Extra frustrating because they *knew* about it in advance. Those UB sets didn’t just spontaneously manifest, they took months and months of planning and development
Great video. And you aren't too negative, people just struggle to accept the truth of our collective situation. It's does feel like I'm being forced to engage with IPs I don't like. Wtf is a Spider-man commander product going to look like? Why am I so turned off by that idea? 😵
The "if you don't like it, don't engage with it" was a fine (if not a bit flimsy) argument for a social format like commander. Because most people aren't fully optimizing their decks, you could easily exclude cards, mechanics, sets, or IPs that didn't appeal to you. You could even rule 0 out UB cards with your regular group so you wouldn't even have to engage with them from across the table. But imagine going to a standard event and asking someone to not play the Spiderman set because it clashes tonally with the rest of the game (or kneecapping yourself in a competitive environment by refusing to engage with a product).
Why would you play any non commander or cube format to begin with though. You'd have to be someone who never played magic until yesterday to do something that stupid... Or be a masochist, o guess.
I'm holding my breath because dragonstorm *could* be shit, quite simply. MKM was also a return to a beloved established plane and I didn't buy into its garbage. The only difference is that dragonstorm has a chance not to be shit from a lore perspective, unlike every other standard set of 2025. Sigh.
I really like final fantasy. I think they are some of the best video games I've ever played. But i never thought, "its a shame I dont have Zidane and Freya in my magical duel game."
I've said it since 2020. UB is like watching a friend do drugs. A lot of their new friends say it's cool and that we're being prudes about it. And then that friend dies and the new "friends" scatter. UB will unequivocally kill mtg and I hate UB so much.
Finally someone else similar 2 my understanding I used 2 go 2 as many pre releases and buy as much as I could 2 help my lgs but since few yrs ago haven't went 2 a single event I stop in from time 2 time 2 try n find some old singles or cards when I started playing round theros n sleeves but until they change 2 regular magic ip again I'm not thinking bout wasting my money nomore.
No. A card game you play for fun releasing products you don't like is not at all like watching a human being you love become addicted to a toxic substance with deletrious effects on their mental, social and physical health. These two things are so dissimilar it is frankly offensive to compare them. Magic is not that important.
@@relicdad88 Nah, I don't see Magic going bust because of this. It will alienate some of the enfranchised players (including me, most likely). But at the same time the new IPs will draw in new players, and before you know it, this is the new normal and tradition and lore will have gone the way of manaburn.
@@VolkbrechtIt'll bring in new players, yeah, but will they stay? This all feels like a great way for Magic to make a bunch of money for two or three years and then crash hard.
Just throw the pre-existing characters in a cowboy hat! In a trenchcoat! In a motorcycle helmet! In a spacesuit! Put them in a tricorn so they can be pirates! Give them a sword and make them knights! Make them wear loincloths and make the caveman set! Put them in the mecha! Give them cameras so they can go take pictures on a safari! Put them in little snorkels and diving suits for the underwater set! Since we'll be down to only 2 non-remaster non-Horizons non-UB sets per year soon, that list should cover about 3 years of MtG. I'll take my consulting fee now, Hasbro!
Its like they were trying to do pre-UB sets to prep the players for the transition to half of MtG being UB sets (and probably ALL of MtG being UB sets in 2-3 years honestly).
I look forward to to playing my Spider-Man wearing a space-suit with a cowboy hat riding a motorcycle on top of a dinosaur wearing a snorkle for 1 colorless mana because Marvel said "do it".
I'm 100% there was a meeting where some of the higher ups at Wizards said "So, today's topic: What can we learn from Hearthstone, and how can we use that to pump out more content for moar moneyz?!? Serious question, I don't play video games, I'm just here for moneeeeyyyyyzzz!"
@@Knokkelman aNah, hearthstone definitely has its problems, don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna say it's perfect, but MTG isn't copying them. I think maybe hearthstone decided to copy UB, but they're doing it a tad better. Hearthstone is wow's game essentially, and now they decided to do a space set. However, they made their space set all about draenei, which is an actual race from wow, they actually crashed into Outland in a spaceship, and that broken-down spaceship is their capital. Hearthstone is about to have a Starcraft mini-set, but I would argue that transitioning into a space thing like Starcraft with something like draenei is a better move than just slapping Marvel and Spongebob in our faces. Tbh I wish MTG would copy hearthstone's monetization model, they go absolutely hard on cosmetics, charging insane prices for them, but in all of the ten years of hearthstone, the actual card game hasn't had a single price increase, packs are still the same, expansion pre-orders have never been increased in price, mini-sets are still the same. Battlegrounds is a different story, but the actual card game itself is still priced the same.
When The Walking Dead Secret Lair was announced I looked st my roomate and said "In a few years we will be playing MTG with Transformers, Gandalf the Grey, My Little Poney, and SpongeBob" We both laughed.... now we wish I was wrong.
It's so sad just how easily Magic seems to willingly sell itself out. It was the main inspiration for trading card games as a whole, consequently being among the most original and unique, both in flavor and mechanics. However, it has now relegated itself to being mechanics only, retaining its original core flavor only out of necessity and/or convenience rather than creative expression or loyalty. The fact that we aren't just getting a one-off standard Marvel set, but rather a SERIES of standard marvel sets to come, it's like they've given up on their own overarching narratives to give an even bigger franchise the platform. The fact that it's all going to be legal for all main official formats too is like forcing already established MTG players to share a room with those from an otherwise not necessarily related fandom. Nobody is forcing you to stay in that room ofc, but if you leave, you won't be able to find another officially supported space of its kind.
Heads up, you were right. In a way. The “trophy” is in itself a planeswalker spark that can allow the wielder to planeswalk as if they had their own spark. So Nissa isn’t getting her original spark back, but is getting a retconned plot device that defeats the purpose of her losing her spark.
Man.. it's cool we're gonna see people going to other plans again like THE OMENPATHS DON'T EXIST NOW. what the fuck even is this plot point, unless it's gonna turn out Bolas comes back, gets this thing, closes the omenspaths because cool dragon god guy, and wreaks havoc again like they don't have a slightly more interesting villian in Emrakul that's been dormant for... 10ish years in Innistrad's moon.
@@yurisei6732 I think it's less that we know definitively, and more that WotC tends to be extremely predictable when writing, especially about certain characters. Chandra is also being pushed heavily for the past few years as a sort of alternative mascot character to Jace.
I say this as someone who has disliked Universes Beyond since the start: I think it really was doomsaying at the beginning to warn that it would get this bad. Walking Dead was what, 5 cards? Now, when the LoTR set came out and sold so well Hasbro got dollar signs in their eyes, well that’s a different story
We warned them and now the game is garnering less interaction and purchases. The pump'n'dump is going to end soon, the company cant handle more than a couple more years of this at most.
8:52 I’ve seen Rosewater genuinely try to claim it’s “not half” because INR is “in multiverse” on his Tumblr and it’s a very weak argument. I wish he’d just admit it.
If innistrad remastered counts, so does secret lair spongebob series, so we're back up to half. Checkmate, maro. Guarantee there are UB commander precons too.
@@nickhughes8179 He's gone corporate and he's in it for the pay cheque, he knows what's wrong with current MTG but he doesn't care, he'll put his kids through college and continue with HR approved corporate double speak. Corporate greed is the problem, everything else is peripheral, the DEI nonsense doesn't help but it's not the main reason, it's greed.
The 30 to 36 to 30 pack saga drives me nuts as a store owner. Not just that it keeps changing, but it has shown me that magic players have no idea how cost, retail, or even basic math works. Set boosters were around $5/pack (which is crap profit margins by the way they cost 3.25 each) and 30-pack displays. That comes out to $150, but boxes were regularly $120 or under online, conditioning players to expect stores to make a mere $0.75 or less per pack. Then Play boosters came out at the same price per pack, but 36 to a box and players across the board were upset that boxes weren't still $120. It was by far our #1 complaint that prices rose. They didn't, quantity rose. Magic players seemed to assume that 5x30 and 5x36 equaled the same total. Now they are dropping it back to 30, and everyone assumes that they will still be priced at 36x5. No. They will go back down to set boxes pricing. I've already ordered aetherdrift. I know the cost per box. It IS 30 packs at $5 MSRP. They are not shrinkflating you 6 packs. As for why 30? It's for prerelease. Stores are sold prerelease kits incases of 15 and they get a free booster box for prize support per prerelease case. Prize support is supposed to be 2 packs per kit, so 15x2=30. Personally I'd rather it be 24 so that boxes could appear even cheaper. Even better drop all this play/set/whatever booster nonsense that ruins limited and just go back to normal draft boosters at practical pricing.
