MTG Salvation

I agree with Cranky here - if you want to win THE NEXT game, then stick with what you know...but unless you're going to a grand prix or something with an entry fee, imo you should try to become a better magic player holistically. Play every color, play different formats (try limited! we have cookies!), play different archetypes, borrow decks - everything you change up, your brain will absorb new ways of thinking. And one day you'll wake up and realize that you've gotten really good at the game.

Gotta agree with what's been said. Most likely they're just a strong player.

I've had many times in similar situations. In some groups my winrate has been well over 50%. That'd be using my own decks, which admittedly have a very high budget, but I also try to temper them significantly by avoiding lots of different things that I don't think make for fun games. Sometimes I'll play precons to avoid winning via budget, but I still usually have a pretty solid winrate with those as well. Being a strong player gives you lots of little advantages throughout the whole game.

I see three options though:

1) Git gud. Personally my own path to being gud was paved through playing the game for almost 20 years (commander for 11 of those). I think the best thing you can do is try to analyze your games, and maybe talk to the other players about what they think you should have done (especially the good players). But more than anything else, just play tons and tons of magic. Might also be worth watching people play the format on twitch or youtube and trying to find good plays.
2) Git upset. Probably not a great option ofc.
3) Giv up. You don't need to be good at commander, it's just a game, and one that takes a lot of effort to git gud at. It's totally reasonable to just accept that your winrate isn't going to be very high, and that's ok.

You got me, I’m one of those trolls that Spends hours writing pages of clear argumentation while being careful not to insult the opposition, in a dead forum where the only other consistent posters do nothing but engage in vigorous congratulations of each other while ignoring my points.

Look, you asked why people think they’re a problem. I answered that question. You can disagree with the reasons - and to be clear, I disagree (or at least don’t feel strongly) about some of them - but those are the main reasons why. You want to argue about it? Sure, I’m game. You want to dismiss me? Fine. But if you’re going to claim my points are wrong, then at least have the common courtesy to explain why you think so.

And please feel free to report me if you feel I’m in violation of the forum rules. That’s what the button is there for.

Quote from JuiceBOX »

Okay, here we go. Let's keep in mind that you said "Commander is the only context.

Commander is the only context because it's the market these are being targeted towards.

1) It's a blatantly predatory business model. "If you miss a drop, it's gone forever" or whatever their stupid slogan is. They're obviously preying on peoples' FOMO to sell these things, because people are worried they might want it later and the price will skyrocket. It's the same psychologically manipulative tactics that mobile games have been "pioneering" in an effort to force people to part with their money as effectively as possible. This was semi-acceptable with reprints since at least those cards were already available at whatever the price was, but with these, there's really no telling where the price will go.

Irrelevant to Commander. The format is littered with cards that are largely unaccessible and yet the format continues to grow and do well. Further to this point, Commander is an incredibly proxy friendly format for this very reason. Whether or not this is a "Predatory business model" is irrelevant to Commander, specifically when it comes to the discussion of "Should these cards be banned?" - which I will remind you, is kind of the centerpiece of this entire thread. This, is the first example of you straw-manning.

I think you're a bit confused on what a straw man is. Straw manning would mean that I was attempting to refute an argument but ignoring the strong points, while refuting a point that either wasn't even argued, or altering the argument that was actually made in order to refute it. Even if you disagree with me and think I'm totally off-base, that's not even possible in this scenario because I'm not refuting an argument here, I'm creating my own.

I don't know why you think this is irrelevant to commander - it's clearly us that WotC is preying on with these products. This is a product designed to exploit us. Now, as I already said, the predatory model isn't relevant to the gameplay of commander, which is arguably the RC's purview, and I believe why they didn't choose to ban them. A banlist isn't really the appropriate way to handle the situation. But I don't think the appropriate way is likely to work, unfortunately. So in this situation I would prefer an improper solution to one that will fail.

As far as cards already being hard to acquire - much harder than these will ever be - yes that's true, but for the most part that has occurred by accident. WotC didn't go out intending to make dual lands expensive. They don't make any money off how expensive dual lands are. This situation is completely different because wotc is actively trying to exploit the system. It's the difference between getting killed by a natural disaster and getting murdered.

As far as proxies, I'm personally fine with them, but nevertheless people almost always acquire the cards because otherwise it's not "real". I almost never see proxies, and when I do there's usually a big apology beforehand. There's surely some interesting things to talk about as far as the psychology that motivates people to spend so much on cards rather than proxy - and as someone with a very expensive collection, I 100% fall into it. There's something satisfying about knowing that your deck is as real as possible, and that no one can deny the legality of it. Part of why I also very rarely consider making anything in silver-border - and clearly why wotc made these black border to circumvent that icky feeling. But to circle back around to the actual point, while in theory the format is proxy-friendly, in my experience proxies are actually exceedingly rare.

2) The price is extortionary. Ignoring the tokens because who gives a damn, you're paying $10 per card, assuming you're in a place where you don't have to pay import taxes or whatever else. That's a price we're used to because of the singles market, but the reason some singles are worth $10+ is because of all the many, many, many cards that AREN'T worth that much. For every $10 piece of cardboard WotC produces for a penny, they make hundreds of worthless cards for the same cost, and leave it to the secondary market to sort out what is worth what. By straight-up selling cards for $10, they're putting in almost zero effort and blatantly ripping players off.

Also, irrelevant to Commander, as well as this thread. See the above counterpoint as to why.

Beyond saying inaccessibility isn't necessarily a problem for the format - which I largely agree with, I think inaccessibility is a fairly minor problem with this product, your first "point" doesn't really make much of an argument. Let's got sentence-by-sentence through your "counterpoint".

"Irrelevant to Commander."

ok, clearly not an argument, just stating the point.

"The format is littered with cards that are largely unaccessible and yet the format continues to grow and do well."

Sure? But that doesn't really address my point. I never said that the accessibility of these cards was a problem. Besides which, having inaccessible cards does not equate to a predatory business model - not that it's relevant to the question of "is this product irrelevant to commander?" anyway. I guess it might if I was saying that the accessibility what WHY this is relevant to commander, but I didn't. The product isn't particularly inaccessible, it's just really scummy and deliberately targeting commander players - which is why it's relevant to the health of the format. If I feel the company producing the cards for the format is trying to exploit me, I'm going to have less fun playing the game. That's already true for me, at least, and I'm guessing others as well since many people have quit the game in the wake of this (though who really knows how many)

"Further to this point, Commander is an incredibly proxy friendly format for this very reason."

Besides this being mostly false - at least where I've played (or at best "true in theory but not in practice") - it's not really relevant to whether this is predatory or targeting commander players. Even if there's a way to circumvent wotc's overpriced product, the product still exists to attempt to exploit us. Sure, some people will avoid the trap and proxy these cards (or better yet, not play them at all) but some people will fall in, and that's what wotc is counting on. But I think the fact that wotc is laying out the trap to begin with - regardless of whether anyone falls into it - is what's so worrying about this whole thing.

"Whether or not this is a "Predatory business model" is irrelevant to Commander"

Ok, you've now stated this point twice without making an actual argument for it.

"specifically when it comes to the discussion of "Should these cards be banned?""

Debatable - but I don't wholly disagree (see above). But regardless of whether I disagree, there's still no WHY here, no explanation. You're just stating your points without backing it up. All the points you've tried to make are not related to this argument at all.

"which I will remind you, is kind of the centerpiece of this entire thread."

The initial argument of this thread is whether we should make a whole new RC over this - which is a dumb, bad idea that I'm not trying to defend. In fact I argued against it.

3) There is already a precedent for crossovers in magic, in fact there have been two: silver border cards, which almost everyone I've met is happy to allow in a game of casual commander so long as they aren't being abused, and the godzilla "alt-art" versions from Ikoria. Either of these would have been acceptable to most people, but they didn't do either - because if they did alt-arts, then they wouldn't be able to prey on FOMO because most people would just pick them up in a normal version, and if they did silver-border, then players wouldn't consider them "real cards" and so they wouldn't feel it as necessary to pick them up and they won't sell as many copies (likely only fans of TWD would pick them up, which imo ought to be the goal anyway). It's a blatantly greedy move to push the cards without regard for how players are going to feel about them.

I don't know what a silver border has to do with it, other than making it illegal for use in Commander. Which kind of runs contradictory to your statements and issues further on, which suggest that the problem is that these cards are legal everywhere... Once again, the context here has nothing to do with Commander. You seem to have a huge chip on your shoulder as to how collectables in this game should be handled, and it is rather arbitrary when it comes to Commander and the playability of the format with these cards existing within it.

Uh, yes, obviously the point would be to make the default-illegal in commander. For the record I'd be happy to play against someone running one of these in silver border, but I don't think they should be default-legal.

I have no clue why that would run contradictory to the suggestion the problem is that they're legal everywhere. That seems to match up 100% perfectly, tbh. I don't think they should be legal by default, and that making them illegal by default would resolve the problem. Why is that confusing for you?

Again, restating your point about this not being relevant to commander without explaining why. Getting kind of tired of that.

I'd say borders(/alt-art) is completely relevant to the playability of the format, and largely irrelevant to the collectable aspect. Borders exist to define how the cards can be played, not how they can be collected. If you feel my distinction it's "rather arbitrary", kindly explain why - but I think I've made enough points as to why this product is different than others, and ideally wouldn't be default-legal in the format.

4) Having non-magic IP, especially modern day real-world-adjacent IP, forced into the game is annoying and immersion breaking. Personally I'm a little luke-warm on this point since I'd be happy to see, for example, a set based around lord of the rings or some similarly venerable IP, but as someone who watched the first 3-4 seasons of TWD, it's a garbage show that gets way more marketing push than it deserves. Having TWD cards forced into the the game feels like an advertisement for a commercial product, not a fun flavor change.

As I had said before, you are talking about how rare these cards are and how that rarity is a cash grab move, but then you seem to suggest that they are common enough to impact the immerson of games across the globe. Your complaints about this product, really appear to be hyperbole. Is this product too rare for most players to get, or is it too common that the IP bleed is going to cause mass exodus in the format? Which is it?

NO. STOP STRAW MANNING ME. I never said these cards were rare - not ever, not once. Accessibility has NEVER been my argument. WotC said they would print as many of these are people wanted to buy (ignoring the fact that we're past the window now), so in theory the supply is infinite. The way they're marketing them has some elements of trying to instill the fear of potential future rarity, but during the buying window rarity is a 100% non-issue. And realistically, I doubt these will ever be TOO hard to get your hands on. Certainly not as hard as reserved list staples.

Now, how often do I think these will come up in an actual game? Probably not super often, though Rick might become popular (in the 99 most likely) for humans decks. But even if I never sit down across from one, having them in the game does still hurt the immersion a little, I think. They're going to come up on scryfall, they're going to get recommended in decklists, they're going to have decklists in the subforum, people are going to talk about them. Hell, we're already doing that and I hate it. I hate that I'm talking about the walking dead in a forum dedicated to magic the gathering.

Now, are those huge concerns? Not for me, tbh, aside from TWD specifically and how I think it sucks balls. But that's why I made it clear within that point that I was mostly relaying other people's concerns, and less so my own. I'm just passing on the information, not really arguing super strongly for it. But there are a lot of people who argue this point, so I felt it was worth conveying.

5) Selling these cards online only cuts out the LGS, which are already struggling significantly thanks to the pandemic, and certainly haven't been helped by the advent of arena either. It's a move that feels like it's focused on the short-term gains of "cutting out the middle-man", but at the sacrifice of the long-term health of paper play.

Your 4th instance of being completely irrelevant to Commander.

How is that irrelevant to commander? We may have nowhere to PLAY commander. I can't think of anything more relevant than that.

6) These aren't available in all regions, which isn't fair to players in those regions (I'm also lukewarm on this point since I don't think anyone should buy them).

See Spoiler for "Your Point #4.

I'm afraid I don't see how this is related to point #4, but I will reiterate that this is not a point I personally make or particularly care about. I also don't think it'll be THAT hard to get these on the secondary market even for people living in those countries. But people do make this argument, so I'm just relaying it.

You asked why people care about them being legal. This is one reason many people bring up, even if I don't particularly agree with it.

7) If they ever become tournament viable - probably not this batch, but who knows with future batches - not only might that cause a catastrophic price surge, but it also might mean that high-level magic play is being dominated by Mickey Mouse or whatever other cringy IP WotC is shilling for.

Pretty bold doomsday claim here. Just because they are showcasing collectable cross-IP promotions, doesn't mean they won't be protecting their brand. We are seeing more on-brand products for Commander this year, than ever before. WOTC knows how popular this format is, and they know that it didn't surge because of My Little Pony cards or Godzilla cards. Hasbro has a pretty invested interest in carrying the MTG IP, which is evident by the surge in on-brand product over the last few years.

The surge of "on-brand" product? You mean...everything wotc has ever made in black border (and arguably silver border) besides literally this one product? Um, ok? I agree that wotc has been dumping products on us at a pretty alarming rate. I don't think that's a sign that they're "protecting their brand", though. I think it's a sign that they're trying to milk us for every last dime that we're worth.

This product is a totally new direction for them - they don't know what will happen to the popularity of the format with the release of TWD, but I'd bet that they're watching very attentively to find out. If SLxTWD brings in a bunch new customers, you can bet they'll start pushing this sort of thing a lot harder, if they aren't planning to already. They're not trying to remove the releases that have already hooked so many people - they're just trying to add to them. For that matter, the Godzilla cards are still very new, too. I'm sure WotC was watching the response to those.

I think it's really funny that this is the one point that's pretty self-evidently irrelevant to commander, and yet it's the one you didn't claim is irrelevant. Also you didn't really argue against it? Just because they're making a lot of "normal" products doesn't mean that a card from SL couldn't become a powerful staple. It's a point brought up often, but it was only the second unique BaB that became a powerful tournament staple. The same could easily happen here. WotC has proven that they don't have very tight controls over the power level of their products. They try to make fun exciting cards (usually targeted towards commander players) but frequently end up creating problems in other formats. Although this is somewhat speculative - maybe WotC always wanted TNN to become a powerful legacy staple, who knows.

8) Probably the most minor note, but I guess Negan has done some bad stuff on the show (beyond the expected murder and whatnot) to where it might be kinda weird to play him as a commander - like imagine if Jeffrey Epstein was a commander. No clue, I finally gave up right about the time he was introduced and at this point I refuse to care about TWD on principle.

Conflating the representation of a character killing people in a post-apocalyptic fictional story, to the representation of an actual person who has sexually exploited women, is a pretty poor argument as to why these cards should not exist. Your last few points really appear to be drummed up because you are scraping the bottom of the barrel

I don't know why you think you're dunking on me when it's clear that I'm merely relaying other peoples' points, not making my own (in this case). Also from what I gather Negan was a rapist on the show. But again, this is not a point I really care about. That said, it's clearly getting used - iirc one of the digital commander environments banned Negan (and only Negan) for this reason. So even if I don't agree with it, it's part of the conversation.

You asked why people care about them being legal. I've tried to be thorough in relaying not just my own points, but also the points others have made. I'm not particularly interested in debating points like this one, though. I'm just answering your question for why some people, at least, don't like them.

most importantly, these set a TERRIBLE precedent for what could happen in the future. Tons of crossovers with awful IPs (someone's mentioned fortnite is possible...just shoot me), the potential for legacy-viable cards, or maybe even standard-legal cards, or even just powerful commanders that become must-haves, at extortionary prices that cut out LGSs while they bleed commander players dry. Some of those are more slippery-slopey than others, but the additional IPs is basically confirmed by WotC. If this was a one-and-done product I'd be annoyed but I'd get over it, but I think this is likely to be the beginning of the end for what we once called magic - and I don't say that lightly. I've never felt this way before in almost twenty years of playing, in fact I've usually defended WotC. But this is completely different, and if we don't do something about it, this game is going to go downhill very quickly.

See spoiler for "Your Pont #7.

I don't think printing a bazillion products a year - which is already an annoyance in itself - is a solution to this problem. If one of the items on your menu is poisonous, you don't resolve that problem by making a the menu bigger.

I think things like this are gauged on how players ultimately receive them. So I will end this string of talking points with this - I think it is perfectly okay for people to be turned off by this IP bleed. I think it is cringy as hell, I really disliked the Godzilla cards as well. However, that is a poor excuse for exaggerating the situation and blowing it out of proportion. It is okay to be vocal about it, I have been on numerous reddit threads sharing my distaste for cards like this. But you have taken an issue not really relevant to Commander, and raided this thread and touted that "Commander is the only context." When really, none of your points are specific to Commander and whether or not the RC should ban these cards or if players should try and find an alternative to the RC.

To be clear, I don't think players should try to find an alternative to the RC. I'm still in this thread because you asked why people didn't like them, and I answered your question. Not because I'm advocating a change in leadership.

To address something specific though - "none of your points are specific to commander" - sure, it's true that this business model could be predatory to legacy/vintage players too - if this product was targeted towards those players. But it isn't. It's targeted towards commander players. That's why this product is relevant to us specifically. If you actually think that this is a product that's equally relevant to all eternal formats then I guess we can discuss it, but that seems like a very tenuous position to me.

THIS, right here, is why you look so silly. I gave all of these counterpoints in previous posts and you became so defensive that you don't even acknowledge them as counterpoints. You have thrown not only context out the window - but also logic and reason. The breakdown in this conversation (and thread) isn't from me, my man, it is from you. I suggest you learn to keep yourself a bit more grounded.

