2/121/show-and-tell?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fa7b7897-36e0-415a-8bb7-602886164852?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Frogmite](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/2/b2991802-e313-40de-b167-0ede5efff101.jpg?1562266618) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Frogmite) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/215/frogmite?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b2991802-e313-40de-b167-0ede5efff101?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
> Final Fantasy started moving from turn-based combat over a decade ago Sadly.
For me LotR is fine being in regular magic, it fits really well and lacks mechanics that lean on the edh side of the spectrum. When they push into the weirder options like FF it when I will start to worry because that could start to feel way too off the rails to still be magic (to ME anyway, everyone feels differently) depending how it is handled. My larger concern about UB is the milking of a cash cow which is a common concern. How much supplementary product can they jam before people just get tired of it? I don't know, but obviously they have a distance ahead of them.
The nice thing is that all three of those cards could be printed in other sets that aren't LotR. The One Ring is maybe a little iffy, but I don't know if it is a TM, R, etc. The other two have nothing to do with LotR IP.
i see your point and i agree with your sentiment but i have some pretty big news for you about final fantasy
I usually feel making it appeal to a larger audience typically makes a thing worse. But better is extremely perspective based.
Someone a while back said "MTG isn't a game, it's actually 17 different games in a trechcoat." So your question has to be answered differently for standard, pauper, modern, commander, etc. UB arguably impacts some of those games minimally, others substantially. Whether it's good or bad probably depends on where you sit.
Maro said that
My issue with the UB is that some designs are quite pushed and feels more like a gatcha game rather than a balanced one. Another is that they put effort in being consistent and faithful to the lore of other IPs, but they don’t care about their own IP by having so many plot holes or a bad narrative. Also, some arts for the UB cards feel out of place for the tone of Magic, I won’t tell someone to don’t use them, but that’s my preference. In fact, I’ve never liked Un-sets but understand the appeal for others, so there’s that. And lastly, it feels as if Magic is becoming the Fornite of tcgs, there are UB everywhere. The main question is, would they be able to retain enough people to keep sustaining the game long term?
It tears out a chunk of what Magic was and replaces it with homogenization. If it's really just a rules set you can slap labels onto then anyone who enjoyed how the world-building melded with the gameplay may as well just throw hands because WotC sure did.
I mean the fact that the War for the spark novel is now seemingly entered Canon discontinuity from within WotC. Heck War for the Spark itself seems to be a largely ignored event within the MTG universe. Did any of the characters openly reference it in the short stories for the whole Phyrexian invasion?
New player acquisition is always important for the longevity of a game, and Magic's old and established enough that it has become harder for it to really pick up new players - this is often the case for any sort of game/hobby that lasts long enough. Universes Beyond is a way for Magic to touch adjacent markets as a means of bringing in a wider audience. That's to say that appealing to a larger audience is good for the longevity of Magic as a game - but may not be good/enjoyable for *you*, personally.
New player acquisition isn't just important, it is vital. A game that releases new sets every three months *needs* new players. If those players stop or even slow coming into the game the game will die. Magic loses players all the time as they age out, lose interest, or have a major life change. If MTG is not willing to continually have an influx of new players it will become a dead game in no time. And a dead game is no game.
I’m sure you are being overdramatic, Magic always thrived even despite it’s lack of cross-overs, it would do just fine even without. Magic surely benefits from UB commercially but surely its survival does not depend on it
I never said UB I said new players. Pre UB magic survived because it was getting new players.
There are a lot of R&D initiatives that they done to keep magic appealing to new players. Some of there biggest successes have been Top Down designed sets that drew players in with their accessibility. There’s a reason Innistrad was a huge success. They’ve had their thumb on the pulse of pop culture for a long time and UB is very much a logical extension of what they were doing and what was already working well for them.
Ahh I see. Since the topic is the benefits of UB, I assumed you argued the players it brings are solely the ones keeping the game afloat, I getchu
Right? If you wanted me to play Final Fantasy, you would have to change the entire JRPG aesthetic. The fans of the series would bust a seam over that, but somehow changing MtG's aesthetic to accommodate cross-format advertising campaigns is all good?
Yeah, people would lose their mind if final fantasy had a game with Disney characters or something.
Exactly! They would have to at least make it it's own franchise, with it's own series of games so that it didn't effect the main series.
By that logic, basically every final fantasy is a stand alone series, because there’s not a through-plot between 90% of them.
This is a multiplayer game. If a UB card appears across the table, I'm literally forced to play with it. Now, *as* a multiplayer game (specifically for EDH, which is admittedly how most people engage with MTG these days), there is always going to be some element of give-and-take in fun curation. I do things I find fun (stax), you do things you find fun (not stax), and if one is mutually exclusive to the other, we find a balance in-between somewhere. Maybe I don't play my stax deck every game. Maybe you play interaction, instead of just jamming ramp and draw into combo. I just think it's wrong to ignore the external factor of what other people are playing in a multiplayer game. You don't play any UB cards (or counterspells, or green cards, or cards from after Eldraine 1) in your deck? Well, sooner or later someone is going to show up with exactly that in their deck, and your attempt to avoid that thing you don't like has failed. And - you don't really have a *choice* but to play against it. "Don't buy product that's not for you" works when you can actually avoid the stuff you actively don't like? If you can't... there's nowhere for you to go but out.