Let's not kid ourselves, WotC already showed what they're planning to do with the Innistrad Remastered pricing. The UB sets will be declared "premium" and thus more expensive, making the boxes cost the same as they do now while giving us less packs. Then they're gonna "unify the price structure to prevent customer confusion" and make the premium price the new base price, just like they did with the introduction of Playboosters.
Personally the thing I mourn the most is the loss of blocks. I really like the flavour of Bloomburrow, I would have loved to have a full block on that plane, instead it's a one and done deal.
@@rickmel-q7m Actually, yes! Committing to three sets for a single plane would have meant that WotC would have needed to put a bit more effort into it than just throwaway memes
3:16 I think it's perfectly fine for reskinned cards to be made, as long as they do not take the special mechanics from said set. Modern Horizons 3 did way more "pillaging" in regard of that aspect.
I hate that magic is watering down its original IP by including stuff like Final Fantasy and I hate the fact that I will definitely draft the Final Fantasy set as much as I can
Final Fantasy also has it's own TCG if the idea of playing cards with Final Fantasy characters on it is appealing separate from it being Magic specifically.
My wife knows about magic the gathering for 20+ years and has watched her friends play in high school. She hasn't shown interest in joining the game until Final Fantasy was announced. She didn't even buy the Final Fantasy TCG because she doesn't know anyone that plays it; but she is happy she'll have at least 3 people to play Final Fantasy x Magic TCG.
@@Surfer669 And in a just world, your wife could have continued to not play MTG, and MTG players with no interest in Final Fantasy could have continued to not play FF The Gathering.
I know that the mascot of the channel is a "Red Bobcat" (hence the name) but honestly I always saw it as a very angry and tired devil and I think it suits better when talking about MTG's future.
Every universes beyond is an entire set that many players just won’t buy any product for. Entire swaths of players that don’t attend prerelease events. I am a limited fiend and will skip out events if limited looks unappealing. It will be “interesting” to see how well these sets are received.
or, the UB sets will get all the playtesting and development, making them the better limited experience, but push away MAGIC fans, while failing to attract RANDOM IP fans.
@@wickederebus which would be a weird and terrible shame. even if they made Rise of the Eldrazi level of limited set design, that won’t be enough to make me buy Spider-Man cards.
It's funny, My friends went from wondering why I play magic, To buying and playing magic themselves, To wandering why I've begun playing pokemon instead of magic, To understanding why I'm no longer playing magic and only playing pokemon. We'll see how I feel about the Spidey set, depending on how they handle it because I'm a BIG Spidey fan and one who's easy to P.O.
I legit only want Innistrad and Lorwyn... Not that I hate the UB ips or art, I just don't think they belong in the mtg universe in general and at the very most should only be commander legal.
One way or another, I think 2025 is going to be one of the most make-or-break years ever for both MtG fans and MtG as a franchise. My guess is within a year to a year in a half, the Universes Beyond overload will be solidified forever or largely done away with. There won't be a middle ground.
Its actually so depressing to see the state of magic as someone who loves the lore and universe of magic the gathering. At my LGS one of the prevailing sentiments towards 50% UB was "I've made peace with it", how depressing of an endorsement is that.
Your explanation of how MtG as a game and a color pie system having to bend itself around an already established world and IP is the really horrific problem with UB that nobody seems to realize. Cards are never going to be bottom up designed anymore and the fictions that the cards depict are set in stone with no wiggle room for card design to be flexible. The color pie and effective gameplay of MtG is going to change for the worse really quick in the coming years because of UB.
comment about continuity in story and lore: early 1980's saw the release of a miniatures war game called Warhammer Fantasy, which for some 30 or so years came to be the largest (or among the largest at least) of fantasy miniatures war games. A lot of lore was written about the races, characters and places of that world. Then some 10 or so years ago the company behind the game released a series of rules called The End Times, and one by one, all those races, characters and places people had become familiar with under some 30 or so years, was killed off, destroyed and razed. In the end, the entire world was destroyed. And people were of course devastated. The game that had been their main hobby for 30 years, all those miniatures bought and painted and lore and everything. it was all gone. The company replied by releasing a new game, Age of Sigmar, which was a new game, but also used some elements of the former game. Now, I didnt really think Magic was going bankupt or anything, but somewhere in the back of my head I was kind of expecting something similar as above with the phyrexian invasion last year. As those beloved characters such as Ajani became phyrexian robots and effectively killed off,and every single plane under invasion, I kind of thought that maybe this is the end of magic as we know it. maybe this is the final set, before the release of a replacement product. Perhaps Magic the dice game instead of cards, or a computer game and no more physical cards, or perhaps changing the backsides of the card, or maybe even change the core rules in some significant way, something like multiplayer commander as the core, but cooperative with miniatures and some map or something. but then Ajani and all the rest were just magically healed somehow, and every single plane repelled the invasion. Such a letdown. Of course, for all those that like Magic it is great that the game still goes on, but well, with the upcoming sets in mind, I kind of think a great finale, a massive battle against the phyrexians and the end of all worlds, would have been kind of neat too.
Yeah, they really seemed to be building to something... and then nothing. And now, like I said about Tarkir, I think they're afraid of shaking things up too much. Which, in fairness may be the correct choice looking at their past attempts. Just hire more writers and give them more time, you know?
Couple of thing about your mini timeline that you left out. Fantasy might've been one of the first and largest back in the day, but it became the neglected child after 40K got released and absolutely blew it out of the water performance wise, and other mini games, that had better rules, pushed Fantasy out of the space. When Games Workshop decided to do the End Times, Fantasy was a dead game that they basically stopped printing minis for, for years at that point. People were down about the world and characters dying, no doubt about that, but the two things that absolutely riled up the community was first, the character assassinations that happened in the lore in the End Time fluff, with characters doing 180's out of nowhere. Good guys did bad guy things, bad guys did good guy things, smart people became dumb and dumb people became smart. There were a few cool, in character things (like one character tried to drop the moon on everyone because of insanity and drugs) but those were the exception. The other thing was that they tried to have this whole 'your games tell the story!' thing going on, where they had a worldwide campaign that stores would run, submit their results, and the writers would shape the story around how the actual W/L of the various factions. Problem was that the Chaos factions (and the Chaos/Daemon armies in peticular) was absolute garbage balance wise with the latest edition of the game, so they kept on losing despite the campaign stacking it against the Order factions more and more over time. So they wrote the whole End Time campaign as "Despite winning nearly everywhere with decisive victories, you are on a losing streak through Deus Ex Machina."
It would have been enough if the story wasn't just a massive wet fart and they took the time to make the invasion actually feel like an invasion and a menace and not the usual villain blunder that overestimate it's own capabilities... Such a boring and stupid trope
Even as a Final Fantasy fan, I can't bring myself to look forward to that set-or any of the other Universes Beyond releases for that matter. What originally captivated me about Magic was the rich stories and evocative artwork of the older sets. They had a distinct identity that felt uniquely 'Magic.' In contrast, recent sets like MKM, OTJ, and even parts of Duskmourne feel more like "Theme of the week" drawn from a hat, lacking the cohesive worldbuilding that made the game so compelling to me.
Not really defending the Spiderman collab, but it's more than likely a Spiderverse thing. Characters like Peni Parker, Spider Gwen, Miles Moralles, Anti-Venom, etc. Spiderman's comics by itself definitely have enough content to itself that are interwoven due to the likelihood they will pull from the entire Spiderverse. The big problem with that I would have would be, as mentioned, the complete lack of cohesion to the aesthetic and gameplay. Fallout and Doctor Who definitely pushed the boundaries, and I feel the Marvel franchises definitely aren't going to be doing that tonal balance any favors...
I think Neon Dynasty doesn't get enough flak for being this strange foray into 'MTG, but with immersion breaking cyberpunk grafted on where it doesn't belong'. Though I think the rot was settling in all the way back when War of the Spark was a narrative wet fart.
I was someone not too fond of Kamigawa's Neon Dynasty. I was excited for the return to the plane on the expectation for Feudal Japanese inspired samurai and ninjas, not Japanese Cyberpunk. Didn't really get into the set on release and only sparingly picked up a few singles.