I've responded to everything you've said (at least from a cursory look through prior posts). If you think I've missed something, please, let me know what you think I've missed.

The rest of what you've said is some really tedious ad-hominem garbage that I won't address. Keep it civil.

You aren’t making any counter arguments - I make a point, and then you say it’s ridiculous without explaining why.


If you’re not interested in engaging with the substance of the discussion then I’m not interested in trying to communicate with you.

I'm not going to say that people don't take it way too far, or target the wrong people in the wrong way. Especially with a mob this big, there's going to be some ********s.

Definitely not going to defend the actions of those people, but I think it's incorrect to say they don't care about magic.

Quote from Dr. Shades »

"IP" = "Intellectual Property?"

yes.

Quote from Cranky »

The reality is that, while there was always a very small contingent of people legitimately upset about 'immersion breaking,' the vast majority of people are just using it as an additional excuse to complain when someone refutes their arguments about why this product is bad and evil.

Dear god am I tired of this armchair psychologist garbage. The reddit poll - 30K respondents - had 93% in favor of banning these in commander. And that's not even including people who dislike them but didn't want them banned. Everyone hates these stupid cards. If you don't, that's fine, but stop acting like everyone who disagrees secretly hates magic.

I guarantee that if YouTubers like Brian and Mitch didn't irresponsibly abuse their platforms to start a knee-jerk sky-is-falling *****-fest, we wouldn't still be talking about this product. Mitch literally attempted to undermine the integrity of the format by actively trying to splinter people off into a sub-format out of pure petulance, so you can tell how much people like him really care about the format, and Brian has always been trying to peel people off into other games because deep down he hates Magic (counter to what he always melodramatically claims in his complaint videos).

I don't think this particular product is the end of magic, obviously. But I do think that it's very emblematic of some very serious problems with how upper management is treating magic. They're focused entirely on making money ASAP, and not on creating an enjoyable game that can sustain long-term. This product itself happens to be particularly odious, but as far as the existential threat to the game it's a lot bigger than just SLxTWD. And that threat is what I think people are freaking out about, and trying desperate measures to try to correct the direction the ship is heading before it smashes into an iceberg.

That said, this was a huge uproar before there were any YouTube videos about it and it would have been huge without any. Mitch and co rode the wave of anger, they didn't start it. They probably increased it a little, but this was going to be a PR nightmare no matter what they did.

Reddit exploded over this. poll with 30K responses had 93% of people wanting them auto-banned. Lots of arguing on nexus too. Obviously not as much here since not many people are here. Kind of coincided with standard banlist problems that also had people up in arms. Ultimately it's still a fairly small community of people affected so it's not like you'd expect to see protesting in the streets. Ofc the nature of reddit pushes anything older than a day off the front page, but there's still plenty of simmering anger.

The difference between these and grimlock/mlp is that these are fully-legal cards. The difference between these and godzilla is that there were normal versions widely available in normal boosters. These have the problem of ONLY being available in cross-IP form, being fully legal, and only being available via a predatory, overpriced product. I agree these aren't incredibly exciting, but if they were and I wanted to play them, I'd have to pay their exorbitant prices that cut out the LGS and prey on FOMO, and I'd also have to play with whatever IP they've whored themselves out to. Although I can't imagine many franchises I have less respect for than the Walking Dead. If they wanted to cross-IP with something more respectable, like lotr, then I'd at least be less bothered by the cross-IP bit.

If wotc had done them silver bordered, or godzilla-style with the normal versions in packs, I wouldn't have cared a bit.

yes.

should probably be in the rules forum though.

Nope. Dethrone specifies that it occurs when it ATTACKS, which any creatures that enter the battlefield already attacking didn't do. It never went from a state of not attacking, to a state of attacking - it was always attacking. Put another way, it was never declared as an attacker.

Hopefully that makes sense. Anyway, it's a definite no.

Btw this is the wrong subforum for rules questions. The correct subforum is here: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-rulings

Quote from JuiceBOX »

You came to a thread complaining about them in Commander - to talk about how legitimate people's complaints are, outside the context of commander...

Is the long and short of it. You also have the gall to act like I am where the breakdown in communication is, when you are starting to straw man this entire thread lol.

What a joke.

Let's be real - commander is the only context. Yes, technically they're legal elsewhere, but these are 100% marketed to commander players and intended for commander play. Now, the issues with the cards are largely outside of the mechanical gameplay of commander, yes, agreed. But the health and enjoyment of the format goes beyond strict mechanics. I think it's reasonable for the RC to avoid making bans based on those factors - but I also think it's something they should have done. It's like someone who watches a mugging without doing anything. Yeah, you didn't have any obligation to step in. But it still would have been the right thing to do.