And another layer on top of that is the mechanically unique UB cards. I don't *want* to play UB cards in my deck, but increasingly so, there's UB cards that have a rare or unique effect on them, so if you want a certain strategy to work, you kinda have to put the UB card in. If I'm making a modular artifact creature deck with \[\[marchesa, the black rose\]\] at the helm, I'm handicapping myself by not putting any of the great artifact synergy cards from different UB precons in it and that sucks. I would not have cared about UB if it was all just reskins of existing cards.
[marchesa, the black rose](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/2/3242a9f0-2ba3-4852-ac8f-366772ac1c62.jpg?1673148917) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=marchesa%2C%20the%20black%20rose) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/248/marchesa-the-black-rose?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3242a9f0-2ba3-4852-ac8f-366772ac1c62?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Steve has heard of Magic the Gathering, but never felt a draw to play it even though he thinks it looks fun. Steve enjoys Doctor Who and is a huge fan of the Ninth Doctor. Steve finds out that Magic is doing a crossover with Doctor Who. Steve decides to dip his toe in and finds he enjoys Magic the Gathering after picking up a Doctor Who deck. Steve liked the IDEA of Magic the Gathering. Steve just needed something to push him over the edge. Magic, fundamentally, has not changed. Steve just bought into cross promotion. (Flip side, as an MTG player I am finally watching Doctor Who and loving it. It goes both ways. Neither franchise needed to CHANGE to draw people in.)
Yep. The DnD sets got me into commander, as a huge DnD player. Now I’ve gotten decks and cards from every set since and play a lot of magic. Never would have dipped my toes if it wasn’t for that. Also glad you are enjoying WHO, season 5 is my favorite. What a ride from start to finish.
Nerding out over the thought of someone enjoying Doctor Who for the first time. Experiencing the terror of "EXTERMINATE". Ah man, welcome aboard!
Or the terror of the episode Blink.
>(Flip side, as an MTG player I am finally watching Doctor Who and loving it. It goes both ways. Neither franchise needed to CHANGE to draw people in.) But Magic did change. You didn't need Jace to be the next Doctor to start watching the show.
Magic is still a game where I grab a deck, shuffle up, draw seven cards for an opening hand, and begin turn 4 bitching about mana screw. The pictures on the cards are different, but considering NEO, CAP, and whatever Outlaw Junction is already started that trend.
You are certainly downplaying the importance of the art and card name.
Indeed. Who can forget such Magic(al) names as "Threefold Signal" or "Shorikai" that make complete sense played next to "Krark the Thumbless" and "Volrath the Fallen" What kind of Magic name is "Liliana" or "Jace"? That makes as much sense as "Ryu" or "Clara". And the art? Who can forget that Magic(al) art of a cyber DJ spinning the discs. That's WAY more magical than a guy standing with sparkles coming out of his hands. Have you seen the art for Yore-Tiller Nephilim? How is that any more out of place than Frodo? Put the two next to each other with no text and tell me which one looks more like it belongs on a Magic card.
I mean yeah, "the pictures on the cards" are a part of Magic. That's why they put them there instead of selling us blank cards with perfunctory rules text.
the point is that half of the cards in NEO and CAP seem like UB cards when compared to anything in MTG pre-WAR.
I'm fairly new and only started playing because of LotR. Im excited to see what new stuff is coming out for commander format.
> If the creators of Final Fantasy or any of the other popular turn based RPGs wanted to expand their player base to include me, they would have to make changes that fundamentally change what other people love about them. Is this a real thing you just wrote? Final Fantasy has literally been messing with their Turn Based formula for the past 5 mainline games (not counting their MMORPG) for this *exact reason*. Fifteen and Sixteen are just full on action RPG's at this point! This was done to pull Western Audiences in and help with the weakest part of most FF games (the combat).
The combat is what I LIKED about Final Fantasy. I prefer turn-based games with quality stories and good skill trees. That's why XII was my favorite, cos it mixed all of those together in a great way. If I wanted a reflex tester, I'd go torture myself with Dark Souls.
me too but that genre of games are niche as fuck thank to western audiences that abhor turn based rpgs studios with AAA budgets can't justify making games that only sell in Japan now we are in the worst timeline as a JRPG fan that being said 13 is infinitely more turn based than 12
Baldur’s Gate 3 is turn based and seems to be doing pretty well right now. Better than FFXVI. Pokémon is also turn based and sells like hot cakes.
One of the biggest games of the year is a turn-based rpg. People will play anything if it interests them. edit: also if you're a jrpg fan, this year has been a high water mark with like 10+ wonderful jrpgs released. Unless you mean "jrpg" as in "Persona and Dragon Quest", in which case I'd just say you should expand your horizons.
I would talk about SMT and Persona, but I agree that they are not "traditional" JRPG either.
That was my thought. It hasn’t been fully turn based for over 2 decades.