I personally liked neon dynasty but I can definitely see why others didnt. It was a net cast into a wider sea that happened to align with what I like aesthetically. The other nets they are casting all over the place is just quite frankly alienating, and they are straying too far away from anything related to MtG too frequently now.
After seeing returns to Innistrad and Zendikar where nothing has really changed and several blocks of "Ravnica, but exactly the same," I thought it was pretty neat that they were updating Kamigawa, giving it the technological advancement mixed with tradition and spirituality that fits the outsider's view of Japan. It's a shame they went so overboard with it as to be jarring and then never learned a lesson.
Look, I'll be real with you, Kamigawa saved MtG, Innistrad damned it. Original Kamigawa's failure drove them hard away from the kind of set building they do today, and was responsible for terms like "parasitic mechanics" being used. Then Innistrad came along and realised a vision of a top-down design philosophy, and since then the game has steadily and increasingly drifted in that direction. Theros had a pass because Greek myth is fairly timeless and already splashed heathily through magic (as were many of the gothic elements of Innistrad). Likewise Eldraine could get away with a lot of this, and while people tout Kaladesh as "steampunk India" it's more of an original setting then one with hats. But then we get Ixalan, the pirate set, ans Amonkhet, the egypt set, with Kaldheim to follow, the norse set, Strixhaven, the wizard school set, and this all culminated with Kamigawa, the cyberpunk japan set, being easier to swallow and also the tipping point. Then we reach the point we're at now with the detective set, the cowboy set, the 80s horror set and the whacky racers set. The d&d set, in tandem, set people up to accept IPs being included in Magic, along with LotR. My point is you can't single out Neon Dynasty as the starting point. It was just the next evolution of something they had been building up to for a long time.
@@Unormalism You make a very solid overall point. While I'd say sets like Amonkhet still tie together their inspiration into that MTG fantasy feeling, such that it still all manages to become cohesive, the top-down approach is definitely a snowball that's been rolling down the hill for a while. I'm impressed by the level of thought and discussion being achieved in TH-cam comments, too, lol.
I'd be cool with watching 20 minutes videos, I like the tangent part of the videos. Also I fully agree, Magic's current direction seems just depressing.
I truly... truly hope that they really throw us a curve ball & redeem themselves ONE TIME. Kill Chandra off by dying of injuries from the race... wait til she passes the line (not winning though) & dies on Avishkar near her Mother. Replace the Red planeswalker with the guy Nicol Bolas was telepathically speaking to, trying to get Chandra onto Zendikar named Ramaz. He is originally from Kaldheim & looks like a seer. They could say he uses his powers to ward off the winter in the coldest areas of Kaldheim. He could be a mentor like character for all these younger walkers & showcase how Fire doesnt always mean Rage/Excitement/Power like Chandra & Jaya did... but Fire also is about giving life & causing fear.
"Near her Mother" ooh wow. That got me. Nice to know I'm still invested in the lore and these characters enough to know a thought like that can gut punch me
@maxpepelotas2059 in the lore of the upcoming set, there was a peaceful revolution that overthrew the post-aether revolt consulate that proved to be ineffective. After this revolution, the new government renamed the plane to sepperate it from its dark past under consulate rule. Out of lore, it's cause it turned out Kaladesh translated to essentially "black country" a certain Indian dialect, which could have racial issues attached to it.
Whenever I hear the "if you don't like it you don't have to buy it" about MtG I have to wonder if they think it's a solitaire game? If I don't like a card my opponent plays, can I take it and set it on fire? I can't? They can play whatever they like and I have no power to stop them? So the argument's idiotic then! Sure, I don't have to play the cards, but I do have to play against them. I do have to have every game I play feature robots from 39,000 years in the future and a Renaissance Polymath who can somehow punch a bear to death and a child who plays D&D and some Zombie Apocalypse douche with a baseball bat and occasionally, in between the Kaiju and the Transformers, there's a solitary Homunculus who looks totally lost.
I agree with your sentiment completely. However, I was relatively new to the game a few months back, but part of the reason I'm no longer playing is how many solitaire decks I came up against. Decks that didn't need to interact with me or the board (aside from some removal), doing things I couldn't interact with or stop, and then playing out a rather simple-but-powerful combo to win the game. So while in principle or theory you are correct in that the new cards must be adjusted to, the vast majority of my experience has been that many folks run decks that absolutely don't care what the opponent is doing or running. ...And sadly, for much of the time, they don't have to. Unless the new cards somehow interfere with the few cards they need for their win-con, they'll just ignore them.
Part of me wants to see the Innistrad misprints and see if any would be worth running in Cube as printed. I'm thinking about not touching any new product until the new Lorwyn set comes out.
Same here (faerie player 🧚) I'm going to the Tarkir Prerelease (I love Sultai) and maybe I'll buy singles from Tarkir and Edges of Eternities for the decks I already have.
I have zero problem with reskinning cards. The game has 20,000 cards and most never see any play because they're objectively bad, and the design team has been grinding up against the power level ceiling for years now with the first signs of near bleeding beginning to emerge. IMO they should stop printing intentionally bad cards just to pad out packs with garbage, focus on printing and re-printing the winners with plane specific art, freeze the power level, and for each plane focus on making new cards that suit the unique mechanics of it or that set, like Crime for OTJ, Day/Night for Innistrad, etc. They can't keep making new and interesting cards forever and they're dangerously close to the limit where they're going to have to make strictly better cards than everything else that's already in the game.
They're still printing money. They're pulling in all the final fantasy and marvel fans to the card game. Enough people who play will spend enough + all of the new people means more money than just serving the same players. Of course, you have to keep pumping out UB sets, because once you stop your player base has been burned out and you'll collapse. It's a pretty short sighted move.
watch them eventually make play booster boxes be 24 packs so that each box is exactly enough to play a 8 person draft, but then keep the prices the same as the current 30/36 pack boxes.
@RedBobcatGames Basically, my store is trying to sort out the logic behind it, as myself and the other judges and TO's are just... scratching our heads.
It won't. I own a store. No store is getting three 8-man pods going anyway. You just crack the packs you need for however many players showed up and sell the rest. If I have 1/3 a box left over, so what? The packs don't go in the trash.
@thebigsquig While true, it does make those stores that have an abundance of players a bit more awkward... that's why my store is scratching its head at the change overall.
Always glad to hear good takes that we normally dont see because many of the Mtg content creators success are tied to the popularity of the game so for thier own financial interrests they can't be too negative about it and instead always try to sugarcoat that Wotc these last few years have taken a horrible dive and given up integrity and originality for favor of constantly trying to increase profit and enrich the shareholders.
@RedBobcatGames It gives you credibility, and makes any positives you highlight more impactful. Every IP has different types of fans, and I think every type of fan should have someone who is articulating and exploring their perspectives. For those who unconditionally love anything with "Magic: The Gathering" on it and are excited to see the "New!" no matter what, there are channels for that. For those who love to hate it, there are channels for that. For lukewarm or casual fans who dabble, there are more targeted (financial aspect, historical aspect, etc..,) channels. This channel seems to be for hardcore fans of the game who lean into the lore, celebrate the good, and condemn the bad. Something isn't inherently good because it has "Magic: The Gathering" written on it, but the hope is that will be the case more often than not. --That said, unless there is a drastic course correction (in leadership, if not vision), WotC seems incapable of adding anything of value to this IP. It's an ironic situation, in that usually companies with pedigree and history tend to stumble or fall because they cling too fiercely to the past and what worked for them at the outset. WotC seems to be headed for a cliff by wildly abandoning a lot of what made the game work for thirty years and turning to truly peculiar and abysmal mix of greed-enhanced business decisions and an indiscriminate embracing of everything except the past.
Foundations looked like the last set for me for a while. Building a forever set cube from it plus some additions from my existing collection and that will be what I play with for the foreseeable future. These dress up sets and universes beyond stuff don’t feel like Magic: the Gathering.
7:50 Tarkir obviously was gonna have cultural consults. Since it was set they changed the art of the rakshasa and remove their cat typing and also changed all the naga to snakes.
Good insight! Hope next year is a good year. I was introduced to MTG during Bloomburrow and since then have felt overwhelmed with so many releases back-to-back. These videos make me feel good that people are all on the same page and help me catch up on lore I’ve missed. HAPPY NEW YEARS!
