I miss the hits and misses end of year podcast. Its funny to look back at wild predictions that never came true of calling a shot super hard. I want them to listen back on their Phlage discussion.
Yeah, we might bring them back next year. Part of the challenge is we stopped doing the top 10 videos for each set because they weren't very popular, so we don't have as many bad non-Seth takes during spoiler season lol
@@MTGGoldfishPodcast I feel like the top 10 videos could come back with plenty of popularity now that other channels aren't doing exactly that as much. Maybe make it a members only series or something if only the diehards want it.
Simic Season (2019-2020) was such a buster time for Magic, but it was also so much fun. I miss casting expansion//explosion for 20 off a wilderness reclamation.
7:20 Maybe it's just me, but when I buy a card, I don't really think about the financial long-term of it. I just now have another card that I can play at the current time.
Same here. You can never trust your cards not to lose value for various reasons (reprints, powercreep, deck losing it's place in the meta, bubbles, etc.) so, if you are mostly a player and not a speculator, you should always think of card purchases as spent money, not investments.
It’s not just you, I’m the same way. Even if the card is $100 I’m not buying it because it’s expensive, I’m buying it to play with it, and if it goes down to $5 at some point all that means for me is I can buy more if I need.
It's not just you, but there are also people like Richard described. And even though I'm not one of them, I do find it distasteful and cringe-worthy when people dismiss all of their concerns out-of-hand or mock them as "cardboard investors" or whatever. Different people have different expectations and values, and I'm not arrogant enough to claim that what other people value is inherently bad or something.
I disagree that the bannings in Commander controversy was the biggest news of the year. I think it's how release sets will be Universes Beyond half of the year. Half of Magic will be UB from now on, if not even more. That's a big change for the game as a whole.
Idk, one led to doxing, death threats, irl stalking and threats being left at peoples' houses. The other has a few commenters bringing it up on occasion. The UB switch was *not* bigger news.
@@casteanpreswyn7528 it's not the fault of the game that edh has a lot of nutcases that go crazy for value or the format. UB is a core change for the whole game. And if you think only a few commenters bring in up in occasion, you are extremely wrong. Of course it's not a thing that's going to be discussed in Commander podcasts, It IS still the way bigger change for the game. And the game is not Commander the gathering, it's Magic. Or maybe it's not, since now it's half.
@JugonEx the game has been Commander the Gathering for years now, it is more popular than basically every other format combined. Also, it isn't a fundamental change to the game rules. It's a change of some art and flavor text.
Yeah, the announcement was big news for sure, although it might be even bigger news next year once we see how the changes actually impact Standard (and the rest of the game).
@21:06 this was the conclusion that I came to (just the UB part, I don't think magic HAS to be high fanasty), LOTR is a huge outlier because it's the foundational reference for 99% of all swords and spells fantasy. It's the influence getting to be "in" the thing they influenced, it wasn't just an interpretative coat of paint.
Also the fact that it’s just high fantasy in general and “fits”. If they were to do say an elder scrolls crossover or Witcher or something else of that nature I think people would be more than fine with it because it’s not breaking any kind of immersion. If you show a magic player who has somehow never heard of LOTR a Aragorn or orcish bowmasters they not gonna know the difference between them and every other magic card/character. You show them Ironman or Spongebob they gonna be real confused. I think having SpongeBob as a alternate art secret lair for a pre-existing card is more than ok, As you can always play the normal version. Making a stand-alone SpongeBob set however that’s where the issues come in, as now that’s all u have.
I always thought the “magic is high fantasy” take to be a little over egged tbh. Obviously huge high fantasy elements but for example the phyrexians are a hive mind robot army from another world. Artificers and machines are more steam punk than high fantasy to me
@@light-chemistrythe way phyrexia was historically done WAS fantasy. Its not classic fantasy but its definitely not steampunk. Kaladesh is about as close to that as we've gotten and they still avoided it. Magic has objectively always been a fantasy genre game though it runs the gambit between many types of fantasy (since they steal most of their material)
@@thatepicwizardguy giant flying spaceships and literal nukes have been around in mtg for decades and aren't something I'd consider to be fantasy. Lol
7:20 tbh I don't expect to get a single dollar back from my expensive cards, what I expect is to be able to play them. That said I think these bans were fine. Also, I disagree so hard with Richard about generative AI. It's not just automation, it's a way to avoid paying artists *while* using their work (throwing it in a blender, basically). Remove the real artists from the equation and all you have are "AIs" copying each other until everything's the same slop (which is actually happening a bit and it'll only get worse). Ignoring the ethics in this discussion is exactly what the multibillion-dollar companies behind these technologies want.
No offense, but if you think training AI using content from AI will offer bad results you don't really understand what training and fine-tuning really means. I've been in CompSci since 2021 this upcoming year is my last and a lot of programming has come down to using AI tools like Claude to write code. For programmers who learnt coding by memorizing each line it's over. Those pretenders don't understand shit about computers and pretend they know computer language through memorizing lines of code. Same with artists. All the shams are out of work thanks to AI, but the good ones will use AI as a tool to make even better work than was possible beforehand.
@@zweis'Same with artists. All the shams are out of work thanks to AI' is a very jaded thing to say. Artists don't create to make money, we create because we love it. It's never work. If money comes along then wow. I feel you are very qualified to talk about AI's effectiveness within your world of programming.
@@zweis Coding is objective, but art is meant to be subjective. There is no “best artist” out there making better art thanks to AI, the vast majority of AI art regurgitates whatever data set it’s fed.
Speaking as someone who has sold an entire collection when I was a newlywed with a baby. The bannings were not a big deal (I had each banned card in at least one deck). I do in the back of my mind keep an idea of what my collection is worth, but I also know that even when cards are banned they never go straight to 0. Also even if one or two cards drop, it’s not like the other thousand will. Ban cards, unban cards. The money part should never be at the top of a decision. Make decks to have fun and if they’re worth money sweet.
I've totally been there, having to sell cards to make ends meet when things in my life changed, so I 100% empathize with people on that. With some distance, however, I kind of hate the idea that expensive = can't ban. It's another incentive for WotC to print busted cards meant to be reprint fodder, knowing they're safely in the format.
I disagree about the AI Art part. As someone who follows the whole thing very closely I do not belive that AI art will be an inevitable part of this industry. AI Art is already beginning to cannibalize itself and as soon as enough artists are driven out or as soon as proper protection for human art against AI scraping gets established (The EU iks already on its way to establish legislation to protect artists and regulate AI companies, and also tools to "hide" your art from AI scraping algorythms are already working and in use) AI models have nothing to feed on and will dissolve into even more slop than now. Also lately concerns about the ethics of Open AI's practices and the energy efficiency of AI as a whole, make it more and more clear imo, that AI is a marketing stunt, sold to companies as THE innovative tool of the future, that will not lead to more efficiency, ultimately. Its a bubble and it will burst, sooner or later.
@@rmcdaniel2424 This is actually the worst possible faith reading of what was said. He was relating it to how other people have lost their jobs with other forms of automation in the past. It's just the reality. You can think its a bad comparison, but you just completely twisted their words.
Regarding Universes beyond, players care about power level above all else. That's why Storm is super expensive and Black Panther isn't. It's why there's such a big price disparity between the Dr Who sets. There's definitely some waifu/cutesy tax too but above all, if a set is powerful it will sell - don't forget that one of the LotR sets is considered a pseudo modern horizons set by many.
