Magic The Gathering

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
I know I am fairly new to the game so my opinion isn't very in-depth or nuanced, but I think WotC vastly overestimate the actual players opinions of UB. They won't care because scalpers will buy them all anyway, but the people going to stores and playing when I went this week were all in basic agreement, that regardless of them being accepted as Standard, UB outside of Final Fantasy is no longer being accepted by.... Well, frankly any pod, outside of themed commander tables.
 
Baron Reginald said:
I know I am fairly new to the game so my opinion isn't very in-depth or nuanced, but I think WotC vastly overestimate the actual players opinions of UB.
Click to expand...
The problem with vote with your wallet is that it works in both directions. Yes, spiderman sucks, is a REALLY stupid IP for magic, and people have been voting with their wallets and the set is crashing pretty hard. But we just had Final Fantasy which people voted with their wallet WAY the other way. And as long as papa Hasbro looks at the books and says "gee, we made a whole lot more money on Final Fantasy then we lose on Spiderman, the people love it!" we'll get Final Fantasy 2, WWE, KPop Demon Hunters and Dark Souls Universes beyond sets for 2027 confirmed.
 
Baron Reginald said:
I know I am fairly new to the game so my opinion isn't very in-depth or nuanced, but I think WotC vastly overestimate the actual players opinions of UB. They won't care because scalpers will buy them all anyway, but the people going to stores and playing when I went this week were all in basic agreement, that regardless of them being accepted as Standard, UB outside of Final Fantasy is no longer being accepted by.... Well, frankly any pod, outside of themed commander tables.
Click to expand...
What makes it even funnier is that they should know better. Several times over the years MaRo will bring up in his podcast and articles that for as long as WOTC was able to track stats, tournament participation and sales always matched and tracked together. The Time Spiral block was a big shock to them because that was when they ever saw the first time the two diverged. Tournament participation numbers were going up, while sales were going down. It was their first "lesson" that there was a whole demographic of players they weren't capturing in the data and had left behind with the product.

Based upon your experience and others, it seems like they're about to relearn this lesson. (if they even care - "players? we just care about the sales!")

toallyreel said:
The problem with vote with your wallet is that it works in both directions. Yes, spiderman sucks, is a REALLY stupid IP for magic, and people have been voting with their wallets and the set is crashing pretty hard. But we just had Final Fantasy which people voted with their wallet WAY the other way. And as long as papa Hasbro looks at the books and says "gee, we made a whole lot more money on Final Fantasy then we lose on Spiderman, the people love it!" we'll get Final Fantasy 2, WWE, KPop Demon Hunters and Dark Souls Universes beyond sets for 2027 confirmed.
Click to expand...
KPDH would at least be somewhat fitting for MTG. I can just see already... "Golden Honmoon - Enchantment - Other players can't cast spells."
 
Paul Cheon, Numot, Limited Resources - arguably three of the biggest limited-related channels - have all agreed to stop covering anything related to Spider-Man/Omenpaths, and the comments sections are filled with people cheering them on (and pleading with them to keep playing the FF flashback draft).

This is the worst-received, worst-performing set I have ever seen. Its limited format is complete trash, not just because of the pick-2 thing: Red is a literally unplayable color. As in, its best-performing common has a 17lands winrate of 3% below the average - which is generally understood to be "trash." This also means that green and black as colors are in bad spots, as BR and GR are unplayable, leaving you with just one pairing if you take G or B.

I don't think I've ever seen something like this in the entire history of the game, and I was around for Dragon's Maze.

I did purchase my literal two cards of interest from the set. And it looks like this year's Holiday Bundles will have alt-arts of some of the FIC cards, like bishounen Emet-Selch, so FF will again cover the pitfalls of Spider-Man.
 
Ride ain't stopping boys...
“We're not stopping there.” That's all you need to know about how Hasbro's looking at the success of Final Fantasy. The post is searching for a Japanese/English bilingual candidate to become a new program manager whose role will be “bringing our collaborations with Japanese IPs to life.” The post mentions Joseph Shinji Leis, who was the lead program manager for Final Fantasy. He penned an in-depth look at the localization challenges of developing a set in both English and Japanese, and appears to be looking for a partner of sorts for future Japanese-IP collaborations.​
I'm betting MTG is going full anime.

Rich Evans Ayypologist said:
This is the worst-received, worst-performing set I have ever seen. Its limited format is complete trash, not just because of the pick-2 thing: Red is a literally unplayable color. As in, its best-performing common has a 17lands winrate of 3% below the average - which is generally understood to be "trash." This also means that green and black as colors are in bad spots, as BR and GR are unplayable, leaving you with just one pairing if you take G or B.

I don't think I've ever seen something like this in the entire history of the game, and I was around for Dragon's Maze.

I did purchase my literal two cards of interest from the set. And it looks like this year's Holiday Bundles will have alt-arts of some of the FIC cards, like bishounen Emet-Selch, so FF will again cover the pitfalls of Spider-Man.
Click to expand...
Yep. It's apparently the worst drafted set ever.
 