By all means, tell me which part of what you've said you think I'm straw manning. Unless that's just another fun buzzword you like to throw around so you can avoid making any actual arguments.

Quote from JuiceBOX »

I am going to reiterate my misunderstanding here.

Well, at least you admit it.

I don't understand what the problem with these cards are (as it pertains to Commander and the RC). They do not seem particularly broken. Why are people upset that these are legal in Commander?

I'm fairly certain no one has said that any of them are broken as a reason for disliking/banning them. Ergo, I think one could reasonably surmise that isn't the problem people have with them, and you don't have to keep bringing up that they aren't. We all know they aren't.

People are upset for a lot of reasons, of which I already listed out many but I could certainly list out more. Here's another one that bothers me more, the more I've thought about it - I don't hate these designs. They don't blow me away but I could see playing them. But if I wanted to do that, unless something changes, I would HAVE to play with a card themed around the walking dead, a show that sucks and I don't want to support, or be seen supporting. And frankly, I don't want to look at it when I play my deck either. And who knows what the next cards they might create could be. By branding unique cards around some other IP, they're basically saying "if you want to play these cards, you HAVE to support this IP". That's why godzilla didn't bother me (plus Godzilla doesn't reek of desperate marketing like the walking dead does). I could just choose not to use those versions of the cards. But not so, moving forward.

Largely speaking, there are 2 main problems with many facets: 1) people don't like the flavor, and 2) people don't like the distribution. For my money, #2 is the bigger problem but they're both real bad precedents imo.

I get why people do not like them as it pertains to IP bleed and realistic/relatable art. But that has nothing to do with Commander.

Why does that have nothing to do with commander? If someone plays them, you're going to see that art/IP. If you want to play them because you think they're interesting mechanically, you're going to see that IP/art (unless you proxy them, which you absolutely should).

I mean sure, that's not traditionally a reason to ban a card. I'm not sure putting this at the feet of the RC is fair. But it's 100% relevant to commander as a whole.

You don't see people abandoning Legacy or Modern because of them, or even really threatening to...

1) I think most people assume these won't make an impact on legacy or vintage (I don't believe these are legal in modern). Granted, people are trying, so who knows. I hope they dominate the format and force wotc to address the problem, personally.
2) anyone who's seriously into legacy or vintage (I don't believe these are legal in modern) is probably too invested to want to quit very easily. So until these are actually making a big impact, it's probably not going to send people packing.
3) Tournament magic tends to be a lot less focused on things like flavor. Sure, pros will talk about how they like the flavor, but nobody who takes magic seriously at high REL is going to make any decisions based on the flavor of the card. If Pikachu is a good card in legacy, he's getting played.

The conclusion I am going to come to here is that people crying out for bans really have no legitimate reasoning for doing so and their arguments for why they are advocating abandoning the format and RC, are pretty ridiculous.

Just because you don't agree with the reasons don't mean they aren't legitimate.

I don't think this is good grounds for harassing or hating on the RC. But if this is the direction magic is going, I have to admit I have my doubts that I'll want to stick around forever - as someone who's been playing a long time and has never felt that way before.

These are the kind of players who I personally feel should just leave the format. It appears they don't seem to enjoy it enough to come up with stronger reasoning for why these cards are a problem (as it pertains to commander), and ultimately appear to be in denial about how they truly feel about the format.

This armchair psychologist stuff is both insulting and absurd. Sure, there are people that complain a lot about the format, and maybe some that aren't actually enjoying it - but polls from reddit had something like 93% - with 30,000 votes iirc - in favor of banning these cards. And that's just BANNING, not even the people who dislike them but don't think banning is the right solution. Are you the only person who genuinely likes the format? Everyone else is just a bunch of whiners?

Seriously, cut this out. You sound ridiculous.

That might seem harsh, but perhaps the 2 biggest problems I have with commander are:
1. Players feeling entitled to play open games with randoms and cry about playing decks they don't like.

Even in open games with "randoms" (though there are certainly different degrees of randomness), players can absolutely still avoid decks that they aren't interested in, the majority of the time. It helps to have a discussion ahead of time about power level, and sometimes there are misunderstandings.