Well I mean... ultimately by what theyve said themselves you can tell they don't really believe in their own IP and the designers and execs in charge are fully to blame for that particularly since UB started. If they actually put the same effort and creative energy into magics IP as they have with all these special beyond products people would go crazy about magic but we got bolas story which is lazy avengers. Phyrexian story massively dropped the ball. Eldrazi are such lazy uninteresting cthulu monsters I cant even lol Bad writers and bad creative direction plus bad executive decisions have failed Magic. Wheres our weatherlight saga animated show? Planeswalkers being invented onward the universe got worse because the creative team got lazier. (Not all of it but overall)
Unrelated to the pod but I just got in my Remote Farm, Surveyors scope, Faerie Artisans, Machine Gods Effigy, Notion Thief, Dowsing Device and scholar of New Horizons from Card Kingdom. Thanks guys lol😂
That, as crim put it, "blank white squares" argument is such garbage. Think about what got you into mtg. Id be willing to bet it was something with the flavor. The flavor matters as part of the experience. Expensive dinners arent served on paper plates with plasticware for a reason
I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t like MKM so hard to feel let down by the stupid concept. I really wanted to give Thunder Junction a chance but the whole “every mtg Bad Guy is here!” gimmick just soured the whole experience for me. Bloomburrow was heavenly and Duskmourn was much better than I expected but still annoyed me at times with the more ghostbusters/Maniac Mansion stuff but still tolerable. Foundations was neat. Overall, tough year but at least it was a 2.5/5 experience rather it just being “Bloomburrow is goated and the rest of the year could burn” for me.
Highlight of 2024 for me was the release of Foundations. I came to MTG in 2019 and really loved it. The idea of Murders, Thunder Junction etc really put me off and I faded away. But foundations really got me excited. And the beginner box FINALLY got my wife and oldest son playing after I’d failed for the past few years. So we got a precon each for three player commander nights. Feels good to be back in MTG land
W.r.t. the Marvel secret lair, I think WotC was being genuine when they said they printed an extra large batch to try to counter the increased demand. They just didn't take into account how stupid the scalpers would be. Or rather, the scalpers underestimated how large WotC made the print run.
I don't understand why Wizards thought that printing parasitic decks so powerful that block constructed decks are top tier is a good idea. AT LEAST MH1 added a few sweet buildarounds like Soulherder. MH2 and 3 basically looked at every staple and made a strictly better version.
This is why for years WotC actually said they didn't want to produce a direct to Modern set. We the players nagged them for years since the literal start of the format. It is impossible to produce a set designed for play in Modern that wouldn't invalidate swaths of the prior Modern card pool.
@TheEvolver311 Except I kinda think that MH1 nailed it. A direct to modern set is bound to have a few problematic cards, sure, but MH1 had a lot of healthy cards.
@@danewirostek1903 Did you not understand what I wrote? "A direct to modern set is bound to have a few problematic cards." Seasoned Pyromancer, Ice-Fang Coatl, Soulherder, Flusterstorm, Giver of Runes, Goblin Matron, Hexdrinker, Ranger-Captain of Eos, Wall of Blossoms, and Yawgmoth all added something to the format that in hindsight was very healthy. They didn't outright replace cards (with the exception of Wall of Blossoms) and either gave decks new tools or nudged tier 3 decks into tier 2. I agree about W&6 being a mistake but that does nothing to undermine my point.
It's actually BIGGER than 18 sets for standard, it's actually 19 if you include foundations. Standard will have a bigger card pool than extended ever did. We went from type 1 to type 1.25 with the extension to 3 years, and now we're basically going into type 1.75. Standard is the new eternal format, and it's actually modern that rotates every 2 years with a modern horizons set.
I’m so not excited and uninterested in UB sets in standard and becoming the norm for sets in MtG. I agree some of their in universe sets lately have been misses, but it doesn’t mean I want to see Spider-man and all these other properties showing up in Magic. I play Magic for the high fantasy vibes, not as a playground for all my different fandoms. If I want to see Darth Vader vs Captain America I’ll discuss it on forums like a normal nerd lol, I’m not trying to water down Magic to include all these IPs that were never designed for it in the first place.
Yeah. Just cause you're tired of being punched in the gut doesn't mean you want to be punched in the balls. The solution is clearly that they should make better in universe sets and stop treating the story as an excuse to force crossovers for commander.
Crim with the babe in the woods idea that UB sets aren't going to be pushed to the nines to feature face characters and sell packs. Standard is getting One Ring'd or Bowmaster'd in 2025, book it.
No one sells their collection? Ho ho ho... Have you ever met a MtG player? I can't be the only one that has sold out, and bought back in .... a few times. -_-
The problem with recent set isnt the settings but that they dont feel whole. They dont take themself seriously. In the past their where sets like Kaldesh that where really far from high fantasie but it felt like you visited a new world. It wasnt a gimmik
"Return to Lord of the Rings is really what I want." -Richard. Yep, people just can't get enough. Lotr was a huge cultural phenomenon not just in the space of fantasy. The Peter Jackson movies further solidified that for the generation that is the biggest demographic of mtg. Here's the secret.. it's because it's really good! The characters, the world, and the story are well done and importantly, consistent. No offense to the likes of Marvel or Final Fantasy, but they're not on the same level of popularity, or consistency. For some people it won't be their Marvel, or their Final Fantasy, but it was everyone's Lord of the Rings. Then there's the fact that it's classic high fantasy, and fit right in to the genre that people came to magic for. I'm probably still missing a few things, but there was SO MUCH going for it. I really don't think the higher ups in hasbro understand that, and I do think it's a red herring.
Marvel secret lairs not being insane price is probably due to them having a large print run. I imagine demand is high, but supply is much higher than things like the Miku secret lair.
The Richard and Seth theory that "what if Lord of the Rings was just an outlier and there isnt actual demand for Universes Beyond" doesn't make sense. The best selling Commander deck series of all time are the Fallout decks, despite the fact that they didnt introduce any new OP broken chase staples. Before that, the best selling Commander decks of all time were the Warhammer 40k sets. We've seen multiple examples of Universes Beyond product releases being wildly successful and popular. Its not a coincidence. I dont know why its hard to acknowledge or understand that Universes Beyond is popular and appeals to lots of players (including many enfranchised veteran players).
Yes but both had strong decks mothman is strongest precon to date and the calgair was the best before it came out I’m not a fan of fallout at all but I bought the mothman to play against other precons
@@DavidLandreth-l6f Every time there are 4 decks released, there is a strong deck. but that doesn't mean that the sales break records. I definitely don't think the Mothman is the strongest pre-con to date by the way. Just in recent memory I can think of stronger ones. The Pantlaza, Sun-Favored deck was particularly powerful. I can assure you that there are lots of people that are buying the Fallout decks because of the lore/flavor/art as their primary reason. The same can be said about the Warhammer 40k decks. It's not a coincidence that the best selling Commander decks happen to be the few Universes Beyond ones they've done.