Endless Torment said:
>Our art director has been reading a lot of romantasy lately. Like, "a new book every day" a lot. Then, he started reading it out loud. Then, he started writing fanfic and reading that out loud, too. Recently, he commissioned art from the incredibly talented Abigail Larson based on his fanfic and has been posting it around the office. To be clear, we're all super into it. So, we put it on cards.
Click to expand...
Saw an article posted in July and was reminded of your comment.
Article: https://icv2.com/articles/news/view...antasy-k-pop-magic-sets-expand-female-players
>"[D]on't be surprised if you see us poking into Romantasy, don't be surprised if you see us looking at K-Pop bands, nothing is off the table," Cocks said in talking about possible licenses with appeal to female consumers, which currently make up about 30% of the player base, according to Wizards of the Coast estimates.
>Other interesting Magic stats from the conference call: new players tend to come in at middle-grade ages (11-14); only 15% of the player base plays in-store or online; and the recent [as of july 2025] MagicCon in Las Vegas attracted a record number of players, with around 19,000 badges issued.
So keep your eyes open for IPs that target the 11-14 demographic.
 
Last edited:
Flexo said:
Yep. It's apparently the worst drafted set ever.
https://draftsim.com/mtg-pick-two-worst-draft-format/
Click to expand...
Though admittedly, 17L only goes back to... I want to say Kaladesh? Kaladesh or Ixalan, as before then Arena wasn't around. I don't know that they were tracking MTGO numbers.

So maybe, maybe, Homelands or Cold Snap or something has been performing better at stores. But all the stories I've heard have been stores barely getting spider-shit to fire, and just using old boxes for draft. I think I made a joke about wondering how long it'd take before spider-man made my LGS go back to an older format. I don't even think EoE was particularly good, but it's gonna get such a glow-up for not being Spider-Man.
 
I will say a common thing I've seen is a player against UB, then buys the crossover that appeals to their favorite franchise.

I really don't think Hasbro cares about anything besides sales, player satisfaction be damned. I'll be curious though with more UB, if a good draft format can "save" a set or if a popular enough franchise can outweigh a mediocre draft. Spider-man seems like sorta niche franchise (why buy Spider-man when Marvel set is coming?) on top of an awful railroaded draft.
 
Billy the Adult said:
I will say a common thing I've seen is a player against UB, then buys the crossover that appeals to their favorite franchise.
Click to expand...
See, I would expect most of them would be like me: sees something they actually kinda want (for me, the uncharted SL) and immediately decides to just get proxies of the thing. I’ve been hoping for a Star Trek set since they started UB, but the longer it’s been going to more I’ve not wanted it to actually happen. I’m not buying any of the shit when I can just get a proxy of the whole set for almost nothing and build the decks I want kitchen table style.
 
Logistical Nightmare said:
See, I would expect most of them would be like me: sees something they actually kinda want (for me, the uncharted SL) and immediately decides to just get proxies of the thing. I’ve been hoping for a Star Trek set since they started UB, but the longer it’s been going to more I’ve not wanted it to actually happen. I’m not buying any of the shit when I can just get a proxy of the whole set for almost nothing and build the decks I want kitchen table style.
Click to expand...
Play the OG. It's literally a print & play model now.
1759509781164.gif

(Yes that was a rare back in the day. In a set where this was uncommon.)
1759509861964.gif
 
Rich Evans Ayypologist said:
And it looks like this year's Holiday Bundles will have alt-arts of some of the FIC cards, like bishounen Emet-Selch, so FF will again cover the pitfalls of Spider-Man
Click to expand...
And that's the only reason I'm gonna be gambling on anything else magic related this year, I want that bishounen Emet-Selch... That art is so disgustingly pretty, how can I not?!

-----

Also hello thread, I'm somewhat late but the fatigue is hitting hard down here in shitholeistan, I was able to advice my lgs owner friend to not stock up to the gills on spiderkike and he luckily listened to reason, there's a couple other LGS' in my city that have 3-4 unopened and untouched booster boxes and I've seen at least one fully unopened pre-pack box (15 pre-packs) just sitting around at one of those other places. People are simply not excited to play with spiderkike cards at all, I've seen people be laughed out of trade groups for trying to trade actual cards for spiderman alt arts LMAO, I got my 3 singles I wanted out of the set (because sadly I like miguelito so I had to have his cards) and I'm done. I ain't too excited for avatar either, but I guess I can go to the pre-release because I still like pre-releases, the more UB shit they keep announcing and printing for next year the better for me because I'll know for a fact what to avoid, as someone else here said, WotC looking out for the consumer by printing stupid shit that nobody will buy.

Thank you for reading my blog post.
 
Lizard Machine Bugs said:
While Pokemon has it's own trading card game? No chance. If they somehow did they'd probably have even less control over the product than they have with the Marvel stuff.
Click to expand...
I mean the original pokemon game was made by wizards then taken over by Nintendo so....

Yeah, I don't see it happening at all.
 
As much as i would enjoy a Gundam or a Trails in the Sky secret lairs. Honestlh this whole crossover thing has and will get out of control. Unless they tank really hard and consecutive on such sets/products they will keep doing this crossovers with whoever whores themselves enough.
 
Lizard Machine Bugs said:
>"[D]on't be surprised if you see us poking into Romantasy, don't be surprised if you see us looking at K-Pop bands, nothing is off the table," Cocks said in talking about possible licenses with appeal to female consumers, which currently make up about 30% of the player base, according to Wizards of the Coast estimates.
Click to expand...
When companies do this shit it really bugs me, if you want to count troons as real woman to appeal to DEI investors or talk yourself up at your west coast bathhouse parties fine; I don't respect it or anything but I understand it. But gaslighting yourself into thinking your troon demographics are REAL WOMAN with REAL WOMAN tastes is deeply embarrassing; your 30% "female" playerbase would legitimately be more excited over you partnering with Bionicles over BTS.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom