Hopefully they can push back against some of these collabs. I have yet to meet someone who is thrilled with playing a deck with Post Malone, TMNT, or The Walking Dead in it. The best you get is indifference.
I completely lost interest in Magic when they started churning out all the licensed crossovers. It feels like they really jumped the shark compared to how they used to be - they used to seemingly care deeply about the lore, gameplay, structure of releases etc whereas now it all just feels like a cash grab.
I feel that. I really do. But I also LOVED the Avatar crossover. To be fair, I haven't played any other ones, but this one played so well and seemed to be very well thought out. They really did the IP justice.
It's also probably worth pointing out that Lego was nearing bankruptcy and was saved by a ton of licensing (and Ninjago, to be fair). Fortunately, they've used that income stream to still consistently put out a lot of high quality first party sets. Hopefully WotC doesn't lose sight...
Final Fantasy, LOTR, Avatar, are some of the best selling sets in the history of Magic. As much as I don't like some of the spiderslop, there is no real argument against printing more of it. The Hobbit set is going to be a complete blowout success.
The argument is that cashing out now destroys the long-term viability of the game ... but WotC will learn that lesson in a few years when the Magic gravy train crashes.
How many more years do you want to wait? I own a store and we have not really seen any dip in attendance. There are definitely lots of older players churning, but lots of new ones being brought in as well. It's clear the game is being Commander-ified and lots of folks who were more interested in constructed / competitive Magic aren't happy, but it doesn't mean the game will die or anything like that.
yeah. scrolling this expansion list, you can see 2018 was really the last _block_ as we knew them: few sets labeled under a theme an author might write a book about
also shortly after we see new sets stopped getting their own wiki articles
Same here: I own (literally) 50 Commander decks ... and I stopped playing 100% as soon as Transformers and My Little Ponies became cards.
Magic will either become "generic TCG that's unrecognizable to the original" or it's going to pay a very painful long-term cost for their short-term gains.
The MLP cards aren’t legal in any format and Transformers, legal in commander yes, was a very small set.
You can’t deny the popularity of the Final fantasy set. Selling that well indicates a desire.
I don’t think the small secret lair releases deserve the hate.
Wizards is still committed to making in-universe sets. The first novel in years was just published with the release of strixhaven. Every in-universe set has come with a short-story/novella length addition on the official site.
FWIW, I don’t love the marvel collab and I don’t think it fits at all. But I’m sure someone does.
I think criticism should be focused on the actual design and mechanics of sets rather than the IP. Since Wizards is committed to both their own and others. The latest Marvel set for example enables way more infinite combos in standard and is an example power creep gone bad.
I suppose that’s fair. I also think it’s okay for a game that’s been around as long as magic has to change a bit. Maybe an agree to disagree situation.
As a counter-point, I was hanging out with my brother the other day, who has recently gotten into Magic the Gathering, and he was specifically talking about the TMNT collab as something he thought was neat (I wasn't aware of that specific collab until he mentioned it). I suspect that the collabs are actually making WotC a decent amount of money, because people who do not share your specific tastes are buying them.
Nobody doubts they are making money. It’s literally a nostalgia cash grab. The question is how much that money will cost WotC in reputational harm and loyal customers.
There are ~25k total different MTG cards. Who cares if even 1k of them are for collabs (as long as they don't contain broken cards that end up in tournament play)?
Some folks really love the story of MtG. Think of it as if you were expected, as a dungeon master, to allow your players to be Spongebob. Some folks won’t care, others will have their experience ruined.
The sets also increase the number of legal cards you have to purchase to keep up with the meta.
The average duration that anyone is actively playing a TCG is something like 2 years. There’s also way more players than ever. Most of the new players never engage in online community around their game.
So you may not hear a lot of excitement but that’s still the minority opinion. Universes Beyond sell like gangbusters.
I remember multiple players at my local’s prerelease for TMNT saying that was the most fun they’d had playing a prerelease in years. And none of these things have really sunk in the secondary market after they’ve gone out of print.
Heck my Warhammer 40K collector commander decks are up several hundred percent post release. And I’ve made a small fortune buying up all the things the online MTG community seems to hate…
Seems highly unlikely. Us unions Almost Never have input in product strategy and marketing decisions. That isn't part of their Union contract and they don't have a seat at the table of governance