Mtg is starting to feel overwhelming.
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on June 18, 2020, 11:37 p.m. by Deadpoo111
Is anyone else getting some serious mtg fatigue with these constant new sets and spoilers coming out? I almost forgot that Commander 2020 was released when it was literally spoiled in the middle of Ikoria, and now core 2021 and jumpstart are out and I can't help but feel like I'm sick of all these new cards. There's so much to keep up with, and while I'm never opposed to new cards or good reprints (god knows I love reprintz) but it's too much at once for me. What do you guys think?
Well I also feel the reason we are experiencing so much fatigue right now is because Ikoria and Commander 2020 had been pushed back quite a bit due to the COVID situation kinda making it clump together with Core 2021 and Jumpstart.
I also feel like Jumpstart was originally not meant to be such a bombshell of a set with amazing reprints, but they were all added to try and market toward the EDH crowd as well as Modern players.
I also know it can feel overwhelming since there is also the collectors pack variant products for just about each set now as well as the fact we will be having the Double Masters, Commander Collection: Green, Commander legends, and the Zendikar Rising set still coming out this year which really just seems like a lot.
June 19, 2020 12:11 a.m.
Deadpoo111 yeah bud I gotta agree with ya, there have been sooo many releases lately with OP card I've had to swap 2-3 cards in most my decks each set just to keep up (I almost exclusively play EDH unless I'm teaching someone new) in fact it seemed I would only need to swap 1-2 cards a block, now its every set, I've actually discussed this as well on another forum how WOTC seems to be intentionally printing OP ban worthy cards more regularly in an effort to draw in new younger players they are trying to impress, honestly I wish they would go back to the old block release schedule, this way has absolutely been overwhelming, as you said it seems by the time I learned eldrain ikoria was coming out and before I could get to know ikoria even a little it seemed that i was inundated by cmd 2020 and theros, now another is about to drop in a couple weeks, I'm just now learning the Mutate mechanic and experimenting with it and I'm already going to have to pick up something new or get blindsided, I played arena constantly when it came out which helped me follow along with the releases better, but I've grown bored of it, I enjoy paper magic way better(arena lack soul imo), I enjoy the social and collectable aspects of magic but if your not on arena every day it's impossible to keep up, and even on there I felt like everytime I'd get into opal rank by the end of the month, then half my deck would be rotated out then I'd spend a couple weeks testing new ones, get competitive, then BAM! Half rotate out again, this is why I never played standard before, cause I couldn't justify buying hundreds of new cards every couple months, but now it's even worse, I dont know how paper standard is doing right now, but to me it seems they are targeting younger people who dont know the value of a dollar and can just get a parent to buy them what they want, and they dont care about us older players, but hey! maybe that's because we wised up years ago and buy singles on TCG lol.
June 19, 2020 12:48 a.m.
dingusdingo says... #5
Simply put: You aren't the target demographic.
Even if you check most of the boxes for their target audience (I'll leave the demographics to you), you have to understand that Wizards has been targeting the deep-pocket Whale investors for quite some time. Secret Lair, the Masters sets, and the Commander products are prime examples of this. This is why we are getting so many alternate art and reprint sets, although we are definitely getting a ton of new cards.
I've also read the opinion that Wizards is powercreeping to get high value effects into the hands of budget players. If you want to pick up a Yawgmoth's Will, its going to set you back $100 on the secondary market, but Underworld Breach is $3. In this way they can phase out legacy and vintage (which are small formats due to the high cost of entry) and turn modern into legacy 2.0. Getting all the "new and improved" versions of cards into the game means printing a ton of cards.
Another opinion I've read on the issue is that the corporate suits at Hasbro (the company that owns Wizards) has been pushing for aggressive printing to make profits.
My opinion? Somewhere in the middle of all three. Wizards is pushing lots of sets and reprints to make money, because they are pressured from Hasbro. They focus on alternate art expensive Secret Lair and Double Masters type shenanigans because they know this game would be chaos with 18 actual block sets in a year. Either way, I've heard the phrase "wallet fatigue" more times this last year than the rest of my life combined. I'm fine with more than 3 sets a year, but seeing as almost every set from 2017 forward has had cards banned in modern/legacy/vintage I think this rate is unsustainable for the health of the game and the wallets of the players.
June 19, 2020 6:24 a.m.
I am still not even close to having too much magic product created for me. I can't afford to buy everything but that doesn't matter because it's not all designed for me. Also I don't mind not having a complete set of the most optimal card choices possible in every single edh deck.
If anything the rate of set releases are bringing us closer to what Richard Garfield intended when he was inventing this game. He never imagined a timeline where his game was popular enough that people had massive collections. He envisioned that everybody had a small subset of the available cardpool because it was hard to acquire them all. That concept was factored into the original card designs.
Personally I love that they are making a bigger effort to invent products with new cards and reprints with large sets like mystery booster and jump start. Releasing additional pre-constructed commander and brawl decks each year is great for me also, they have been great investments for me whenever I have gotten them and more available is great for growing the game. I think they're doing a great job making new sets.