I don't think anyone's saying that no UB sets are popular, but I think it's still an open question whether just being a random UB set is better than being a random in-universe set. Lord of the Rings killed it for sure, and as you mentioned some of the precons have done well (although more on this in a minute), but we've also had sets like Assassin's Creed, Clue and Doctor Who which I'm not sure were especially popular (at least Wizards hasn't been shouting about how they are the best selling of all time, so I imagine they aren't on the same level as Lord of the Rings or Warhammer). I think even the Commander precons are difficult to parse. Were Fallout and Warhammer popular because of the IP, or were the popular because they are so much better than the normal Magic-themed decks (by this I mean the UB decks get 100% new art and often have a bunch more new cards while the in-universe decks have only a few pieces of new art and typically only a handful of new cards). It feels like Wizards spend a lot more time (and money) making UB Commander precons than they do making the in-universe ones that come out with every set, which are pretty hit or miss these days. I think next year will be very telling. If we see Standard booming because of Final Fantasy and Spiderman I think that will be pretty clear evidence that the IP is doing the heavy lifting.
21:30 was Richard implying FF isn’t high fantasy, because there are definitely some games that match the level of high fantasy that original magic sets had technology and all
There are a lot of artists, Magic or otherwise, that are exclusively digital artists. Limiting it to physical art only would leave a lot of digital artists without work
Personally, I like that wizards tries a bunch of stuff with their setting. To me, Magic is the system, the rules, the framework, I don't see why they can't just build a bunch of stuff on top of it. On one hand, I feel bad for people that have their immersion broken, on the other hand, it's cool that a dad can introduce Magic to their kids with Sponge Bob cards.
MtG as a whole actually meant something to a lot people. Whether it was the art, strategy or flavor, it's in the details where people fall in love with your product. It only started to become a mere game system when it began losing its core identity to other IPs. In its attempt to have something for everybody, it lost the trust of the dedicated few that kept it alive after all these years.
I agree. It is a shame they don't see the whole picture which is a few rich men making the biggest transfer of power and wealth with tools like AI. Anything to make us worth less and contend with then more. Til we are slaves again.
I have always thought the best way to guage a commander deck is a base value for a commanders strength and cards having values thay multiply that dependant to their strength. Buy the end of your 100 card deck a very weak deck could be around 150 while a very optimized deck could be a 700 and all players could really tell if they are even in a realm together of a fair match
The themes don't matter at all really.. Nobody cared about Loot getting adopted by a snake lady or whatever that plot was, they enjoyed the *living hell* out of Duskmourne though, and not because of 80's horror, but because it was a great set from playing it to drafting it.
Tell me that you don't know anything about game design without telling me that you don't know anything about game design. Duskmourn had some issues, but overall it was one of the best mergers of theme and mechanics we've seen in years.
When Final Fantasy comes out Sephiroth from FF7 needs to be either 5 Color or Grixis (probably a version of both). To me both make sense to my understanding of the character. For Final Fantasy 13 characters I can see them bringing the Meld mechanic back given the nature of how Summons worked in that game.
The current direction of Magic is very very different from its origins. However, people like the direction and it shows in their sales. I just wish that we would get a high fantasy set once a year. Something for the boomer Magic player. Then it would be easier to accept UB and genre sets.
I don't think anyone should ever be taking secondary market value into account when cards are getting banned. There's no good way to go about it that would avoid people getting mad. Like seriously, what do you do? Warn people ahead of time? That just causes players to pass the bag and then different players get mad instead. Reprint it into the dirt so it becomes worthless and then ban it? Now the value tanked and also more people are being affected. Never ban anything? Then you're actually bleeding the playerbase. The real answer is that people need to shed this idea that Magic is an asset and not a liability.
I watch the podcast as I think these guys are great and entertaining, but I haven’t played a game of magic since the six set standard, with universes beyond nonsense thrown in, was announced. I sold all my cards and it’s so refreshing not having to chase every important card from every set as I just can’t keep up financially any more
I think with Marvel Secret Lair, people are waiting to see what will be reprinted for UB. Lots of us expecting these same cards to come back out not in secret lair. I also agree with Crim, it’s all too recent and unlike Evil Dead we know more Marvel is coming.
A thing about the secret lairs that ive been thinking about because i experienced it. Would i buy a secret lair i stood in line for 3 hours for but when i got to check out it was sold put for 2x the price i could see in my cart? My answer? No lol i felt so robbed when the site told me i was in line for a prouct just had to wait and find out people were just skipping the line to scalp the product and there's probably a lot of people that found out and didnt want the secret lairs so bad they HAD to pay scalper price becuase if you stood in the line you were not guaranteed a purchase just the cart page.
"X thing is the best selling thing of all time" - person who has a vested interest in deflecting criticism. Totally a trustworthy phrase not trotted out by someone to avoid questions.
The secret lair thing was more like a yard sale, that advertised a bunch of rare items you had been looking for. The front door had a line to the street, but in a very tiny 8.5x11 paper written in pencil, that was not placed in a very good area said "backdoor also available for entrance". And only a few people saw it or thought to check for it, because normally you don't do that.
It wasn't a vulnerability. Wizards of the coast cheeped out and didn't pay for the higher end service to prevent it. Do not give them credit for not being capitalist greed whores Seth.
I’d like 4 standard sets, 1 supplemental experiment set like horizons or commander legends etc and 1 remastered or masters set that’s just reprints for all the legacy and commander staples from the 20+ commander decks printed each year.
I also hate Lord of the Rings (this is Seth, btw), but I can respect it's contributions to the genre. There are a lot of bands like that for me too, where I don't really enjoy listening to their music, but can respect their importance.
I think Final Fantasy will hold up as it's also a heavily fantasy setting. Yeah there's sci-fi and tech elements but less so than I expect we'll see in Aetherdrift or the space opera set. So I expect, after Tarkir, FF will be the most 'Magic' of the sets released.
Modern today is: your tolerance to degeneracy is higher than the average standard player. Plus you normally produce less salt while playing, you eat combos for breakfast. But regarding rotation, no big difference.
The ban list did make me quit cold turkey. I started focusing on lorcana which I truly believe is a better game. Losing roughly 2 grand in cards overnight from an unpredictable unaffiliated 3rd party rules committee.
Mostly, the people happy about the Commander bannings are people that don’t play those cards anyways. The people that own them (or multiple copies) are not happy. Crypt is relatively high, the other 3 have crashed.
There is a definite difference between automation of checkout lines and the automation of human creativity. Ultimately, I agree AI is going to help bottom lines and thus become even more the norm. However, there could be a silvering lining in that all creative endeavors will end of being for our own personal gratification, the process of creating art, music, or writing being the purpose and the value. Human art and writing for money might then become a niche market, or you can buy the human art Secret Lair... At some point the line should be drawn, though, right? Will AI inevitably optimize our turns, supplanting us as fallible players?
In regards to the price of marvel cards, I called that there wasn't going to be much *new* demand for Marvel based cards. Can't wait for the UB sets to crash and burn!!!
Never see anyone bring this up but it's likely a huge part of the reason. Anyone who's ever seen (or read) Charlie/Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory would know that's exactly what the LotR set was. It was literally the golden ticket. The news about the 1/1 ring went mainstream. You had celebrities offering life changing bounties on it and so tons of people who don't give a crap about Magic or know anything about it were buying up product just to try to hit that golden lottery ticket.
all of these new sets that are just "Magic with a hat" I believe are extremely boring and lazy conceptually. It just feels like Wizards has no idea what to do with the magic IP so they just either use other peoples IPs or make the most generic copy of a different IP. Like does magic really need a Pikachu, or is this just wizards making a knock off Pokémon because they have no idea what to do with magic's universe and story?
I think MKM could have worked if it had been inside a block. There was just very little setup for everyone suddenly investigating crimes and being a detective. The idea was great and it fits the political intrigue themes of Ravnica, but it just felt too rushed. Even then, the story was amazing. I think the lack of time to set up planes is what's making them so gimmicky. They clearly have some great ideas (except for Thunder Junction) they just can't get developed enough.
Can someone who was mad about the EDH bannings explain to me why you thought it was bad(I wasn’t following mtg when it all went down). It just looks like the RC doing their job and banning some on the most broken cards on the format.
The biggest issue is you go from a format where you buy cards that are 60/70/100s of dollars. That into itself isn't a problem is as we spend money on whatever. The difference is the astronomical type of banning had not been seen in Commander ever. In modern and other formats it happens but people know that going into it. Commander has never been that way. Also when you have cards that are specifically only legal in Commander, i.e. jeweled lotus, mana crypt. There isnt even an argument you can just play them elsewhere, which is the argument of banning cards in other formats as well. Like them banning initiative cards in legacy sucks, but 1 you know legacy bans card sometimes and its still legal in Commander. That isnt the case here so it is a literal loss of money and confidence in the game.
Commander went many many years without significant bans. There were jokes the Rules committee does nothing. Suddenly banning 3 of the most expensive cards at the same time without warning shocked people.
Lord of the rings is arguably the most popular franchise of all time and it fits well in the MTG universe. This does not mean that all UB sets will be successful. If wizards are silly enough to believe that they will, they are going to be in for a big surprise!
They will also find out far too late because they systematically ignore player discontent as long as sales are high. A lot of people will quickly burn out from having to buy products they hate. Especially with 6 sets a year.
I really hope wotc nevef unbans those 3 cards as i feel it would reward ths people that sent death threats to the rc. It doesnt bode well that you can just send threats until the rc steps down and now they get what they wanted.
At least 3 content creators, newly associated with WoTC, have broadcast something this last week addressing the card Tolarian Academy. Interesting. Why do i feel like they might know something we all don't yet...
I haven't seen the posts, were they related to Vintage Cube maybe? I can't imagine that card every being unbanned anywhere, it's hilariously broken and also on the Reserved List, so Wizards can't really profit from it directly.
@MTGGoldfishPodcast they weren't specifically mentioning a format, it was just strange that a few I subscribe to randomly brought it up in Shorts, and presenting the same question of 'should it be unbanned?'. As you said, I don't believe they will unban a RL card either. But I had to bring up something odd I noticed 👍
Richard is wrong about AI creations getting better. I teach at a university and you can always tell when someone has used ChatGPT because the style and the structure is so obvious. However, that is not even the big deal. It is that those ChatGPT creations are very mid. They can barely pass if that. They are not imaginative in any way and can only ever get to a very basic level of understanding regarding the topic. If you can pass a university course with anything higher than the lowest grade with an essay written by ChatGPT, you should move to a better school. That being said, you can use AI in a productive manner. You can find good starting points and possibly new ideas but you have to know what to ask for. That is often the problem.
There's also huge diminishing returns. Anyone who has ever trained an AI knows how easy it is to get it 90% there and how hard and time consuming the last 10% is. Also, if you know what to ask you often could completely replace the AI with a Google search. There's a very small gap of skill where it's meaningfully different. Hell, the only reason a Google search is not almost always better is just how bad google is nowadays.
Crim giga coping because marvel isnt as big as he thinks. Mag8c players want magic, i jave a bunch of friends who just started playing with Lord of the Rings... and then quit when they found out that magic has racecars and marvel.
I think paper standard if it had hope for a second died with that announcement. Who can afford 6 sets a year, 3 of wich are most likly premium priced ... yeah it might be more fun for content creators, but actually playing and paying it naah.. Further the in universe sets having bad flavor or stories is a problem ... Wizards would have to invest more in that to actually again have an ip you can be proud playing and making ... For me its kinda good, as i can skip more and more, keep my decks as they are and go back to getting a new inuniverse card here and there... The set symbol from aetherdrift? Who designed that? Fire that person!
What if they hadn’t banned anything other than Nadu as commander? I’ll tell you……we’d be in the same place we are today! There was no reason to ban anything and they should have poured more support into having a Rule 0 talk!
Richard broke the immersion. It's Monday for me
Yes it is, Seth is a legend for immersion
or Seth talking about how he thinks The One Ring will be banned
I miss the hits and misses end of year podcast. Its funny to look back at wild predictions that never came true of calling a shot super hard. I want them to listen back on their Phlage discussion.
Yeah, we might bring them back next year. Part of the challenge is we stopped doing the top 10 videos for each set because they weren't very popular, so we don't have as many bad non-Seth takes during spoiler season lol
@@MTGGoldfishPodcast I feel like the top 10 videos could come back with plenty of popularity now that other channels aren't doing exactly that as much. Maybe make it a members only series or something if only the diehards want it.
@@MTGGoldfishPodcast Maybe hits and misses could just be a smaller section of a podcast if there aren't as many
Oh shit that's me! I literally started in eldraine with oko. Playing temur elementals with risen reef triggered my love for the game.
Simic Season (2019-2020) was such a buster time for Magic, but it was also so much fun. I miss casting expansion//explosion for 20 off a wilderness reclamation.
Thanks for all the great content
Calm down
Thanks for watching!
If they went Ai art I might actually quit over that. The art is important to me.
Yea I think crim is in a 1/10 person in that regard. There's no shot I play this game if the art sucks
Same here. I might not quit entirely but I would be using proxies and not giving wizards any of my money
@@jaylunwilliams1544 the art already sucked plenty of times, no AI needed for that...
@@Goldy01 That's ... not a argument for AI-art. Magic Art has come a long way. Lets keep that standard.
7:20 Maybe it's just me, but when I buy a card, I don't really think about the financial long-term of it. I just now have another card that I can play at the current time.
Same here. You can never trust your cards not to lose value for various reasons (reprints, powercreep, deck losing it's place in the meta, bubbles, etc.) so, if you are mostly a player and not a speculator, you should always think of card purchases as spent money, not investments.
But but mah investment. Think about the investors who bought multiple copies. How will they recover 😂
@anhvu6824 hopefully they don't.
It’s not just you, I’m the same way. Even if the card is $100 I’m not buying it because it’s expensive, I’m buying it to play with it, and if it goes down to $5 at some point all that means for me is I can buy more if I need.
It's not just you, but there are also people like Richard described. And even though I'm not one of them, I do find it distasteful and cringe-worthy when people dismiss all of their concerns out-of-hand or mock them as "cardboard investors" or whatever. Different people have different expectations and values, and I'm not arrogant enough to claim that what other people value is inherently bad or something.
Spent this year finally diving into MTG and this podcast (and your content and site) have been a constant companion. Thanks folks for all your work!
I disagree that the bannings in Commander controversy was the biggest news of the year. I think it's how release sets will be Universes Beyond half of the year. Half of Magic will be UB from now on, if not even more.
That's a big change for the game as a whole.
Agreed, curious to see how next year ends up playing out.
Idk, one led to doxing, death threats, irl stalking and threats being left at peoples' houses. The other has a few commenters bringing it up on occasion. The UB switch was *not* bigger news.
@@casteanpreswyn7528 it's not the fault of the game that edh has a lot of nutcases that go crazy for value or the format. UB is a core change for the whole game. And if you think only a few commenters bring in up in occasion, you are extremely wrong.