Back in 2011 or so, commander was rare enough that I usually had a dedicated group to play in. These days, it's popular enough that it isn't the default anymore, at least in my experience. If only a few people are playing a format, obviously you're going to need to stick with each other so you can actually play. When most players are all playing commander, you're no longer constrained to the same small group, and most people are happy to go out and meet new people when they play. But of course that can cause conflict when expectations differ. That's not unique to commander. It's true of most social interactions, tbh.

Stick to playing with the same people over and over and over if you want. Sounds terribly boring to me.

2. Players virtue-signaling this 'love' for the format but do nothing other than complain.

What a ridiculous use of the phrase "virtue signaling", a phrase that has already been abused so badly I'm not sure it has any meaning at all. I think people just like saying it to demean others. You SAY you love commander, but you don't REALLY, because only I know how to love commander PROPERLY.

Some people complain a lot, yeah. They complain because they care about the format, and that care is built from positive experiences. People don't get so angry about stuff that they don't care about. Maybe for some people those positive experiences are too distant and few, and they should let the format go. But staaaahhhp pretending like you're the one guy who truly loves commander, just because you're happy to accept this ugly corporate shillery from WotC. Or because you haven't gotten bored of playing the same people over and over.

People have seem to have forgotten the days where not everyone played Commander outside of you and your close friends. You didn't like something, you talked to them and everyone often kept each other on the same page. It is almost like players these days don't understand how to properly curate a group who shares similar values.

It's almost like that's not the way many people play commander.

"I don't understand why people are upset about people cheating in video games - back in my day we only ever did LAN parties, so you could just talk it over with your friends!"

Yeah, ok, cool solution grandpa. Let's all pretend it's 2009 again. Best solution ever.

EDIT: Having thought it over some more, I think the "but you can just ban them with the 3 friends you've played commander with for the past decade" isn't so much an infeasible solution so much as a misdirect. These five/six cards are only a tiny part of the problem with this product and the signal it sends. It's a signal that wotc is going to become more predatory towards its customers, that it's going to sell out the aesthetics of the game to whoever it thinks stands to get it the most money. You can hide in a hole and ban those cards in a local group every time they come up, but that's the direction the game as a whole is going if this progress continues.

Personally, even if I was in a situation where everyone I played with agreed not to play these cards, that still wouldn't fix the problem for me - not at all, really. Because the problem isn't the cards, the problem is that I don't want to support a company that cares so little about its customers that it will gouge them $50 for 6 cards and prey on their FOMO to sell it. I don't want to support a company that's so desperate to wring every last dollar from its product that it'll cut out LGSs, even if it'll hurt the game long-term. I don't want to support a company that will whore itself out to a trashy show like The Walking Dead to make a quick buck. I thought Magic had more integrity than that. And if WotC's message to its customers is "hey, we don't care about making a great game that will please our customers - we care about wringing money out of them no matter the cost", then I don't really want to support them anymore.

Quote from Cranky »

For an apples to apples comparison, there are people on YouTube having complete mental breakdowns about Steve making it into Smash, proclaiming that the game is dead and that if you're happy about it you're a bad person. Un-*******-real. Meanwhile the community reaction in general has been so wholesome and delightful. How are we more toxic than the Smash community? The one where the pedophiles hang out?

I wanted to address this comparison real quick, because I think it's pretty far off. Granted, I don't play smash, and haven't since it was on the N64 (and even then, only at my friends' house and I was always trash at it). The main criticisms of this product fall into buckets of(1) magic shouldn't cross over with (commercial) properties in black border, and (2) printing functionally unique cards only available via secret lair is both predatory and dangerous to the health of tournament formats.

From what I know of smash, it's a format that is nothing BUT crossovers, so complaining about that seems fairly ridiculous to me. Maybe there's a line because it's microsoft instead of nintendo, but at least categorically there's nothing unusual about a crossover within that context, so that's a big strike one. And as far as being predatory, I don't see that either, unless they're selling Steve separately for a limited time only. I'm not saying it's unreasonable for fans to be unhappy with having a character they don't like in the game they love, but it's nowhere near "apples to apples" with this situation.

I think ultimately they'll all be in a sort of pseudo-legal state, much like un-cards are already. Which might be mission accomplished, although only time will tell. I don't think it'll dissuade wotc from making more, though.

Quote from Cranky »

Like, have y'all never experienced any sort of strife before? Just because a company produces a product that you don't like doesn't mean the world is ending. SMDH, I'm out here working my butt off every day, protesting injustice in the streets when I have time, there's a constant stream of news about more murder and disease, and every day now I'm coming home to read hyperbolic melodrama about Magic being dead.