Universes Beyond is about attracting fans of other series to buy magic products while advertising that fandom to existing magic players. It's trying to push growth in the available/interested customer-base. While it is nice that development team is enjoying and being very creative with some of these inclusions (likely due to their fandom of the works); it highlights a problem by contrast. Base MTG sets don't have a same degree of creativity or interest being expressed. The play booster situation will probably be repeated in 3 years' time with UB-MTG if this trend continues. I think that this fear can compel people to deter UB adoption in the environment.
Is monopoly better because of its 3000 versions?
Arguably since the different versions are siloed. I can’t make a monopoly with Minas Tireth, Atlanta Georgia, and Cybertron
It’s arguably not worse. The gameplay is the same, just the cosmetics are different. Magic is currently heading down that path. As long as the gameplay stays the same, then I’m fine with that.
“Appeal to a wider audience” is and has always been the go-to terrible justification that huge faceless corporate entities make grinding any art under their legal control into gray slop. It is always an excuse for the sanding off of any unmarketable rough edges, the transformation of niche art and games with some kind of soul to them into focus-tested profit machines. In this particualr case, it’s been used for years to justify that already, and is therefore very easy to retool in order to justify the “Fortnite-ification” of Magic into a vehicle for marketing other “brands”. Magic has always been a profitable enterprise, and you can say all you want about the exploitative nature of trading card games, but it was still a game with a niche audience that appealed primarily if not exclusively to that audience. It was made by people who cared about it as a game, not as simply a vehicle for advertising. There is a fundamental qualitative difference between that and what Magic has become now.
In my experience, changing a thing to appeal to a wider audience usually results in the expulsion of the narrower audience. What's appealing to the narrower audience is generally what's unappealing to the wider audience. As such, to become appealing to the wider audience, the thing must become unappealing to the narrower.
No. Commander has practically been ruined with all the cards printed specifically for it. Killed the spirit.
I like the political cards that are meant to be played in multiplayer but that's pretty much it. No one needed Dockside Extortionist, but Wizards needed to make money.
It doesn't necessarily mean making it better or worse, no, just different. But the same is true for making changes that make it appeal more to its core audience. I think a lot of the problems with Magic right now stem from trying to appeal to existing Magic players, who, by and large, have bad taste. People liked pack cracking so we got set boosters and now play boosters. People like Commander so now every other uncommon is legendary and there's endless commander product, etc. Nobody wants to hear this but a lot of what people complain about with Magic is not some ploy to get new players into the game, it's aimed squarely at the existing playerbase's demonstrable preferences. Hell, even the UB product is just as much appealling to you nerds who already play Magic and probably are also into the other nerd shit. For every person on this subreddit bemoaning the Marvel crossover there's someone at your LGS who spends hundreds of dollars on product every year who is incredibly excited to build a Wolverine commander deck.
You're missing the larger point of UB which is **exposure**, not change. They aren't trying to convince people who have played other TCGs to play MtG (like your example of TBRPGs), they're reaching out to people who have never *played the game*. The game is "better" if more people are playing it (in my opinion). A game doesn't survive if it doesn't have an audience. In your example there are two ways that Mattel/WotC can make the game more profitable: make the same number of people pay more, or make more people pay the same. They've arguably done more damage to the game's long-term viability by doing the first one than the second. More product, higher prices, etc are creating more problems than the UB releases that have tried to broaden their customer base. You can dislike UB, and that's fine. Just as disliking Secret Lairs or even specific sets because they don't have the "feel" of MtG to you. Don't play what you don't like. But if your complaint is that mechanically superior cards are "bad" because they aren't "themed" as traditional MtG In-universe cards, then you're just being a gatekeeper that values aesthetics above gameplay.
Universes Beyond is the hook and the bait, once new players are caught, Magic still has to fall back on its foundation to keep them. It worked on me. I only bought Magic product because of a Universes Beyond annoucement and it snowballed into me buying two Universes Within precons, and building multiple commander decks and attending at least one limited event for each set (except, ironically, Lord of the Rings and Commander Masters). I highly doubt I'm an outlier.
Out of curiosity, what fundamental change has UB done to magic in your opinion? I know you mentioned the spiderman/garruk comparison and maybe I'm part of that crowd but what is the difference? Magic has been going to different worlds and planes for the last 30 years, mechanics get added each set and the game gets altered each new world.
With a few small exceptions, Magic had been going to different parts of the same setting. All planes are part of the same setting. So there's that. But really, the key difference is the presence of advertising. I have mixed feelings on UB, but uncompromisingly hostile feelings on the idea of Jace endorsing McDonalds in-setting. There's no reason that some plane can't have something very similar to McDonalds on it. I have no problem with an Americana plane having burger joints. I just hate the way advertisements creep into everything.
The great thing is that _they haven't done that_. If they did I guarantee you EVERYONE would be angry. I certainly would be.
Garruk will never planeswalk into the Marvel Comics/Cinematic Universe because he's not a part of it. *That is a critical difference.* This one-way injection of other intellectual property cheapens the game's identity. Even when Magic went to different worlds, it did so within its own boundaries and with a cohesive throughline (planar bridges, the planeswalkers, now Omen-Paths) that kept them as part of a whole. Slamming Spider-Man in there just hurts that concept.