What’s really disappointing for me is that a few years ago I would have been stoked for a sci-fi set. Magic used to be insanely creative and seeing the minds who came up with an all metal world or plane caught up in a crazy day-night cycle do something science-fantasy would have been awesome. Now MtG is so SEO trope-ified that I’m expecting some truly stupid cards. A white blink spell called “to boldly go” or a ramp spell that also creates a wurm token called “the mana must flow”. Whether these happen or not, this shows where my bar for creativity in Magic design is…
Happy New Year! Also, I fear Aetherdrift will be less like "Akira" and more like the 1968 cartoon by Hanna-Barbera "Wacky Races". In this analogy, Mark Rosewater is "Muttley" (the giggling mutt with the annoyingly wheezy snickering). He's "tee-hee-hee"ing at our expense, all the way to the bank.
I've already taken to referring to Aetherdrift as "MTG Wacky Racers ". Although it's safe to say that Hannah-Barbera put more thougt into their crossover, since it lasted longer than a month.
So wacky races, but not as fun. Honestly, as a Yugioh-only player, Konami did a better job referencing wacky races through a TCG-first archetype known as Gold Pride. Which as far as I know, exists within its own mini-verse within the Yuigoh monster lore.
I do have to push back on the cultural consultant arguments on Tarkir, because there IS something they feel they goofed on with the previous visit to Tarkir in the form of the Rakshasa. Cultural consultants also have been just as much a part of successful sets as unsuccessful ones, as I very distinctly remember quite a bit of that coming up during the buildup to Neon Dynasty. Also, Happy new year.
Happy new year to you too. And yeah, I guess you're right when I think about it. There was backlash last time. Still feels a bit weird though, but I'm also not sure how they'd get around it
In retrospect it’s kind of damning that Wotc allowed the Rakshasa misinformation to run wild for decades. Such a fundamental mistake on what Rakshasa are has almost certainly been brought up multiple times internally, but none of the decision makers could be bothered to fix it until recently
Yeah, was gonna say this, plus all the other cultural issues they really blundered with Tarkir the first time round haha. Tbh my only concern is whether they're actually going to listen to those cultural consultants if it means going against the exact vision of Tarkir that people are nostalgic for. I for one would love to see a Mardu Horde that's more true to the real imperialist horde structure, since that's a better fit for Mardu colours than what we originally got anyway!
World building for aetherdrift has documents out that are actually pretty cool. The teams aren't all helmed by "hey look it's X with a funny hat" and where it is for Winter or Chandra, there's a reason to it. Miguel, one of the writers, is really good at handling diverse piles of influence and blending them into something cohesive and it's own
@@nice2835 It's still pretty tropey but fine. What remains to be seen is whether the cards reflect the lore. That's usually where things break at the pace they have been going.
@RedBobcatGames I am willing to bet money that it won't be as coherent haha. Even if if is coherent though, how immersion breaking is a planar demon sponsoring a wacky races team? XD. MaRo said it takes a while for them to implement the feedback from MKM. I hope this is the last of the tropey sets. If not, I am going to be saving money!
Problem is they do that all the time. Duskmourn, bloomburrow, and thunder junction all had cool world building guides that were mostly ignored in the actual set. Since we don't have blocks theres not enough time to have the cards actually explore those guides, so they just become background lore and nothing more.
Love the idea of a purge! Good luck. But we do love your videos. And even when people might disagree with you, you are the most coherent and well reasoned MTG content creator i know. So even when i do disagree with you….. i totally respect and totally enjoy listening to your views. And your views are massively important. Anyway. Thank you. Happy new year!
Wizards: lets make things people dont want. Wizards: why aren't people buy our crap? Wizards: lets make even more things people don't want, that will get people to buy more.
idk the sales don't lie. As much as the fanbase complains about UB. A lot of the UB sets are selling more than the in-universe sets. I'm not saying they all are but the ones that are the tentpole for the year certainly are making profit.
@@Surfer669 warhammer and lord of the rings are fantasy. And people who play magic love fantasy. That is why all the fantasy UB do well. But most of the new UB are not fantasy, so I am skeptical they will do well
@@ProfessorSprouts I agree with warhammer and lotr. What about Fallout? There's also Secret Lairs from non-fantasy that sell out immediately. Although those are more scarcity and FOMO. But if they were full sets people would get upset. The Lost Cavern of Ixalan had Jurassic Park and people seemed to love it or hate it (very few are in the middle). The Brother's War had transformers; people didn't mind that set and the transformers as much as Murder at Karlov Manor with the Clue crossover cards. People HATED MaKM and the Clue board game cards.
2025 is looking like the biggest year of the floppiest of floppy tacos. And that’s what I’m afraid that when we finally get out of the crappy Dress up sets, and high chance the UB well is quickly drying up….not every UB is Lord of the rings…..
LOTR, the greatest selling set of all time, is NOTHING compared to what the Spider-Man set will do. Did you miss how absurd the Marvel Secret Lair was? The set won't even have to be good to outsell LOTR by a multiplier.
I’d be fine with UUB if it was just one, maybe two sets a year, but it’s actually damaging the game by taking up half of the release slots Also the decision to legalise them is insane - when they first started doing this, I was happy with it as long as it stayed separate for the most part
I think I reached the point where I just don't really care about the new releases anymore. the only thing i'm excited for next year is the Tarkir set. I care so little that I think i'm gonna stop playing(at least with new cards) next year, even decided to skip foundations which I was hyped for, because this killed my hype for this game so much.
Final Fantasy is the only thing I'm looking forward to for MTG in 2025. I don't understand the "this isn't magic" mindset. They made a card for you 20 years ago called Old Fogey.
Ummm should I tell him their are like 30 616 universe spiderman alone not counting his many friends and supporting cast. And that their are like another 20 extremely popular spiderman from across the multiverse. And that spiderman has like 10 different major suits that have massive power reworks or should someone else. Because I see the spiderman set having a lot of content across all 5 colors especially since alot of his rogue are not villains and are instead antiheroes or antivilians. Like you could legit make a very good set spanning all 5 colors with just venom. Will they make a good set I don't think so it will probably be average nothing to write home about but not offensive. Could they make a great set. Easily if they had the time and resources. Make base spiderman red blue make a red blue black symbiot one. What miles be a red white green make antivemon white red black. MJ red green so on. Their is sooo fucking much the spiderman set could do.
The most surreal part of all of this is that, of all the sets announced for next year, the Final Fantasy set is the most like Magic: The Gathering of them all. Final Fantasy has exactly that blend of Mages casting powerful spells and mad scientists (re: Artificers) building airships and superweapons that makes planes like Dominaria, Fiora, and Avishkar what they are. But now, we're finally getting a look at the prehistoric plane of Muraganda, and it's a background for our characters to drive motorcycles through.
I'm working on making a deck out of all pre-2013 foils as my final deck. Feeding my nostalgia and giving me a deck to play whenever my friends want to play a game. My magnum opus and final work.
I’m not too put out by Mass Hysteria specifically getting an Innistrad facelift because it never felt thematically like a card that could only exist on Mirrodin. I do remember feeling a little confused when Silvergill Adept snuck onto Ixalan though.
It's not like Lorwyn Merfolk got included in a Remastered set where there were none before. It was an okay reprint that Merfolk people liked from 2007 that was safe to put in the set. With non-Innistrad cards in an Innistrad Remaster, it makes you wonder how much crap they shoved in it that has nothing to do with Innistrad. If they put in off-theme cards for money, why stop at a single-digit rare?
I think there is something forgotten about UB in standard sets- that even sets in MTG lore could still have the Jurassic World treatment with some characters visiting. Like Star Trek in Edge of Eternities
Video thoughts, I'll update as I go - I don't mind the Innistrad setting reskins on cards, because there's a game design justification there. Bringing in "cards related to Innistrad, but which haven't been part of any sets there" could lead to balance issues taking the set as a whole, so letting themselves dip into thematically relevant cards (mass hysteria but make it werewolves is on flavor) is a tool to let them balance how everything interacts.
VS System was somewhere in between Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh. Basically, your face-down Plot Twists and Locations simultaneously became your resources (like the lands in Magic), with the added twist that you could also set characters (=creatures) in the resource zone, if you were really desperate (but they couldn’t attack from there). You could attack characters directly, like monsters attacking monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh. That’s about as much as I remember from the original, now discontinued VS System from the early 2000s - I’ve heard it’s been re-released with a slightly different rules system.
Obviously for spiderman we need to rename the lands as follows Swamps -> ghettos Plains -> suburbs Forests -> parks Islands -> Ports Mountains -> skyscrapers Idk what to rename everything else as yet though Jokes aside, your mention of magic mechanics and terms not making sense with UB stuff is similar to a conversation i had with a friend about The One Ring (a conversation i mentioned in another comment here) It should have been a black card and maybe have some blue in it. Temptations and the desire (and price) of power is a very black thing and it being a tool of control and manipulation for sauron is also kinda blue. Instead they made it a colorless artifact so everyone can use it.
Happy New Year! I appreciate your reasoned arguments and hope WotC will take heed. It is obvious you care for the game, its long-term health, and its players.
Of topic, but first time watching your video and i love how the art style of your character and overall tone remind me of yahtzee crowhaw of zero punctuation and fully ramblomatic fame.
Thank you! Believe it or not, that was completely unintentional. Unless you're more gifted than I, putting out a weekly animation means you need to make some short cuts. Stick figures, no mouths, circles for hands, no attached arms for instance. I was like 5 videos deep before I even realises it haha
With Spiderman, I suspect that there will be several different Spidermen alongside the array of villains and allies. The instants and sorceries are going to be actions like battle tricks that other planes have, Spiderman webbing a foe or swinging through the city can be spells. Instants and Sorceries have long since added in physical combat and daring feats that don't necessarily involve magic to perform. Enchantments can be focused on the magic villains Spiderman encounters like Mysterio.
Just a bit about the cultural consultants and Tarkir. One reason they pointed out they worked with CCs may be because the first Tarkir block was kinda full of orientalist tropes. While I believe it wasn't made maliciously and the designer really wanted to portray the clans positively in relation to the cultures they were based on, it would be lying to say that some portrayals weren't kind of outdated (the whole sultai clan, while interesting story-wise and fitting in the universe, is based on the colonial "myth" of India's "elites" performing gruesome rituals to obtain supernatural powers). With this in mind, WotC pointing out the fact they're working with CCs may be done in order to reassure some worried players that the less tasteful portrayals of some aspects of the clans may be slightly reworked.
Happy new year Mr. Bobcat. Frankly, as a not exactly longtime player, I’m sick of WOTC’s management of the game, and I’ve only been playing for 6-7 years.
As for the tarkir cultural consultation thing, spice8rack has a good(but long) video on the issues with it, but I'll try to boil it down. Original tarkir was a lot of the western interpretation of the cultures it presented, rather than being faithful representations of those cultures with a magic twist. The Rakshasa were based on a wholly western concept with close to no ties to actual Hindu demons, in addition to the fact the culture it was representing(Southeast Asian culture) was vastly deeper and different from its portrayal.
7:30 I think it's the other kind of scenario. Their sensitivity readers found something to be outraged about that nobody else even noticed in the original Tarkir sets so now they have had to change whatever that is and that's why they're telling us they worked with cultural consultants.
As a lifelong SpiderMan fan, there are a couple simple solutions to your stated problem of adapting to the game: -Multiversal characters. Miles Morales, Miguel O'Hara, Spider-Gwen, etc. -Variations on characters. There have been so many different suits and eras for SpiderMan himself to tap into- Symbiote suit, Superior, Future Foundation, etc. -The rogue's gallery is surprisingly deep for the Webhead, and not all of them are straight up villains. He's also got a lot of allies and friends; personally, I'm curious how they'd do a J. Jonah Jameson card. Are they perfect solutions? No. But it is most likely where they'll be going. Same with the potential X-Men, Avengers, etc. sets that are in the pipeline.
Maybe a J. Jonah Jameson card can have something with demanding something to happen when Spider-man shows up. As for MTG: I genuinely would like to try MTG, but if this is the plan, I guess I'll stick to Yugioh and gradually branch more into some alt formats online. As well as try and define some decks for remote/irl play, battle box, and/or cubing.
Haven't even watched the video yet and I already agree. Played many standard games Saturday night and almost every game was basically the opponent playing their whole hand by turn 3 and either winning or losing on the spot. Standard is in such a bad spot and all the extra sets are going to just make it worse
I thought it was just me. I had delved into this game a couple months ago, thinking it was a longer format, dynamic game with lots of interplay. But I found most decks I've gone up against have almost no interaction (aside from removal) and consistently pull off very simple combos that win the game by turn four. Or else it comes down to, "Here's a uniquely difficult threat to deal with. Do you happen to have the answer in your hand?" If you do, you probably win. If not, you lose. I might give Commander a try, because it seems to have a lot more interaction and shouldn't have the consistency to pull off early combos, but I've checked out of the 1v1 formats.
I stopped playing and keeping up with Magic some time around 2018/2019, around the release of that Ravnica set, to focus on college. Decided to try and get back into it this year and oh man, it's as if I've been hit with multiple mental flashbangs looking at all of the things that has happened to the game since I've last played it. What the actual hell happened to Magic? Why are half of the sets for next year going to be from non-Magic settings? Why are Omenpaths a thing? Why is Kamigawa now cyberpunk, in a fantasy game of all things? Why is Chandra doing an Akira slide on a Tron bike? Why are they putting SpongeBob in Magic? This is just utterly bizarre to see happen. The entire identity of Magic has been watered down so heavily these past 5 years it doesn't even feel like the same game. Was there any changes to the writing/design team between now and then? Because it honestly feels like they either brought on board new people who have no clue what it is they are doing, or the writing/design team have just lost full confidence in themselves and they have to resort to UB sets to pad out the year and having the Omenpaths act as a crutch. This sucks, man.
Pfff. I was a sailor for 22 years. We had a saying - a sailor's only happy when he's bitching about something. You're like that sailor. The truly happy sailor could be standing outside where it was raining 100-dollar-bills and he would STILL look up at the sky and shout "WHAT ???! YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING SMALLER??!
I disagree with the point about blending things together (on the reskinned cards chapter) i think it’s quite interesting to see how some things look in different planes, like sorcerous spyglass from og ixalan and its reprint on eldrain.
Do you know what. Yes actually. In fact I made this exact argument for Sol Ring. I think for some reason I'm okay with it for Artifacts, but not spells? I don't know. I'll have a mull over on this, you've given me something to think about
@RedBobcatGames There’s also a raw mechanical argument to not create functional reprints of cards in eternal/non-rotating formats. There’s a good chance that having access to 8 copies of a card has unintended consequences. They intentionally make most cards have plane-neutral names for the express intent of reprinting with new flavour and that’s honestly correct as a gameplay-first restriction.
Providing a perspective from someone completely new to Magic: The Gathering, the Universes Beyond cards are what first caught my attention after so many years of no interest in the game at all. I got one of the Fallout commander decks, then also picked up Thunder Junction and Bloomburrow packs because I like their aesthetics and didn’t want to be restricted to only commander. I’ve found a local shop where people are willing to help a beginner learn to play the game. That’s partially the point of UB- bringing new eyes to the game that wouldn’t have turned out otherwise. There’s also generally a pretty big overlap between different hobbies and subcultures, meaning they hope existing players will enjoy these crossovers. I can understand why these changes are frustrating though, especially since MTG’s original lore has been sidelined for things like Spider-Man or Final Fantasy. It’s bringing new eyes to the series though, so I feel like it does have a place in MTG. I agree that it shouldn’t take the spotlight though.
Dude I was looking forward to the lorwyn set and they cut that shit for more UB
Same. Like what the fuck. Welp, guess I am only going to buy into one set.
Yup, it really sucks
Could have been three years straight with at least one whimsical fantasy, with Bloomburrow and Eldraine2 preceding it. Oh well.
Extra frustrating because they *knew* about it in advance. Those UB sets didn’t just spontaneously manifest, they took months and months of planning and development
Great video.
And you aren't too negative, people just struggle to accept the truth of our collective situation. It's does feel like I'm being forced to engage with IPs I don't like. Wtf is a Spider-man commander product going to look like? Why am I so turned off by that idea? 😵
The "if you don't like it, don't engage with it" was a fine (if not a bit flimsy) argument for a social format like commander. Because most people aren't fully optimizing their decks, you could easily exclude cards, mechanics, sets, or IPs that didn't appeal to you. You could even rule 0 out UB cards with your regular group so you wouldn't even have to engage with them from across the table.
But imagine going to a standard event and asking someone to not play the Spiderman set because it clashes tonally with the rest of the game (or kneecapping yourself in a competitive environment by refusing to engage with a product).
It was ok with commander until they started releasing multiple sets of exclusively commander cards
Add people who play drafts.