Pre-Covid, I'd estimate I spent about ~16 hours a week playing magic, and probably ~5 hours working on decks.

It's a major part of my life. If I think it's under threat, yeah, I'm going to take that seriously. And for the record, this is the only time I've felt this way, and I've been playing for 18 years. I'm not a constant "sky is falling" guy when it comes to magic. This is unprecedented. I'm sympathetic to BLM protesters (I went to one climate protest...It's not much, but tbh it really just wasn't my speed), but I'm a selfish guy and I focus on what affects me most, personally. Magic affects me a lot. And as someone who spends a lot of money on the game and a lot of time talking about it, I actually have a relatively loud voice compared to my opinions on police brutality and carbon emissions.

Quote from JuiceBOX »

I asked WHY, and your response seems to either have nothing to do with the situation as it pertains to Commander, or they are naive points. I think it is as cringe as the next guy, but this discussion of canceling the RC and Commander is pretty rediculous.

I never advocated removing the RC so please stop bringing it up - that's never been my argument. I disagree strongly with them but I don't have any intention to disassociate the format from them.

It pertains strongly to commander (and the reason why banning them would have likely been very effective) because these are clearly targeted at commander players. Remove them from the format and WotC will be disincentivized from producing similar products in black border, which is the goal. Is the banlist the "right" way to do that? Not really, but when somebody is trying to kill me, if I've got a fork at hand I'm not going to quibble over whether stabbing is the proper use of a fork.

(what a weird metaphor)

Yet this isn't new. People have been dealing with card availability in MTG since... forever. People will meet this situation as they always have in the format... just proxy them. Exclusivity is nothing new to the game, the only difference is that now it isn't driven by the secondary market. Plenty of companies market on this axis without being called predatory, so why is MTG unable to do the same without receiving backlash?

Yes, lots of mobile/VG companies pull similar stunts, because they've done lots of research on how to build perfect skinner boxes for separating people from their money. And yes, those companies are called predatory and rightfully so, and they do receive backlash. Forgive me if I'm not thrilled to see WotC taking a massive step down the same path.

Card availability has been a problem, yes, but say what you will about the reserved list - wotc doesn't benefit from it. If anything it hurts them, probably quite a bit. Intent matters. There's a big difference between something happening accidentally and something happening on purpose. A volcano killing someone is unfortunate, but it's not evil. When a person kills someone else intentionally, then it's time to start laying down the moral judgments.

The product is limited to the point where I think these complaints are just kind of ridiculous to draw the conclusion that they are ruining the game. You are talking about the exclusiveness of the product while simultaneously advocating that it is going to heavily permeate MTG to the point where it is shoved in everyone's face. Talk about speaking in hyperbole.

When have I ever said that these were going to heavily permeate magic? Seriously, what is this insane straw man bull*****?

For that matter, I haven't really said much about it being exclusive - it's region exclusive, yes, but anyone who really wants to can certainly get one via the secondary market. It might get very expensive later, but it's hard to say.

Stop putting words in my mouth and then calling me hyperbolic. And I definitely didn't say anything even close to that in the part you quoted. If I said something like that elsewhere, then quote the relevant part, don't make me go hunt it down.

You know what else lets you say "no"? Curating a playgroup like people did when EDH first got off the ground. I am unsure why so many people seem to think that you have to play the format in an open table setting as opposed to a kitchen table style setting in which the format was birthed. It is rather comical whilst being very confusing.

Because some of us don't live in the same city our whole lives. And not very many of my friends play commander, nor are my friends who DO play commander necessarily the most fun to play commander against, especially when I want more variety. If you're happy playing against the same people over and over over, then bully for you. I've gone through many, many playgroups, through both necessity and choice. This is now likely to be a discussion I have to have with every playgroup I join for the rest of my life.

Not a big fan of that.

I still have not seen a single justifiable reason for banning them. Being cringe isn't really a valid reason. Ruining the format is a pretty bold claim.

These cards alone will probably not ruin the format single-handedly. But the trend of WotC printing commander-targeted cards for $10 each using scummy marketing tactics and cutting out LGSs is absolutely a bad road to walk down and I think could easily lead towards the eventual destruction of the format and magic as a whole. I've already seen quite a few people talk about quitting the game over this (though how serious they are, it's hard to be sure of course).

This isn't the end. But by the time we get to the end, it'll be way too late to do anything about it. This is a critical turning point in the game, and if we don't do something now before it gets worse, I think it might be too late.