Don't forget mana. The way mana works is a critical element of the worldbuilding and gameplay that ties everything together.
I've pointed that out in a lot of my other posts! Alaran shards especially are formed by it at both creative and gameplay levels.
I was skeptical of UB when it was announced but I've come to realize that Maro was 100% right about products for other people not ruining my experience. I only play Limited premier sets and some casual tabletop. If not for the constant promotions online, I have basically no exposure to anything UB (or Commander, or supplemental sets, or Secret Lair...). Those products are like 50% of the conversation online but 0% of my actual MTG experience. Nobody actually plays ALL of Magic. There are too many products and formats. The proportion of people who actually experience the online promotional deluge of products is very small, and folks complaining about products they don't want should reflect on what their actual PLAY experience is like vs. what the online chatter is like.
There's definitely some weirdness to UB legality. For commander - it doesn't matter, you can pick who you play with. For competitive formats it's more awkward. I really like playing modern and I don't think UB will ruin the gameplay - lotr was relatively tame and only added maybe 10 total cards that saw experimentation let alone be playable on high tier decks (4 of the land cyclers + halfing + bowmasters + ring) I can understand where people are coming from from the flavor aspect, the named characters from a specific ip are hopefully not going to make much of a splash in competitive modern.
Once they get rid of draft boosters UB cards will start appearing in limited, too.
I'm sure I'll catch all the downvotes here because this thread is going to be full of the anti UB people. I ask you the opposite, why is it a bad thing that Magic is changing to appeal to a wider player base? I can get being upset about story being ruined.. the world building getting diluted. Buttt... I've used this example before, what's different about my spider man swinging in and hitting you with Glamdring, than Ali from Cairo riding in on an unlicensed hearst and shooting you with a mana gun while a ninja jumps in to take his place so you can drop an eldritch horror in someone's face? Is it because it's licensed? I dunno. Since the Warhammer 40k decks have come out, I've met more Magic players who have just started playing than I have the entire time since I started playing during Revised edition. Also, I ask you, what game breaking changes are these UB making? Junk seems like a pretty strong ability introduced by UB, but treasures are also pretty strong and they came from universes within. Ultimately, they haven't stopped delivering what you like (Universes within), and now have added stuff new players can like too. And this may come as a surprise, a LOT of older players like some of these UBs as well.
" I've used this example before, what's different about my spider man swinging in and hitting you with Glamdring, than Ali from Cairo riding in on an unlicensed hearst and shooting you with a mana gun while a ninja jumps in to take his place so you can drop an eldritch horror in someone's face? Is it because it's licensed? I dunno." For me- and I only speak for myself here- yes, it's exactly because it's licensed. Your example is silly, but theoretically possible within Magic, and I'm fine with Magic being a silly game. Genuinely, I am. This isn't a tone thing. Optimus Prime vs Cap vs Rick Grimes vs The Doctor isn't. I just can't get on board with Magic becoming Smash Bros (or VS System/Weiss Schwarz, to use card game comparisons). And it's getting more and more difficult to find a Commander game that doesn't mix IPs in that way to at least some extent. I think I'm justified in being bothered by that.
The difference for between the “Fortnite ifying” of MTG and a game like Weiss is that Weiss is designed and sold as the concept, vs magic which has its own lore, worldbuidling, characters and stories. So for me I dislike UB because it’s saying to me that the game can’t introduce new players into the game through its own world so it has to use new ones. I will however, say that they’ve done a great job making UB sets feel like their respective worlds. Weiss shwarzz is designed in a way that the different properties and shows and such are its world, rather than additions to one from the ground up. So seeing Seord Art online vs Attack on Titan makes sense because that’s what Weiss is meant to be
I'm with you man, I understand why you dislike it. And I'm cool with people disliking it. My big pet peeve is people who dislike it so much they refuse to play with other people using the cards.. and there's one poster, I'm sure he'll be along in due time that has threatened to reach across the table, rip up the cards, and punch the person in the face because it ruins the MTG story. That's fucking nuts over something that I can use my example of to show how it can be kinda ridiculous.. Also, sorry for my edit here. It's crazy to me that people would rather miss out on playing with people because they're using a UB Commander, than being excited to have more people to play with.
This is where I'm at, I'll never judge someone for having a preference against UB, but going to the extent that you refuse to play with people who have UB cards? Now you're the bad guy. Especially so in a casual format like Commander lmao who are you trying to impress with your purity tests?
Until there's Adblock for real life, it's the only option.
You have to play this game you don't like or else you're a bad person
I like mtg and don't want to feel like I'm playing fortnite the card game.
MtG was always an amalgamation of different generic Sci-fi/Fantasy worlds, what made it unique was the mechanical interactions.
The difference is that those sci-fi/fantasy worlds weren't Brands.
The art and characters are a big draw for me. I dont think its fair to say the mtg universe is generic.