Why would you play any non commander or cube format to begin with though. You'd have to be someone who never played magic until yesterday to do something that stupid... Or be a masochist, o guess.
Oh no! Not.... *checks notes* THE TONE!! Grow up
That image of the 2025 lineup is just... it's pure psychic damage.
Haha, yeah
The nice thing about the 2025 lineup is I only need to pay attention to Tarkir and the rest of the year I just won't be buying Magic products.
For me it's Innistrad, but yeah same
I'm holding my breath because dragonstorm *could* be shit, quite simply. MKM was also a return to a beloved established plane and I didn't buy into its garbage. The only difference is that dragonstorm has a chance not to be shit from a lore perspective, unlike every other standard set of 2025. Sigh.
Literally lmfao, everything else is singles that work for you're deck , an actual main plane set is going to be amazing
In a way, there would now be less product fatigue if we had a non-UB commander or 1v1 format. Only three sets a year to pay attention to
add to this you only need the singles
I really like final fantasy. I think they are some of the best video games I've ever played. But i never thought, "its a shame I dont have Zidane and Freya in my magical duel game."
Not gonna lie if I can get a transforming Cecil commander I'm excited
So, the Final Fantasy Set is more Fantasy then the rest of the Sets in 2025
Hahah.. basically.
Apparently so!
@RedBobcatGames until you remember gunblades. muahahah!
@@Aredein i still have some hope they will do a lot of FF16 ect. and not FF15
@@lukaxd99 IIRC it's supposed to be about equal portions for each game, probably with a few more for 7. Hope they have some for 16!
I've said it since 2020. UB is like watching a friend do drugs. A lot of their new friends say it's cool and that we're being prudes about it. And then that friend dies and the new "friends" scatter. UB will unequivocally kill mtg and I hate UB so much.
Finally someone else similar 2 my understanding I used 2 go 2 as many pre releases and buy as much as I could 2 help my lgs but since few yrs ago haven't went 2 a single event I stop in from time 2 time 2 try n find some old singles or cards when I started playing round theros n sleeves but until they change 2 regular magic ip again I'm not thinking bout wasting my money nomore.
No. A card game you play for fun releasing products you don't like is not at all like watching a human being you love become addicted to a toxic substance with deletrious effects on their mental, social and physical health.
These two things are so dissimilar it is frankly offensive to compare them.
Magic is not that important.
@@relicdad88 Nah, I don't see Magic going bust because of this. It will alienate some of the enfranchised players (including me, most likely). But at the same time the new IPs will draw in new players, and before you know it, this is the new normal and tradition and lore will have gone the way of manaburn.
least dramatic mtg player
@@VolkbrechtIt'll bring in new players, yeah, but will they stay? This all feels like a great way for Magic to make a bunch of money for two or three years and then crash hard.
Just throw the pre-existing characters in a cowboy hat! In a trenchcoat! In a motorcycle helmet! In a spacesuit! Put them in a tricorn so they can be pirates! Give them a sword and make them knights! Make them wear loincloths and make the caveman set! Put them in the mecha! Give them cameras so they can go take pictures on a safari! Put them in little snorkels and diving suits for the underwater set!
Since we'll be down to only 2 non-remaster non-Horizons non-UB sets per year soon, that list should cover about 3 years of MtG. I'll take my consulting fee now, Hasbro!
Its like they were trying to do pre-UB sets to prep the players for the transition to half of MtG being UB sets (and probably ALL of MtG being UB sets in 2-3 years honestly).
I look forward to to playing my Spider-Man wearing a space-suit with a cowboy hat riding a motorcycle on top of a dinosaur wearing a snorkle for 1 colorless mana because Marvel said "do it".
What makes you think you're telling them something new? Given the sets of 2024 this stuff is already planned.
I'm 100% there was a meeting where some of the higher ups at Wizards said "So, today's topic: What can we learn from Hearthstone, and how can we use that to pump out more content for moar moneyz?!? Serious question, I don't play video games, I'm just here for moneeeeyyyyyzzz!"
@@Knokkelman aNah, hearthstone definitely has its problems, don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna say it's perfect, but MTG isn't copying them. I think maybe hearthstone decided to copy UB, but they're doing it a tad better. Hearthstone is wow's game essentially, and now they decided to do a space set. However, they made their space set all about draenei, which is an actual race from wow, they actually crashed into Outland in a spaceship, and that broken-down spaceship is their capital. Hearthstone is about to have a Starcraft mini-set, but I would argue that transitioning into a space thing like Starcraft with something like draenei is a better move than just slapping Marvel and Spongebob in our faces. Tbh I wish MTG would copy hearthstone's monetization model, they go absolutely hard on cosmetics, charging insane prices for them, but in all of the ten years of hearthstone, the actual card game hasn't had a single price increase, packs are still the same, expansion pre-orders have never been increased in price, mini-sets are still the same. Battlegrounds is a different story, but the actual card game itself is still priced the same.
When The Walking Dead Secret Lair was announced I looked st my roomate and said "In a few years we will be playing MTG with Transformers, Gandalf the Grey, My Little Poney, and SpongeBob" We both laughed.... now we wish I was wrong.
Well we got Gandalf!
@@emzetkin1100
And we are getting SpongeBob.
@@emzetkin1100we got all of these unfortunately
It's so sad just how easily Magic seems to willingly sell itself out. It was the main inspiration for trading card games as a whole, consequently being among the most original and unique, both in flavor and mechanics. However, it has now relegated itself to being mechanics only, retaining its original core flavor only out of necessity and/or convenience rather than creative expression or loyalty.
The fact that we aren't just getting a one-off standard Marvel set, but rather a SERIES of standard marvel sets to come, it's like they've given up on their own overarching narratives to give an even bigger franchise the platform. The fact that it's all going to be legal for all main official formats too is like forcing already established MTG players to share a room with those from an otherwise not necessarily related fandom. Nobody is forcing you to stay in that room ofc, but if you leave, you won't be able to find another officially supported space of its kind.
It wasn't the "main inspiration". Richard Garfield literally created the concept, and received a patent for it.
"most original and unique" lmao
unless you host your own.
I'm excited for 2025 mtg personally.
I'm gonna save so much money.
Heads up, you were right. In a way. The “trophy” is in itself a planeswalker spark that can allow the wielder to planeswalk as if they had their own spark.
So Nissa isn’t getting her original spark back, but is getting a retconned plot device that defeats the purpose of her losing her spark.
COOL COOL COO. I LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCH
Man.. it's cool we're gonna see people going to other plans again like THE OMENPATHS DON'T EXIST NOW.
what the fuck even is this plot point, unless it's gonna turn out Bolas comes back, gets this thing, closes the omenspaths because cool dragon god guy, and wreaks havoc again like they don't have a slightly more interesting villian in Emrakul that's been dormant for... 10ish years in Innistrad's moon.
Why do we know who wins the race before the set about the race has started?
@@yurisei6732 Do we though? I hadn't heard of that but... it tracks, I suppose.
@@yurisei6732 I think it's less that we know definitively, and more that WotC tends to be extremely predictable when writing, especially about certain characters. Chandra is also being pushed heavily for the past few years as a sort of alternative mascot character to Jace.
Playing standard? I NEED PICTURES OF SPIDERMAN!
HAH! YES!
I mean, it's not all negatives, turns out I will be saving a lot of money next year. Thanks WotC!
We warned you about this in the beginning but everyone dismissed the people who didn't like Universes Beyond in MTG as "haters".
I hope I'm considered part of the "we" there
@RedBobcatGames I've never seen your channel before, I'm just throwing my words to the winds here.
I say this as someone who has disliked Universes Beyond since the start: I think it really was doomsaying at the beginning to warn that it would get this bad. Walking Dead was what, 5 cards? Now, when the LoTR set came out and sold so well Hasbro got dollar signs in their eyes, well that’s a different story
We warned them and now the game is garnering less interaction and purchases. The pump'n'dump is going to end soon, the company cant handle more than a couple more years of this at most.
@@jacobd1984 It always starts small before it cascades out of control. Never forget the horse armor.
8:52 I’ve seen Rosewater genuinely try to claim it’s “not half” because INR is “in multiverse” on his Tumblr and it’s a very weak argument. I wish he’d just admit it.
Oh man, yeah. I don't agree with that stance at all
If innistrad remastered counts, so does secret lair spongebob series, so we're back up to half. Checkmate, maro. Guarantee there are UB commander precons too.
Rosewater needs to retire. His brain is cooked, and he’s becoming the Dave Meltzer of Magic.
@@nickhughes8179 He's gone corporate and he's in it for the pay cheque, he knows what's wrong with current MTG but he doesn't care, he'll put his kids through college and continue with HR approved corporate double speak.
Corporate greed is the problem, everything else is peripheral, the DEI nonsense doesn't help but it's not the main reason, it's greed.
The 30 to 36 to 30 pack saga drives me nuts as a store owner. Not just that it keeps changing, but it has shown me that magic players have no idea how cost, retail, or even basic math works.
Set boosters were around $5/pack (which is crap profit margins by the way they cost 3.25 each) and 30-pack displays. That comes out to $150, but boxes were regularly $120 or under online, conditioning players to expect stores to make a mere $0.75 or less per pack.
Then Play boosters came out at the same price per pack, but 36 to a box and players across the board were upset that boxes weren't still $120. It was by far our #1 complaint that prices rose. They didn't, quantity rose. Magic players seemed to assume that 5x30 and 5x36 equaled the same total.
Now they are dropping it back to 30, and everyone assumes that they will still be priced at 36x5. No. They will go back down to set boxes pricing. I've already ordered aetherdrift. I know the cost per box. It IS 30 packs at $5 MSRP. They are not shrinkflating you 6 packs.
As for why 30? It's for prerelease. Stores are sold prerelease kits incases of 15 and they get a free booster box for prize support per prerelease case. Prize support is supposed to be 2 packs per kit, so 15x2=30.
Personally I'd rather it be 24 so that boxes could appear even cheaper. Even better drop all this play/set/whatever booster nonsense that ruins limited and just go back to normal draft boosters at practical pricing.
Let's not kid ourselves, WotC already showed what they're planning to do with the Innistrad Remastered pricing. The UB sets will be declared "premium" and thus more expensive, making the boxes cost the same as they do now while giving us less packs. Then they're gonna "unify the price structure to prevent customer confusion" and make the premium price the new base price, just like they did with the introduction of Playboosters.
Personally the thing I mourn the most is the loss of blocks. I really like the flavour of Bloomburrow, I would have loved to have a full block on that plane, instead it's a one and done deal.
Half and done, more like
but would you want a full block in thunder junction and aetherdrift?
@@rickmel-q7m Actually, yes! Committing to three sets for a single plane would have meant that WotC would have needed to put a bit more effort into it than just throwaway memes
@@Deaymon wishful thinking at its finest
@@rickmel-q7m indeed
3:16 I think it's perfectly fine for reskinned cards to be made, as long as they do not take the special mechanics from said set. Modern Horizons 3 did way more "pillaging" in regard of that aspect.
I hate that magic is watering down its original IP by including stuff like Final Fantasy
and I hate the fact that I will definitely draft the Final Fantasy set as much as I can
I don't think I've actually bought any Universes Beyond at all yet. BUT, if I can build a full FF8 deck I'll consider it
Final Fantasy also has it's own TCG if the idea of playing cards with Final Fantasy characters on it is appealing separate from it being Magic specifically.
@RedBobcatGames all you get is the gunblade (common)
My wife knows about magic the gathering for 20+ years and has watched her friends play in high school. She hasn't shown interest in joining the game until Final Fantasy was announced. She didn't even buy the Final Fantasy TCG because she doesn't know anyone that plays it; but she is happy she'll have at least 3 people to play Final Fantasy x Magic TCG.
@@Surfer669 And in a just world, your wife could have continued to not play MTG, and MTG players with no interest in Final Fantasy could have continued to not play FF The Gathering.
I know that the mascot of the channel is a "Red Bobcat" (hence the name) but honestly I always saw it as a very angry and tired devil and I think it suits better when talking about MTG's future.
Every universes beyond is an entire set that many players just won’t buy any product for. Entire swaths of players that don’t attend prerelease events. I am a limited fiend and will skip out events if limited looks unappealing. It will be “interesting” to see how well these sets are received.
or, the UB sets will get all the playtesting and development, making them the better limited experience, but push away MAGIC fans, while failing to attract RANDOM IP fans.
@@wickederebus which would be a weird and terrible shame. even if they made Rise of the Eldrazi level of limited set design, that won’t be enough to make me buy Spider-Man cards.
It's funny,
My friends went from wondering why I play magic,
To buying and playing magic themselves,
To wandering why I've begun playing pokemon instead of magic,
To understanding why I'm no longer playing magic and only playing pokemon.
We'll see how I feel about the Spidey set, depending on how they handle it because I'm a BIG Spidey fan and one who's easy to P.O.
I legit only want Innistrad and Lorwyn... Not that I hate the UB ips or art, I just don't think they belong in the mtg universe in general and at the very most should only be commander legal.
Make them silver bordered I say
One way or another, I think 2025 is going to be one of the most make-or-break years ever for both MtG fans and MtG as a franchise. My guess is within a year to a year in a half, the Universes Beyond overload will be solidified forever or largely done away with. There won't be a middle ground.
Its actually so depressing to see the state of magic as someone who loves the lore and universe of magic the gathering. At my LGS one of the prevailing sentiments towards 50% UB was "I've made peace with it", how depressing of an endorsement is that.
Indeed, that does seem to be the sentiment
Your explanation of how MtG as a game and a color pie system having to bend itself around an already established world and IP is the really horrific problem with UB that nobody seems to realize. Cards are never going to be bottom up designed anymore and the fictions that the cards depict are set in stone with no wiggle room for card design to be flexible.
The color pie and effective gameplay of MtG is going to change for the worse really quick in the coming years because of UB.
comment about continuity in story and lore: early 1980's saw the release of a miniatures war game called Warhammer Fantasy, which for some 30 or so years came to be the largest (or among the largest at least) of fantasy miniatures war games. A lot of lore was written about the races, characters and places of that world. Then some 10 or so years ago the company behind the game released a series of rules called The End Times, and one by one, all those races, characters and places people had become familiar with under some 30 or so years, was killed off, destroyed and razed. In the end, the entire world was destroyed.
And people were of course devastated. The game that had been their main hobby for 30 years, all those miniatures bought and painted and lore and everything. it was all gone. The company replied by releasing a new game, Age of Sigmar, which was a new game, but also used some elements of the former game.
Now, I didnt really think Magic was going bankupt or anything, but somewhere in the back of my head I was kind of expecting something similar as above with the phyrexian invasion last year. As those beloved characters such as Ajani became phyrexian robots and effectively killed off,and every single plane under invasion, I kind of thought that maybe this is the end of magic as we know it. maybe this is the final set, before the release of a replacement product. Perhaps Magic the dice game instead of cards, or a computer game and no more physical cards, or perhaps changing the backsides of the card, or maybe even change the core rules in some significant way, something like multiplayer commander as the core, but cooperative with miniatures and some map or something.
but then Ajani and all the rest were just magically healed somehow, and every single plane repelled the invasion. Such a letdown.
Of course, for all those that like Magic it is great that the game still goes on, but well, with the upcoming sets in mind, I kind of think a great finale, a massive battle against the phyrexians and the end of all worlds, would have been kind of neat too.
Yeah, they really seemed to be building to something... and then nothing. And now, like I said about Tarkir, I think they're afraid of shaking things up too much. Which, in fairness may be the correct choice looking at their past attempts. Just hire more writers and give them more time, you know?
... there was a phyrexian invasion ?
@@TheLK641 Even an "aftermath"!
Couple of thing about your mini timeline that you left out.
Fantasy might've been one of the first and largest back in the day, but it became the neglected child after 40K got released and absolutely blew it out of the water performance wise, and other mini games, that had better rules, pushed Fantasy out of the space.
When Games Workshop decided to do the End Times, Fantasy was a dead game that they basically stopped printing minis for, for years at that point.
People were down about the world and characters dying, no doubt about that, but the two things that absolutely riled up the community was first, the character assassinations that happened in the lore in the End Time fluff, with characters doing 180's out of nowhere. Good guys did bad guy things, bad guys did good guy things, smart people became dumb and dumb people became smart. There were a few cool, in character things (like one character tried to drop the moon on everyone because of insanity and drugs) but those were the exception.
The other thing was that they tried to have this whole 'your games tell the story!' thing going on, where they had a worldwide campaign that stores would run, submit their results, and the writers would shape the story around how the actual W/L of the various factions. Problem was that the Chaos factions (and the Chaos/Daemon armies in peticular) was absolute garbage balance wise with the latest edition of the game, so they kept on losing despite the campaign stacking it against the Order factions more and more over time. So they wrote the whole End Time campaign as "Despite winning nearly everywhere with decisive victories, you are on a losing streak through Deus Ex Machina."