Of course it's not a thing that's going to be discussed in Commander podcasts, It IS still the way bigger change for the game. And the game is not Commander the gathering, it's Magic. Or maybe it's not, since now it's half.
@JugonEx the game has been Commander the Gathering for years now, it is more popular than basically every other format combined.
Also, it isn't a fundamental change to the game rules. It's a change of some art and flavor text.
Yeah, the announcement was big news for sure, although it might be even bigger news next year once we see how the changes actually impact Standard (and the rest of the game).
@21:06 this was the conclusion that I came to (just the UB part, I don't think magic HAS to be high fanasty), LOTR is a huge outlier because it's the foundational reference for 99% of all swords and spells fantasy. It's the influence getting to be "in" the thing they influenced, it wasn't just an interpretative coat of paint.
Also the fact that it’s just high fantasy in general and “fits”. If they were to do say an elder scrolls crossover or Witcher or something else of that nature I think people would be more than fine with it because it’s not breaking any kind of immersion. If you show a magic player who has somehow never heard of LOTR a Aragorn or orcish bowmasters they not gonna know the difference between them and every other magic card/character. You show them Ironman or Spongebob they gonna be real confused. I think having SpongeBob as a alternate art secret lair for a pre-existing card is more than ok, As you can always play the normal version. Making a stand-alone SpongeBob set however that’s where the issues come in, as now that’s all u have.
I always thought the “magic is high fantasy” take to be a little over egged tbh. Obviously huge high fantasy elements but for example the phyrexians are a hive mind robot army from another world. Artificers and machines are more steam punk than high fantasy to me
@@light-chemistrythe way phyrexia was historically done WAS fantasy. Its not classic fantasy but its definitely not steampunk. Kaladesh is about as close to that as we've gotten and they still avoided it. Magic has objectively always been a fantasy genre game though it runs the gambit between many types of fantasy (since they steal most of their material)
@@thatepicwizardguy giant flying spaceships and literal nukes have been around in mtg for decades and aren't something I'd consider to be fantasy. Lol
I love how WotC put a $2M lottery card into LoTR and was like
😮whoa you guys must really like UB
7:20 tbh I don't expect to get a single dollar back from my expensive cards, what I expect is to be able to play them. That said I think these bans were fine.
Also, I disagree so hard with Richard about generative AI. It's not just automation, it's a way to avoid paying artists *while* using their work (throwing it in a blender, basically). Remove the real artists from the equation and all you have are "AIs" copying each other until everything's the same slop (which is actually happening a bit and it'll only get worse).
Ignoring the ethics in this discussion is exactly what the multibillion-dollar companies behind these technologies want.
No offense, but if you think training AI using content from AI will offer bad results you don't really understand what training and fine-tuning really means.
I've been in CompSci since 2021 this upcoming year is my last and a lot of programming has come down to using AI tools like Claude to write code.
For programmers who learnt coding by memorizing each line it's over. Those pretenders don't understand shit about computers and pretend they know computer language through memorizing lines of code.
Same with artists. All the shams are out of work thanks to AI, but the good ones will use AI as a tool to make even better work than was possible beforehand.
@@zweis Might be the most cringe comment I've ever seen ngl
@@zweis'Same with artists. All the shams are out of work thanks to AI' is a very jaded thing to say.
Artists don't create to make money, we create because we love it. It's never work. If money comes along then wow.
I feel you are very qualified to talk about AI's effectiveness within your world of programming.
@@zweis Coding is objective, but art is meant to be subjective. There is no “best artist” out there making better art thanks to AI, the vast majority of AI art regurgitates whatever data set it’s fed.
Speaking as someone who has sold an entire collection when I was a newlywed with a baby. The bannings were not a big deal (I had each banned card in at least one deck). I do in the back of my mind keep an idea of what my collection is worth, but I also know that even when cards are banned they never go straight to 0. Also even if one or two cards drop, it’s not like the other thousand will. Ban cards, unban cards. The money part should never be at the top of a decision. Make decks to have fun and if they’re worth money sweet.
I hope nothing that was banned in commander this year will be unbanned in the next decade.
I hope it does n fixes cedh
I've totally been there, having to sell cards to make ends meet when things in my life changed, so I 100% empathize with people on that. With some distance, however, I kind of hate the idea that expensive = can't ban. It's another incentive for WotC to print busted cards meant to be reprint fodder, knowing they're safely in the format.
Murders had the Surveil Lands, some of the best lands ever printed.
No one remembers onslaught because it had fetch lands. The lands are so good they rise above being tied to a set.
Thanks for another year of amazing podcasts and videos!
PS: loving the deck walkthroughs on Patreon, can’t wait to see more of your decks!
They do deck walkthroughs on patreon? cool, might have to look into that!
I disagree about the AI Art part. As someone who follows the whole thing very closely I do not belive that AI art will be an inevitable part of this industry. AI Art is already beginning to cannibalize itself and as soon as enough artists are driven out or as soon as proper protection for human art against AI scraping gets established (The EU iks already on its way to establish legislation to protect artists and regulate AI companies, and also tools to "hide" your art from AI scraping algorythms are already working and in use) AI models have nothing to feed on and will dissolve into even more slop than now.
Also lately concerns about the ethics of Open AI's practices and the energy efficiency of AI as a whole, make it more and more clear imo, that AI is a marketing stunt, sold to companies as THE innovative tool of the future, that will not lead to more efficiency, ultimately. Its a bubble and it will burst, sooner or later.
I like how they said.. Artist should "find a new field".. Unsubbed from this channel. AI should replace their jobs.
@@rmcdaniel2424 This is actually the worst possible faith reading of what was said. He was relating it to how other people have lost their jobs with other forms of automation in the past. It's just the reality. You can think its a bad comparison, but you just completely twisted their words.
Regarding Universes beyond, players care about power level above all else. That's why Storm is super expensive and Black Panther isn't. It's why there's such a big price disparity between the Dr Who sets. There's definitely some waifu/cutesy tax too but above all, if a set is powerful it will sell - don't forget that one of the LotR sets is considered a pseudo modern horizons set by many.
Which is why people are talking out both sides of their mouths about powercreep. If a set is even mid power like MKM it gets dragged as trash.
Let's be honest; noone actually likes Black Panther, he was included for inclusion. It would be worth as much as the rest if it was Groot.
@@brendans1983 touch grass bro
So glad I found yall this year. As a new player I genuinely feel like I’ve gotten better at magic because of yall
To be honest, The One Ring being so powerful that it has to be banned because everyone was so greedy to play with it is a big flavor win.
Thanks for another year of great MTG content goldfish crew!
Magic really sold out their fantasy roots to become the tcg version of Fortnite this year huh
They already did a fortnite secret lair.
Well I mean... ultimately by what theyve said themselves you can tell they don't really believe in their own IP and the designers and execs in charge are fully to blame for that particularly since UB started.
If they actually put the same effort and creative energy into magics IP as they have with all these special beyond products people would go crazy about magic but we got bolas story which is lazy avengers. Phyrexian story massively dropped the ball. Eldrazi are such lazy uninteresting cthulu monsters I cant even lol
Bad writers and bad creative direction plus bad executive decisions have failed Magic. Wheres our weatherlight saga animated show? Planeswalkers being invented onward the universe got worse because the creative team got lazier. (Not all of it but overall)
It's tragic
Hush, before the bootlickers descend upon you to defend it 😅
And next year
Gotta vote with our wallet for the next two years to get them to ramp down the UB cards/sets
Hah! Crim said Princess Diaries... n00b!!!
✌️😎👍
Unrelated to the pod but I just got in my Remote Farm, Surveyors scope, Faerie Artisans, Machine Gods Effigy, Notion Thief, Dowsing Device and scholar of New Horizons from Card Kingdom. Thanks guys lol😂
25:07 you have spoken it into existence. what has been spoken cannot be undone.
If high fantasy is what people want, delaying Lorwyn was a bad choice
That, as crim put it, "blank white squares" argument is such garbage. Think about what got you into mtg. Id be willing to bet it was something with the flavor. The flavor matters as part of the experience. Expensive dinners arent served on paper plates with plasticware for a reason
And if the 'blank white squares' argument were true, why is Crim so keen on getting UB art on cards.
I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t like MKM so hard to feel let down by the stupid concept. I really wanted to give Thunder Junction a chance but the whole “every mtg Bad Guy is here!” gimmick just soured the whole experience for me. Bloomburrow was heavenly and Duskmourn was much better than I expected but still annoyed me at times with the more ghostbusters/Maniac Mansion stuff but still tolerable. Foundations was neat.
Overall, tough year but at least it was a 2.5/5 experience rather it just being “Bloomburrow is goated and the rest of the year could burn” for me.
Highlight of 2024 for me was the release of Foundations.
I came to MTG in 2019 and really loved it. The idea of Murders, Thunder Junction etc really put me off and I faded away.
But foundations really got me excited. And the beginner box FINALLY got my wife and oldest son playing after I’d failed for the past few years.
So we got a precon each for three player commander nights.
Feels good to be back in MTG land
W.r.t. the Marvel secret lair, I think WotC was being genuine when they said they printed an extra large batch to try to counter the increased demand. They just didn't take into account how stupid the scalpers would be. Or rather, the scalpers underestimated how large WotC made the print run.
It sold out in a few hours..
I’d be so hyped if the 6 standard sets and secret lairs are the only product releases
I don't understand why Wizards thought that printing parasitic decks so powerful that block constructed decks are top tier is a good idea. AT LEAST MH1 added a few sweet buildarounds like Soulherder. MH2 and 3 basically looked at every staple and made a strictly better version.
This is why for years WotC actually said they didn't want to produce a direct to Modern set. We the players nagged them for years since the literal start of the format.
It is impossible to produce a set designed for play in Modern that wouldn't invalidate swaths of the prior Modern card pool.
@TheEvolver311 Except I kinda think that MH1 nailed it. A direct to modern set is bound to have a few problematic cards, sure, but MH1 had a lot of healthy cards.
Wren and six??? Just cause its not good in modern anymore doesnt mean thats a well designed card @@PalPlays
@@danewirostek1903 Did you not understand what I wrote? "A direct to modern set is bound to have a few problematic cards."
Seasoned Pyromancer, Ice-Fang Coatl, Soulherder, Flusterstorm, Giver of Runes, Goblin Matron, Hexdrinker, Ranger-Captain of Eos, Wall of Blossoms, and Yawgmoth all added something to the format that in hindsight was very healthy. They didn't outright replace cards (with the exception of Wall of Blossoms) and either gave decks new tools or nudged tier 3 decks into tier 2.
I agree about W&6 being a mistake but that does nothing to undermine my point.
@43:30 😊I literally started in eldraine 😭 my first pack ever I opened questing beast
It's actually BIGGER than 18 sets for standard, it's actually 19 if you include foundations. Standard will have a bigger card pool than extended ever did. We went from type 1 to type 1.25 with the extension to 3 years, and now we're basically going into type 1.75. Standard is the new eternal format, and it's actually modern that rotates every 2 years with a modern horizons set.
18 sets *is* a lot. I totally agree. And a pre-release every *two* months? Sheesh 33:24
I’m so not excited and uninterested in UB sets in standard and becoming the norm for sets in MtG. I agree some of their in universe sets lately have been misses, but it doesn’t mean I want to see Spider-man and all these other properties showing up in Magic. I play Magic for the high fantasy vibes, not as a playground for all my different fandoms. If I want to see Darth Vader vs Captain America I’ll discuss it on forums like a normal nerd lol, I’m not trying to water down Magic to include all these IPs that were never designed for it in the first place.
Yeah. Just cause you're tired of being punched in the gut doesn't mean you want to be punched in the balls. The solution is clearly that they should make better in universe sets and stop treating the story as an excuse to force crossovers for commander.
Happy New Year to you all.
It's funny to hear them talk about Modern like this considering what the je b&r update did.
I think collections shouldn't be thousands of dollars in the first place, these are game pieces that should be readily available.
Well they're readily available but not game pieces anymore lol
Please all I ask is for a supernatural mtg set. It’s literally perfect. Sam and Dean Partners
Crim with the babe in the woods idea that UB sets aren't going to be pushed to the nines to feature face characters and sell packs. Standard is getting One Ring'd or Bowmaster'd in 2025, book it.
No one sells their collection? Ho ho ho... Have you ever met a MtG player? I can't be the only one that has sold out, and bought back in .... a few times. -_-
The problem with recent set isnt the settings but that they dont feel whole. They dont take themself seriously. In the past their where sets like Kaldesh that where really far from high fantasie but it felt like you visited a new world. It wasnt a gimmik
"Return to Lord of the Rings is really what I want." -Richard. Yep, people just can't get enough. Lotr was a huge cultural phenomenon not just in the space of fantasy. The Peter Jackson movies further solidified that for the generation that is the biggest demographic of mtg. Here's the secret.. it's because it's really good! The characters, the world, and the story are well done and importantly, consistent. No offense to the likes of Marvel or Final Fantasy, but they're not on the same level of popularity, or consistency. For some people it won't be their Marvel, or their Final Fantasy, but it was everyone's Lord of the Rings. Then there's the fact that it's classic high fantasy, and fit right in to the genre that people came to magic for. I'm probably still missing a few things, but there was SO MUCH going for it. I really don't think the higher ups in hasbro understand that, and I do think it's a red herring.
42:04 Little did past Richard know Wizards was thinking of the boomer players at the next B&R
Marvel secret lairs not being insane price is probably due to them having a large print run. I imagine demand is high, but supply is much higher than things like the Miku secret lair.
“A single banlist update in a fanmade format is bigger news than universes beyond in standard for the rest of Magic’s lifespan”
Lol
Lmao
The Richard and Seth theory that "what if Lord of the Rings was just an outlier and there isnt actual demand for Universes Beyond" doesn't make sense.
The best selling Commander deck series of all time are the Fallout decks, despite the fact that they didnt introduce any new OP broken chase staples.
Before that, the best selling Commander decks of all time were the Warhammer 40k sets.
We've seen multiple examples of Universes Beyond product releases being wildly successful and popular. Its not a coincidence.
I dont know why its hard to acknowledge or understand that Universes Beyond is popular and appeals to lots of players (including many enfranchised veteran players).
Yes but both had strong decks mothman is strongest precon to date and the calgair was the best before it came out I’m not a fan of fallout at all but I bought the mothman to play against other precons
@@DavidLandreth-l6f
Every time there are 4 decks released, there is a strong deck. but that doesn't mean that the sales break records.
I definitely don't think the Mothman is the strongest pre-con to date by the way. Just in recent memory I can think of stronger ones. The Pantlaza, Sun-Favored deck was particularly powerful.