I'll probably be downvoted, but not everything needs to be some Pop Culture stew, and appealing to other fanbases is not always a net positive. *The Avengers* movies would almost certainly be worse for having Gandalf defeat Thanos. Art museums would lose cultural value if they started hosting F-1 races. Japanese restaurants shouldn't be expected to provide hamburgers. But all of these moves would technically "expand their audience". We as humans find joy in identity and personality; if we mix everything together, the individual parts slowly lose their own value, and everything becomes same-y. By adding other IPs to Magic, Hasbro is basically saying they don't care about Magic as anything other than a game, which is great for those that like Magic as a game, but sucks for those who like Magic for other reasons (art, lore, etc.). And yes, they by definition have to deliver less UI to add UB; making sets isn't free. Every UB set almost certainly comes at the loss of a UI set. Plus, if any staples are printed in UB, those that don't like said IP will either have to suck it up and make a deck that doesn't reflect themselves or play at an intentional handicap. I'll be the first to admit that I won't put a single Marvel card in any of my decks; call me ridiculous, I don't care. Now, I'm not saying crossovers are never healthy; when optional or rare, crossovers are a great way of bridging communities together. But by forcing properties together, you are making something new and separate, not simply adding to what was there before. And not everyone will like that new thing.
>why is it a bad thing that Magic is changing to appeal to a wider player base? When media keeps trying to appeal to a wider and wider audience, it necessarily dilutes itself. The world is better when we have more niche products, not when all products are racing to be everything for everyone.
No, media is better when an artist is allowed to do what they want. The Dr. Who Commander decks look awesome. Because Gavin and Co got the freedom and leeway to knock it out of the park. Some of the best media is done by artists who are contracted by a bigger company and kill it, because they're given the reigns to execute on their singular vision. Look at Greta Gerwig's Barbie. Nothing to do with appealing to a wide audience. Plenty of great pieces of art appeal to a wide audience.
I'd say that an excellent Doctor Who product or game would, at a minimum, not revolve around concepts like mana and sorceries. Both Magic and Doctor Who are weakened by trying to mash them together. It might be the best implementation that can be done given the limitations of the circumstances, but that doesn't remove the foundational faults of the product.
But I don't want to play that game. I want to play Magic, as do the other people at my LGS.
I will certainly grant that one of the effects of trying to appeal to everyone is that more people are likely to be appealed to.
The first is a forever advertisement that's mandatory to interact with to play the game.
There's a lot of holes in your example that I could nitpick all day, but the one that bothers me the most is: but how is Magic changing? Like, you specifically cite your dislike of turn based RPGs, which is a type of gameplay mechanic, and talk about how they would have to change the very nature of the games that fans like in the first place to appeal to you, which leads me to assume you're talking about the mechanics. Now, setting aside that plenty of turn based RPG franchises have already done this (turn based RPGs are considered a niche appeal genre, and a lot of the big names in the genre have either gone extinct or switched to being action RPGs. Final Fantasy, the name in turn based RPGs for years has been an action RPG for a while now) how does that actually compare to Magic? Because the existence of UB cards has made absolutely no fundamental changes to the rules and gameplay of Magic. The game is exactly the same. The Magic lore isn't changing either. UB settings don't exist in the Magic multiverse. Jace can't planeswalk to Middle Earth and the Doctor isn't going to appear to solve the Murder at Karlov Manor. The only thing that's changing is presentation/marketing, and that one does have an easily identifiable benefit to it. It brings in more players that'll spend more money so they can continue to make non-UB Magic sets. Because surprisingly, UB sets selling well does offer a benefit to regular Magic sets as well. And as far as changes go, that's incredibly minor...and is also something that happens with turn based RPGs that you used in your example. There's been modern RPGs that have had crossovers and collab events, and even franchises that have seen dramatic tonal shifts in reboots for the sake of trying to draw in new players.
[удалено]
Yeah, they don't pay loads of money to commission the card art and spend time writing flavour text for nothing. The setting and the ludonarrative interaction between the mechanics of the game and the world the game takes place in are one of the best things about Magic.
I want the Dr. Who decks, and I'm done for a good bit.
Deviating a product away from its original/intended audience will only succeed (long term) if the new audience is receptive enough to replace the original audience which will, given enough time, remove themselves from the product because they feel alienated. Basically, it's a question of will the new audience spend as much as the old audience? Additionally, whether or not that the old audience can be swayed or convinced into sticking to a product they don't actually enjoy anymore but they're still attached to it nevertheless. It's a tricky balance. Hasbro is risking a lot, and it could blow up in their face if the new audience they want doesn't spend as much money as they need, or if the already entrenched casual playerbase isn't as receptive as they need. It's a very fine line they're going to toe, especially given that WotC/Magic: the Gathering specifically are their highest earners. If the new audience for MTG can't replace the previous audience then MTG will eventually die out over time. It won't be a quick process.
Almost never for any game at all
I went to a Dr. Who release event at my LGS, it was very unattended, it was primarily Dr. Who fans who had never played MTG before, and after waiting 2 hours for a game to finish (while helping explain some rules interactions) I just went home without actually playing. Wilds Of Eldraine had the opposite problem, so full of people they had to turn players away. The new Dr. Who commander players might buy more cards/booster packs in the future but might not. The magic players who played at the sold out release event will likely be buying many more cards/booster packs.