As far as the premium products they have been selling recently, it seems obvious that they should have a product line that is super expensive because there are people that just want to buy expensive products. Why shouldn't they offer one? Everybody has their own budget and some people just plan to spend a certain amount on their Hobby even if it's way more than what other people think is reasonable to spend on a hobby. That is the nature of people, not some kind of corporate scheme to steal profit from an unsuspecting public. If anything they were fools for not recognizing that it was worth catering to these folks earlier in Magic's history. Before Collectors Boosters and Secret Lairs and Mythic editions and whatever the only way a whale could dump oodles of cash into Magic was hoarding piles of cases of unopened normal boosters or to turn to the secondary market. I don't see why they wouldn't want to make products that some people clearly want just because it's not for every single one of their fans.
June 19, 2020 12:35 p.m.
fadelightningmm says... #7
Honestly, all these releases are overwhelming. Core 21 and jumpstart spoilers happening in the same week just amplifies that feeling. I get why commander 20 and Ikoria had simultaneous releases, but this isn’t needed. They are try to capitalize on the popularity of commander and the insane value of commander cards in the “year of commander”, but I think it’s causing a burn out. I’m basically at the point now where I don’t want to buy new things because I’m tired of all the new stuff. The new stuff is also starting to feel really pushed. Deck building is starting to feel more like all auto includes and less freedom if you want to stand a chance. It’s just very tiring
June 19, 2020 1:47 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #8
This has been the case for YEARS and it has driven several people to quit rotating formats like Standard. Admittedly it's getting worse too.
I only play Commander at this point because I only need 1-2 cards tops out of any set and just buy singles. Your cards never rotate so even though I haven't played in 8 months I can still take my deck to my LGS and play it without being forced to reinvest in a new deck.
June 19, 2020 4:01 p.m.
Addendum: I do have to say secret lair has been my only exception to this overwhelming release schedule, but that's because I love alter art, and 90% of it didn't appeal to me, but when I saw ""heart of steel" I had to have it, and I feel like that was true for most people, a little bit for every one, and three alter arts for $50 is amazingly awsome, since three new art alters could run you $300+ easily.
June 19, 2020 5:37 p.m.
Addendum: I do have to say secret lair has been my only exception to this overwhelming release schedule, but that's because I love alter art, and 90% of it didn't appeal to me, but when I saw ""heart of steel" I had to have it, and I feel like that was true for most people, a little bit for every one, and three alter arts for $50 is amazingly awsome, since three new art alters could run you $300+ easily.
June 19, 2020 5:38 p.m.
SteelSentry says... #11
This is one of the first years I actually have disposable income to blow on Magic, but I can't even keep straight what cards are in which products without checking multiple times. On top of that, it seems like there's so many bans, and an entire mechanic had to be nerfed. Magic used to be my escape but it is starting to be mentally draining, keeping up with it all to see the new busted cards they are pushing out.
June 20, 2020 5:24 a.m.
SteelSentry dude I hear that, I was sitting there going, do I buy mystery? Do you I buy a commander box? Ikoria? Theros? What do I do? So I said forget it to the new cards and finally bought my self a Scroll Rack, and Sensei's Divining Top is next, other than that I'm gunna grab a couple singles from these sets and call it good lol.
June 20, 2020 12:11 p.m.
I don't know how i missed out on this topic
I 100% agree they need to stop the spam
(IMO) players do not enjoy the spam, the ban, and the nonstop competitive that everyone claims they do
which is why formats started dying and commander started taking first place
when it was noticed that sales were massively declining in every format but at the same time sales were spiking in commander there was a choice that had to be made
A. study commander to understand why players flock to it then take what was learned to fix the other formats to bring back players
or
B. Not bother changing anything and just focus more the commander format
we can see what option they picked
SynergyBuild says... #2
For a lot of players they don't need to worry, but legacy and commander players have to worry about each release, so older formats are getting overwhelming, forcing many players to formats like Modern, Pioneer and standard, I expect it has a use, to drive to Arena. Luckily I doubt it will be a success.
The time they spend designing these new sets costs money, no doubt, and since the money being brought in isn't multiplying, it's simply being split more ways, it's just not extremely cost efficient, and while WotC has the money to do this for basically forever, they have Hasbro to worry about, and investors into Hasbro will go for the monetarily efficient play every single time. Even if it was true that a lot of investors understood that moving to arena was perhaps a strong long term investment, the actual nature of the Covid-19 stock crash is that WotC isn't doing well in general, and they need to keep things making money right now, rather than going for long term investments, or investors will sell out.
I doubt they keep this up a couple year's time. Till then however, expect a lot to be crammed up. I'd recommend highlighting cards in a 'to watch' list. I'll set one up for EDH players and post it here in a bit!
June 18, 2020 11:50 p.m.