I can assure you that there are lots of people that are buying the Fallout decks because of the lore/flavor/art as their primary reason. The same can be said about the Warhammer 40k decks. It's not a coincidence that the best selling Commander decks happen to be the few Universes Beyond ones they've done.
I don't think anyone's saying that no UB sets are popular, but I think it's still an open question whether just being a random UB set is better than being a random in-universe set. Lord of the Rings killed it for sure, and as you mentioned some of the precons have done well (although more on this in a minute), but we've also had sets like Assassin's Creed, Clue and Doctor Who which I'm not sure were especially popular (at least Wizards hasn't been shouting about how they are the best selling of all time, so I imagine they aren't on the same level as Lord of the Rings or Warhammer).
I think even the Commander precons are difficult to parse. Were Fallout and Warhammer popular because of the IP, or were the popular because they are so much better than the normal Magic-themed decks (by this I mean the UB decks get 100% new art and often have a bunch more new cards while the in-universe decks have only a few pieces of new art and typically only a handful of new cards). It feels like Wizards spend a lot more time (and money) making UB Commander precons than they do making the in-universe ones that come out with every set, which are pretty hit or miss these days.
I think next year will be very telling. If we see Standard booming because of Final Fantasy and Spiderman I think that will be pretty clear evidence that the IP is doing the heavy lifting.
Bring out the SpongeBob SuperBowl card! I want Patrick on the drums.
I keep saying this..... IF there has to be universes beyond, I won't be happy until I have a inspector gadget artifacts commander deck.
21:30 was Richard implying FF isn’t high fantasy, because there are definitely some games that match the level of high fantasy that original magic sets had technology and all
I started when Eldraine was the newest set...and I played standard with Uro and the original companions. Hardened by fire, I suppose.
Second comment woo
Merry Christmas brothers thanks for another year of podcasts
For the record: Sol Ring is still wrecking more games than Mana Crypt ever did.
There are a lot of artists, Magic or otherwise, that are exclusively digital artists. Limiting it to physical art only would leave a lot of digital artists without work
Personally, I like that wizards tries a bunch of stuff with their setting.
To me, Magic is the system, the rules, the framework, I don't see why they can't just build a bunch of stuff on top of it.
On one hand, I feel bad for people that have their immersion broken, on the other hand, it's cool that a dad can introduce Magic to their kids with Sponge Bob cards.
MtG as a whole actually meant something to a lot people. Whether it was the art, strategy or flavor, it's in the details where people fall in love with your product. It only started to become a mere game system when it began losing its core identity to other IPs. In its attempt to have something for everybody, it lost the trust of the dedicated few that kept it alive after all these years.
Fairly bold to say the artists should find a different field. Maybe Ai should replace content creators and you guys should find a different job
I agree. It is a shame they don't see the whole picture which is a few rich men making the biggest transfer of power and wealth with tools like AI. Anything to make us worth less and contend with then more. Til we are slaves again.
Print any deck at FedEx for $7-10 on 100 lb matte card stock…they play the same.
I have always thought the best way to guage a commander deck is a base value for a commanders strength and cards having values thay multiply that dependant to their strength. Buy the end of your 100 card deck a very weak deck could be around 150 while a very optimized deck could be a 700 and all players could really tell if they are even in a realm together of a fair match
The themes don't matter at all really.. Nobody cared about Loot getting adopted by a snake lady or whatever that plot was, they enjoyed the *living hell* out of Duskmourne though, and not because of 80's horror, but because it was a great set from playing it to drafting it.
Tell me that you don't know anything about game design without telling me that you don't know anything about game design.
Duskmourn had some issues, but overall it was one of the best mergers of theme and mechanics we've seen in years.
When Final Fantasy comes out Sephiroth from FF7 needs to be either 5 Color or Grixis (probably a version of both). To me both make sense to my understanding of the character.
For Final Fantasy 13 characters I can see them bringing the Meld mechanic back given the nature of how Summons worked in that game.
I will only buy Aetherdrift, Tarkir, and Edge of Eternities. Boom only 3 sets to worry about :D
You can’t fix modern BUT they could make a new format that is Masques block onward that is only standard sets and never print anything direct to it
It's called Pioneer
@ no lol
The current direction of Magic is very very different from its origins. However, people like the direction and it shows in their sales. I just wish that we would get a high fantasy set once a year. Something for the boomer Magic player. Then it would be easier to accept UB and genre sets.
I don't think anyone should ever be taking secondary market value into account when cards are getting banned. There's no good way to go about it that would avoid people getting mad. Like seriously, what do you do? Warn people ahead of time? That just causes players to pass the bag and then different players get mad instead. Reprint it into the dirt so it becomes worthless and then ban it? Now the value tanked and also more people are being affected. Never ban anything? Then you're actually bleeding the playerbase. The real answer is that people need to shed this idea that Magic is an asset and not a liability.
Don't buy more than what you can afford to lose. This mantra applies to all financial instruments, especially hobby-related.
would love to see a section ab the modern bnr, i know pre recorded but feels like a miss
I watch the podcast as I think these guys are great and entertaining, but I haven’t played a game of magic since the six set standard, with universes beyond nonsense thrown in, was announced.
I sold all my cards and it’s so refreshing not having to chase every important card from every set as I just can’t keep up financially any more
I think with Marvel Secret Lair, people are waiting to see what will be reprinted for UB. Lots of us expecting these same cards to come back out not in secret lair. I also agree with Crim, it’s all too recent and unlike Evil Dead we know more Marvel is coming.
One time Seth should say, “I’m Saffron Olive probably better known as Seth” 😂🤣
A thing about the secret lairs that ive been thinking about because i experienced it. Would i buy a secret lair i stood in line for 3 hours for but when i got to check out it was sold put for 2x the price i could see in my cart? My answer? No lol i felt so robbed when the site told me i was in line for a prouct just had to wait and find out people were just skipping the line to scalp the product and there's probably a lot of people that found out and didnt want the secret lairs so bad they HAD to pay scalper price becuase if you stood in the line you were not guaranteed a purchase just the cart page.
The 18th set of every standard is going to just be another Modern Horizons set
More Expensive Pack 3 had me crying
My prediction is Universes Beyond Masters. 500 dollar 24 booster pack boxes. 1000 dollar 4 pack collector boosters.
wait, this was recorded before the b&r episode?
Yeah, since this one wasn't time sensitive we recorded it before everyone left for the holidays.
"X thing is the best selling thing of all time" - person who has a vested interest in deflecting criticism.
Totally a trustworthy phrase not trotted out by someone to avoid questions.
The secret lair thing was more like a yard sale, that advertised a bunch of rare items you had been looking for. The front door had a line to the street, but in a very tiny 8.5x11 paper written in pencil, that was not placed in a very good area said "backdoor also available for entrance". And only a few people saw it or thought to check for it, because normally you don't do that.
It wasn't a vulnerability. Wizards of the coast cheeped out and didn't pay for the higher end service to prevent it. Do not give them credit for not being capitalist greed whores Seth.
let's all cry about the One Ring again! oh yeah feels good.
I’d like 4 standard sets, 1 supplemental experiment set like horizons or commander legends etc and 1 remastered or masters set that’s just reprints for all the legacy and commander staples from the 20+ commander decks printed each year.
"I hate Lord of the rings"
Do you realize what is responsible for modern fantasy?