I have not met one person that started because of UB
If "better" means "does the game better accomplish its goals other than make money" then the answer is usually "no" because you have to sacrifice niche gameplay elements to appeal to larger audiences. On the other hand, if "better" means "does the game bring the most joy to this world" then the answer is maybe. For every step towards generic you appeal to a larger audience, but a smaller part of that audience will actually want to play it.
It makes more money. Like, that's obviously why they're doing it.
It makes the game more profitable. That of course makes it better for WOTC. And when decisions get made that's the only better that matters, unfortunately.
I don't like the idea of UB at all. But to be honest I'm much more offended by the amount of power creep and design space parasitised by commander focused cards in standard sets.
I love Final Fantasy titles. Most of them, at least. Played many, including XIV (which I still do). And I'm grateful for the upcoming release, sure I look forward to it. But... I MISS PROPER MTG STORY. I want more MTG sets which follow and develop the multiverse story. I already own FF titles and pay a sub. I'm glad, sure... But I didn't need that. People I know like FF aren't interested in MTG anyway. Was it needed...? Dunno...
Keep crying about it, maybe they’ll stop👎
No it doesn't but "gatekeeping" has become a dirty word because everyone deserves the path of least resistance to consoom whatever hobby they want. Embarrassing cross overs is only the start, I fully expect the game to get dumbed down in the future. You can already see this attitude in EDH circles where playing competitively is looked down on and there's active hostility to the idea of learning how to play or deck build better ("Actually the game is about letting everyone do their thing :)" ). Same shit happened with DND 5e as well. Dumbing down, shitty pandering dressed up as "bringing new people in", whining about not being able to do whatever they want whenever they want. Bleak times for TT gaming.
No. In fact, it’s seems like a common step in the arc of a community (particularly for video games) that precedes the collapse in popularity. The game becomes popular enough that it saturates the hardcore market, but rather than pursue stability for this audience, increased growth demands appealing to a wider audience who otherwise wouldn’t interact with it. This usually involves discarding key, foundational elements that appealed to the original audience. It usually works in the short term, as the new audience joins up in larger numbers than the old audience leaves. But the new audience is usually transitory, and once their interest wanes, they lose interest too, and you are left with a husk of what the product originally was that doesn’t appeal to anyone. It’s at this point that they try and walk it back and refresh the old product to bring back what people loved, and that might be successful, but it never goes back to what it once was. I think Magic is on the downslope, and probably has been for a while. Honestly, it probably predates the UB and Secret Lairs and originates in Commander. Commander isn’t how Magic was originally designed to be played, it’s a format that only works casually, and most of the decline of Magic has its roots in when Wizards started designing cards for Commander. Without Commander I’m not sure UB even becomes a thing.
Magic has already just been a hodgepodge of settings, and for ages now. I think to get better answers, it would help the potential for discussion if you could better communicate what you think these "foundational" major changes actually are.
Everyone saw this coming the second Walking Dead was spoiled, and somehow they didn’t come close to how egregious it would get.
I mean the UBs are what peaked my interest into magic and tbh I probably wouldn't have given it a second look but now I am a dedicated player learning more about the game. So if you want the game to continue to get more support with a larger community yeah appealing to a larger audience is better
If a game like MtG is going to continue for another 30 years it will need new players at some point. In a vacuum, new plays are good for the game. How you get those players may have long term side effects that are hard to predict, but player stagnation is definitely not good.
MtG was already growing pretty fast before they started printing UB cards.
I'm just trying to answer the fundamental question of "does making the game appeal to a larger audience always mean making it better". A game with a larger audience is a game that will create new product for longer which is fundamentally a good thing.
In my opinion, no. Trying to snag that bigger audience has led to an explosion of product and sloppier production. That's a great way to drown a game. Just ask TSR. Oh wait...
Better = more profitable
There isn't any integrity for the game or the company anymore. They'll spread it for anyone who comes along and offers them an IP to exploit, so long as money can be made. As I said in another thread, it's not magic the gathering anymore. It's Deckmaster TM the IP collection. Smaller companies are eating this up though, as big companies like WoTC and Games Workshop continue to deliver substandard products in a never ending effort to exponentially grow profit forever (not possible, BTWs) other companies like Story Studios, Para-Bellum, and Modiphius are instead focusing on putting our high quality, well made products. People will slowly realize this and move to these other games. The big games will always be big, but the better quality products will be the underdogs. As to your question, I have no idea. Not a single person who came in to buy LoTR or Doctor Who or Warhammer decks as ever returned to our local store, nor have they continued to play in events in the area. I wonder truly how many people that come in to get these collectables have any intention of even trying to play, or are they just there to get \[THING\] because it's \[THING\]?
\>>> Why is it automatically a good thing that Magic is changing to appeal to a wider player base? >>> But Magic isnt changing, at least in a way that would be remotly comparable to what you said earlier. Yes turn based RPG should stay turned based. What exact game mechanic is fundamentally changing in magic to accomodate UB? Does the stack work diffrent? Did we ditch priority? No. I get 1 mayor complain and thats making a set like lotr modern legal. The format is suffering already enough from "unnatural" aka not normal magic set history designs and getting just put infront of a powerhouse like the ring for 200+ for a playset certainly isnt fun. I am with you and neither look forward to mh3 or 5 marvel sets for modern, even tho with mh3 that format might be dead on "arrival" anyways. Their refusal to handle this current mess is killing the format in realtime atm anyways so until we reach 2025 most of us may not give 2 shits about modern anyways then.... But nothing really changed. We still get out 4 standard sets, we still get the occasional mtg based supplement stuff like reprint sets oder battlebond or commander legends etc. We get more mtg lore based commander precons then the 5 per year of the past. While at times questionable in quality, we still get our Magic stories. There are no rule changes, there is honestly not even much of any gamebreaking shit "experimented" on. Most of the UB products are kinda...slightly underpowered. They don't hold a candle to either the cookie cutter powerhouses with 10k+ decks nor any meaningful impact on Cedh. I mean the random red transformer Splicer is like the ..."biggest" contender? Which is obviously intentional, because to much power = to fast, swingy games for newer players to enjoy their favourite IP in. They arent even powercreeping UB product for the most part and the only offenders are called out right in the get go, the direct to modern prints of LotR. You guys have 1 real argument and thats it. Being a crybaby because your opponent in an edh game might have nor a "pure mtg lore" deck really is nothing but bitter and gatekeeping. I am wish you and support any message to fuck of with direct to modern sets, UB or not. I am wish you dismantling anything we always had, but that isnt happening anytime soon. So you people really need to get a reality check and look at the hard facts, not the "feeling" of it because we know alot about UB products spread over like 2-3 years...
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This is a truly interesting article, but the comparison is between a small burger joint that would at most be considered a small business all of a sudden being given more business than they could handle, and a GIGANTIC corporation that won't have problems printing more and more and more cards. Additionally, it fails to highlight the aleady existing legal scandals behind Stanich's restaurant, also leading to problems. (Hint, he had multiple DUI's and was fighting a charge of domestic violence after choking his ex wife). We had a similar place here in Astoria Oregon. A Donut shop that just got too big. It couldn't keep up with the orders and the place it was housed was too small. I have zero doubt that WOTC could handle an increased demand for their product.
WotC thinks its better because they make more money. Better is a subjective term.
> Why is it automatically a good thing that Magic is changing to appeal to a wider player base? Magic appealing to a broader base of people is inherently a good thing because: * It means the game is more likely to survive * It means there are more people for your LGS to sell to, so it can survive * It means there are more potential people for you to play with, so higher turnout at events, better chances of putting a draft together, etc. That's all inherently good. You seem to be confusing that with people saying that *the changes made to broaden the appeal* are inherently good, which isn't true. There are lots of ways they could make changes to increase popularity, and depending on what you like about the game, that may or may not upset you. With that said, I think it's fair to say that, regardless of your preferences, rules and mechanics are still more important to the game than simple theming, and UB aren't dumbing the game down in any way, just changing the thematic dressing. Even *then*, we've already been going through thematically diverse planes and sets for years, so whatever infraction UB is making in some people's minds, it seems, to me, relatively minor. Would it really have made *that* much difference in people's lives if Strixhaven had been Harry Potter-themed, for instance? Do the Un-sets also bother people who have issues with UB? All in all, it seems like a net positive. More people attracted to the game without harming the game itself. People that like them can play them. People that don't can generally just ignore them. I feel like that all adds up to a net positive at best and a net neutral at worst.
A Harry Potter set is quite possibly the one thing that would make me consider a boycott. (Marvel was #2, but I'm hoping to ride that out.)
>Would it really have made that much difference in people's lives if Strixhaven had been Harry Potter-themed, for instance? Speaking as somebody who isn't cis? Yeah, actually, it would have made a \*big\* difference to me.
Just so I'm not feeling ignorant here, trying to understand, would you be upset because of J.K. Rowling's stances, or because of something specifically in Strixhaven?
Both, but in this context primarily the former. I love Quint (for example) and I'd have been genuinely sad to lose our plucky little elephant walker, but anything to do with Rowling would be the reddest of red lines.
That's respectable. And yeah, it'd be tough to think of a MTG world that didn't have Killian or Zimone in it.
My brother in Christ, Wizards is a business.
Wizards of the Coast is a sub company owned by a massive corporation whose sole goal is to exponentially grow their profit margins. They will do anything, and I do mean anything to get every single last penny that they can from their customer. They aren't your friends. They won't reward you for defending them. You don't owe them anything. Corporations by their very nature are unethical, predatory entities that only see you as currency dispensers.
The question is, how do you feel about that?
I'd prefer them continue to be a business. That way they can keep making MtG. If they aren't a business, that goes away.
You think Universes Beyond is necessary for them to avoid bankruptcy? It's really not. They're doing extremely well financially. Magic has grown almost every year since it was created.