Uhhh CRIIIIIIIIIM
I also hate Lord of the Rings (this is Seth, btw), but I can respect it's contributions to the genre. There are a lot of bands like that for me too, where I don't really enjoy listening to their music, but can respect their importance.
@MTGGoldfishPodcast the word hate though omg u guys lol
Not really surprised Richard is pro AI art
I think Final Fantasy will hold up as it's also a heavily fantasy setting. Yeah there's sci-fi and tech elements but less so than I expect we'll see in Aetherdrift or the space opera set. So I expect, after Tarkir, FF will be the most 'Magic' of the sets released.
Modern today is: your tolerance to degeneracy is higher than the average standard player. Plus you normally produce less salt while playing, you eat combos for breakfast.
But regarding rotation, no big difference.
Man, I really hope they unban twin
The ban list did make me quit cold turkey. I started focusing on lorcana which I truly believe is a better game.
Losing roughly 2 grand in cards overnight from an unpredictable unaffiliated 3rd party rules committee.
4:10 I'm one of the people selling out.
Mostly, the people happy about the Commander bannings are people that don’t play those cards anyways. The people that own them (or multiple copies) are not happy. Crypt is relatively high, the other 3 have crashed.
There is a definite difference between automation of checkout lines and the automation of human creativity. Ultimately, I agree AI is going to help bottom lines and thus become even more the norm. However, there could be a silvering lining in that all creative endeavors will end of being for our own personal gratification, the process of creating art, music, or writing being the purpose and the value. Human art and writing for money might then become a niche market, or you can buy the human art Secret Lair... At some point the line should be drawn, though, right? Will AI inevitably optimize our turns, supplanting us as fallible players?
In regards to the price of marvel cards, I called that there wasn't going to be much *new* demand for Marvel based cards. Can't wait for the UB sets to crash and burn!!!
I believe the reason Lord of the Rings sold so well is because of the chase for the 1/1 The One Ring.
Never see anyone bring this up but it's likely a huge part of the reason. Anyone who's ever seen (or read) Charlie/Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory would know that's exactly what the LotR set was. It was literally the golden ticket. The news about the 1/1 ring went mainstream. You had celebrities offering life changing bounties on it and so tons of people who don't give a crap about Magic or know anything about it were buying up product just to try to hit that golden lottery ticket.
all of these new sets that are just "Magic with a hat" I believe are extremely boring and lazy conceptually. It just feels like Wizards has no idea what to do with the magic IP so they just either use other peoples IPs or make the most generic copy of a different IP. Like does magic really need a Pikachu, or is this just wizards making a knock off Pokémon because they have no idea what to do with magic's universe and story?
I think MKM could have worked if it had been inside a block. There was just very little setup for everyone suddenly investigating crimes and being a detective.
The idea was great and it fits the political intrigue themes of Ravnica, but it just felt too rushed. Even then, the story was amazing.
I think the lack of time to set up planes is what's making them so gimmicky. They clearly have some great ideas (except for Thunder Junction) they just can't get developed enough.
Can someone who was mad about the EDH bannings explain to me why you thought it was bad(I wasn’t following mtg when it all went down). It just looks like the RC doing their job and banning some on the most broken cards on the format.
The biggest issue is you go from a format where you buy cards that are 60/70/100s of dollars. That into itself isn't a problem is as we spend money on whatever. The difference is the astronomical type of banning had not been seen in Commander ever. In modern and other formats it happens but people know that going into it. Commander has never been that way. Also when you have cards that are specifically only legal in Commander, i.e. jeweled lotus, mana crypt. There isnt even an argument you can just play them elsewhere, which is the argument of banning cards in other formats as well. Like them banning initiative cards in legacy sucks, but 1 you know legacy bans card sometimes and its still legal in Commander. That isnt the case here so it is a literal loss of money and confidence in the game.
Commander went many many years without significant bans. There were jokes the Rules committee does nothing. Suddenly banning 3 of the most expensive cards at the same time without warning shocked people.
Lord of the rings is arguably the most popular franchise of all time and it fits well in the MTG universe. This does not mean that all UB sets will be successful. If wizards are silly enough to believe that they will, they are going to be in for a big surprise!
They will also find out far too late because they systematically ignore player discontent as long as sales are high. A lot of people will quickly burn out from having to buy products they hate. Especially with 6 sets a year.
I really hope wotc nevef unbans those 3 cards as i feel it would reward ths people that sent death threats to the rc. It doesnt bode well that you can just send threats until the rc steps down and now they get what they wanted.
Crim has a lot of terrible takes, but "Magic could be white squares" has to be the worst of them.
At least 3 content creators, newly associated with WoTC, have broadcast something this last week addressing the card Tolarian Academy.
Interesting. Why do i feel like they might know something we all don't yet...
I haven't seen the posts, were they related to Vintage Cube maybe? I can't imagine that card every being unbanned anywhere, it's hilariously broken and also on the Reserved List, so Wizards can't really profit from it directly.
@MTGGoldfishPodcast they weren't specifically mentioning a format, it was just strange that a few I subscribe to randomly brought it up in Shorts, and presenting the same question of 'should it be unbanned?'.
As you said, I don't believe they will unban a RL card either.
But I had to bring up something odd I noticed 👍
Richard is wrong about AI creations getting better. I teach at a university and you can always tell when someone has used ChatGPT because the style and the structure is so obvious. However, that is not even the big deal. It is that those ChatGPT creations are very mid. They can barely pass if that. They are not imaginative in any way and can only ever get to a very basic level of understanding regarding the topic. If you can pass a university course with anything higher than the lowest grade with an essay written by ChatGPT, you should move to a better school. That being said, you can use AI in a productive manner. You can find good starting points and possibly new ideas but you have to know what to ask for. That is often the problem.
There's also huge diminishing returns. Anyone who has ever trained an AI knows how easy it is to get it 90% there and how hard and time consuming the last 10% is.
Also, if you know what to ask you often could completely replace the AI with a Google search. There's a very small gap of skill where it's meaningfully different.
Hell, the only reason a Google search is not almost always better is just how bad google is nowadays.
Crim giga coping because marvel isnt as big as he thinks. Mag8c players want magic, i jave a bunch of friends who just started playing with Lord of the Rings... and then quit when they found out that magic has racecars and marvel.
I think paper standard if it had hope for a second died with that announcement. Who can afford 6 sets a year, 3 of wich are most likly premium priced ... yeah it might be more fun for content creators, but actually playing and paying it naah..
Further the in universe sets having bad flavor or stories is a problem ... Wizards would have to invest more in that to actually again have an ip you can be proud playing and making ...
For me its kinda good, as i can skip more and more, keep my decks as they are and go back to getting a new inuniverse card here and there...
The set symbol from aetherdrift? Who designed that? Fire that person!
Same, when i saw foundations, for the first time in about a decade i was about to come back to standard. Then they announced spiderman....
Same, when i saw foundations, for the first time in about a decade i was about to come back to standard. Then they announced spiderman....
Same, when i saw foundations, for the first time in about a decade i was about to come back to standard. Then they announced spiderman....
Crim. that hat. my heart. 😭
What if they hadn’t banned anything other than Nadu as commander? I’ll tell you……we’d be in the same place we are today! There was no reason to ban anything and they should have poured more support into having a Rule 0 talk!
I guess since Modern is dead, if i ever play constructed again, Pioneer is the closest format i could possibly enjoy