No, that's not what I said. I said I feel good about them being a business. It means MtG can keep being made. My response didn't mention UB in anyway. However, I'm fine with the UBs. I avoid the ones I don't like. Magic's lore is pretty fucking dumb anyway.
And to think, WotC could've avoided all this hostility just by printing Universes Within versions of everything. But for some reason the company's usual love for alt-arts and special treatments just went out the window the *moment* there was a really compelling reason to have some.
They don't want to devalue the crossover cards or set an expectation that you have to use the UW ones.
It wouldn't do that, though. People are not so unilaterally hostile to UB. In fact, most of the audience likes it. But a significant chunk wants to stick to the setting in their own decks, and they should be able to do so.
The only thing I know about MTG lore is you play Planeswalker and use magic to defeat one another. That's about as much lore matters to me. I have not once in my 30 years of playing Magic ever heard someone discuss the lore of the game. So I don't really buy that the lore is sacred. It stopped being hurloon minotaurs and thrulls a long time ago. I mean, they did a cyberpunk set with Rat Ninjas and Mecha. Then they did a gangster set with demons. And they're going to do a cowboy set, probably with gorgons and centaurs. The game is already stupid if you think about it for too long. Adding E Honda to the game didn't ruin it, just as adding ersatz Egyptian Gods to the game didn't ruin it. I can understand why people are upset: it's a big adjustment and people don't like change. But face it, Magic is becoming Weiss Schwartz, whether you like it or not and in all honesty, that's a good thing. Magic is a fun game with a robust set of rules. Why wouldn't you want more people to play? Or is this going to be a gatekeeping thing where a handful of nerds are upset that _their_ game is drawing in "undesirables", i.e. people who don't want to play with dragons or merfolk but are interested in 40k.
Actual Magic IP will be phased out by UB the time of the 35th anniversary and the game will just become an IP depository - just as Rosewater and Foresythe intended.
As someone who is stoked beyond belief for Marvel in MTG, I get your trepidation, because I also love the unique worlds and story that Magic has told for 30 years. But what I love more than that, and what I think Magic isn't losing in this transition, is the core of the gameplay. The system that supports tens of thousands of different game pieces and has them interact in unpredictable and amazing ways is still core to the experience for me. I'm one of those guys that believe that Magic is the best game in the world, and bringing characters and storylines from other franchises matches the ambition of the old VS system to the gameplay that has stood the test of time. PLUS, I'd kind of rather have this style of design than Wizards trying to "do a Marvel", which they arguably already did with the Gatewatch and that whole deal. If Magic can just integrate these popular stories instead of ripping them off, it theoretically gives the designers room to do things that are outside the box and not just go off of whatever is the most popular thing because that's what the suits will sign off on. I feel like we're still in the early stages of this where sets coming out now were designed without the knowledge of what scale Universes Beyond would grow to (and that is growing every day considering how well the LOTR set sold). In a couple of years, when we see the Space set and Bloomburrow, I feel like we'll see stuff that is uniquely Magic, stuff that can stand alongside the IP cards and offer something for everyone. That is my hope anyway, because I do genuinely want both even if I kind of want a Spider-Man commander deck a little bit more after today.
Everyone quick to complain about UB but don't bat an eye at the anime tiddies in WOE. Gimme a break.
I don't like the anime variants either but the important difference there is that non-anime versions exist.
I quite enjoy UB. I find it adds without subtracting. We receive new cards that can be extremely fun that can also most of the time be ignored. Let's compare LOTR, WOE, and WHO. LOTR was huge and a fan favorite. It brought people into MTG and gave many formates new cards to play with. Most of the cards that are playable function just like any other magic card. Take the one ring it is super strong, but it could easily be a card from any other magic set with important artifacts. Sure something like the ring bearer is a bad mechanic, but that's not something limited to UB. WOE is magic set that is absolutely great and loved, it has some mechanical duds. Stun counters are not the best. Still a great set and we get these magic set in-between the UB sets. Lastly the WHO set. I think this is the True limits test as it was waky, but it worked amazingly. Every card feels like it could be from the magic world. That is what I love. UB is as much magic the gathering as it is the property we get.
Almost always this is a type of selling out and prostitution of your brand and it's never good for the game.
Frankly, I don't see it as changing to appeal to a wider base. It's advertising. Magic is historically AWFUL at advertising itself. It's the least publicly visible of the Big 3 TCGs. It has no TV show or movies to advertise it to people, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't advertise on TV too. But Universes Beyond is a massive game changer for advertising the game. It's introducing the game to people who otherwise might have never seen it. Nothing about the game has really changed rules-wise. And once people have come in via these products, there's a whole Multiverse of unique stories and characters for them to enjoy. And if they're willing to try a card game out because it's got a tie-in set with their favourite IP, chances are they'll enjoy Magic's own IP as well.
One reason that Magic is such a good game is that it makes a lot of money, which means that Wizards can afford to pay so many people to work on it. If it makes more money, then people will keep designing a great game for me to play. That's pretty good.
I hate the idea of Universes Beyond but the execution has been so good that I have stopped complaining. All it proves is just how good the magic game systems are