It would have been enough if the story wasn't just a massive wet fart and they took the time to make the invasion actually feel like an invasion and a menace and not the usual villain blunder that overestimate it's own capabilities... Such a boring and stupid trope
Thanks for voicing your opinions. I have very similar opinions but get looked at like an alien when voicing them to other magic players
Yeah, it's been really nice reading comments on this channel and knowing I'm not alone
Magic has become a soulless money machine. And it's ain't going back.
Even as a Final Fantasy fan, I can't bring myself to look forward to that set-or any of the other Universes Beyond releases for that matter. What originally captivated me about Magic was the rich stories and evocative artwork of the older sets. They had a distinct identity that felt uniquely 'Magic.' In contrast, recent sets like MKM, OTJ, and even parts of Duskmourne feel more like "Theme of the week" drawn from a hat, lacking the cohesive worldbuilding that made the game so compelling to me.
Not really defending the Spiderman collab, but it's more than likely a Spiderverse thing. Characters like Peni Parker, Spider Gwen, Miles Moralles, Anti-Venom, etc. Spiderman's comics by itself definitely have enough content to itself that are interwoven due to the likelihood they will pull from the entire Spiderverse.
The big problem with that I would have would be, as mentioned, the complete lack of cohesion to the aesthetic and gameplay. Fallout and Doctor Who definitely pushed the boundaries, and I feel the Marvel franchises definitely aren't going to be doing that tonal balance any favors...
I think Neon Dynasty doesn't get enough flak for being this strange foray into 'MTG, but with immersion breaking cyberpunk grafted on where it doesn't belong'. Though I think the rot was settling in all the way back when War of the Spark was a narrative wet fart.
I was someone not too fond of Kamigawa's Neon Dynasty. I was excited for the return to the plane on the expectation for Feudal Japanese inspired samurai and ninjas, not Japanese Cyberpunk. Didn't really get into the set on release and only sparingly picked up a few singles.
I personally liked neon dynasty but I can definitely see why others didnt. It was a net cast into a wider sea that happened to align with what I like aesthetically. The other nets they are casting all over the place is just quite frankly alienating, and they are straying too far away from anything related to MtG too frequently now.
After seeing returns to Innistrad and Zendikar where nothing has really changed and several blocks of "Ravnica, but exactly the same," I thought it was pretty neat that they were updating Kamigawa, giving it the technological advancement mixed with tradition and spirituality that fits the outsider's view of Japan.
It's a shame they went so overboard with it as to be jarring and then never learned a lesson.
Look, I'll be real with you, Kamigawa saved MtG, Innistrad damned it. Original Kamigawa's failure drove them hard away from the kind of set building they do today, and was responsible for terms like "parasitic mechanics" being used. Then Innistrad came along and realised a vision of a top-down design philosophy, and since then the game has steadily and increasingly drifted in that direction.
Theros had a pass because Greek myth is fairly timeless and already splashed heathily through magic (as were many of the gothic elements of Innistrad). Likewise Eldraine could get away with a lot of this, and while people tout Kaladesh as "steampunk India" it's more of an original setting then one with hats.
But then we get Ixalan, the pirate set, ans Amonkhet, the egypt set, with Kaldheim to follow, the norse set, Strixhaven, the wizard school set, and this all culminated with Kamigawa, the cyberpunk japan set, being easier to swallow and also the tipping point.
Then we reach the point we're at now with the detective set, the cowboy set, the 80s horror set and the whacky racers set.
The d&d set, in tandem, set people up to accept IPs being included in Magic, along with LotR.
My point is you can't single out Neon Dynasty as the starting point. It was just the next evolution of something they had been building up to for a long time.
@@Unormalism You make a very solid overall point. While I'd say sets like Amonkhet still tie together their inspiration into that MTG fantasy feeling, such that it still all manages to become cohesive, the top-down approach is definitely a snowball that's been rolling down the hill for a while.
I'm impressed by the level of thought and discussion being achieved in TH-cam comments, too, lol.
I'd be cool with watching 20 minutes videos, I like the tangent part of the videos. Also I fully agree, Magic's current direction seems just depressing.
Jetski on Tarkir? Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
I truly... truly hope that they really throw us a curve ball & redeem themselves ONE TIME.
Kill Chandra off by dying of injuries from the race... wait til she passes the line (not winning though) & dies on Avishkar near her Mother.
Replace the Red planeswalker with the guy Nicol Bolas was telepathically speaking to, trying to get Chandra onto Zendikar named Ramaz. He is originally from Kaldheim & looks like a seer. They could say he uses his powers to ward off the winter in the coldest areas of Kaldheim. He could be a mentor like character for all these younger walkers & showcase how Fire doesnt always mean Rage/Excitement/Power like Chandra & Jaya did... but Fire also is about giving life & causing fear.
"Near her Mother" ooh wow. That got me. Nice to know I'm still invested in the lore and these characters enough to know a thought like that can gut punch me
What's Avishkar?
@maxpepelotas2059 Avishkar is a really silly sounding phrase in Albanian.
Chandra is waifu bait so she will never die and always be the prime red Planeswalker.
@maxpepelotas2059 in the lore of the upcoming set, there was a peaceful revolution that overthrew the post-aether revolt consulate that proved to be ineffective. After this revolution, the new government renamed the plane to sepperate it from its dark past under consulate rule.
Out of lore, it's cause it turned out Kaladesh translated to essentially "black country" a certain Indian dialect, which could have racial issues attached to it.
Whenever I hear the "if you don't like it you don't have to buy it" about MtG I have to wonder if they think it's a solitaire game?
If I don't like a card my opponent plays, can I take it and set it on fire? I can't? They can play whatever they like and I have no power to stop them? So the argument's idiotic then!
Sure, I don't have to play the cards, but I do have to play against them. I do have to have every game I play feature robots from 39,000 years in the future and a Renaissance Polymath who can somehow punch a bear to death and a child who plays D&D and some Zombie Apocalypse douche with a baseball bat and occasionally, in between the Kaiju and the Transformers, there's a solitary Homunculus who looks totally lost.
I agree with your sentiment completely. However, I was relatively new to the game a few months back, but part of the reason I'm no longer playing is how many solitaire decks I came up against. Decks that didn't need to interact with me or the board (aside from some removal), doing things I couldn't interact with or stop, and then playing out a rather simple-but-powerful combo to win the game. So while in principle or theory you are correct in that the new cards must be adjusted to, the vast majority of my experience has been that many folks run decks that absolutely don't care what the opponent is doing or running. ...And sadly, for much of the time, they don't have to. Unless the new cards somehow interfere with the few cards they need for their win-con, they'll just ignore them.
If these smug UB comic book players say cut the deck, can I cut it in 2 with a meat cleaver??
You SAID cut the deck Mr MCU !!
0:24 you got the date wrong, the date you put up is the end of 2025
Red cat stupid *w*
Part of me wants to see the Innistrad misprints and see if any would be worth running in Cube as printed. I'm thinking about not touching any new product until the new Lorwyn set comes out.
That's basically the only use for them. If I pull one during a draft or whatever I'm going to be furious honestly
Same here (faerie player 🧚) I'm going to the Tarkir Prerelease (I love Sultai) and maybe I'll buy singles from Tarkir and Edges of Eternities for the decks I already have.
I have zero problem with reskinning cards. The game has 20,000 cards and most never see any play because they're objectively bad, and the design team has been grinding up against the power level ceiling for years now with the first signs of near bleeding beginning to emerge.
IMO they should stop printing intentionally bad cards just to pad out packs with garbage, focus on printing and re-printing the winners with plane specific art, freeze the power level, and for each plane focus on making new cards that suit the unique mechanics of it or that set, like Crime for OTJ, Day/Night for Innistrad, etc. They can't keep making new and interesting cards forever and they're dangerously close to the limit where they're going to have to make strictly better cards than everything else that's already in the game.
they were literally printing money and they managed to mess it up
They're still printing money. They're pulling in all the final fantasy and marvel fans to the card game. Enough people who play will spend enough + all of the new people means more money than just serving the same players. Of course, you have to keep pumping out UB sets, because once you stop your player base has been burned out and you'll collapse. It's a pretty short sighted move.
only good thing is that it's a year of saving lol
Ha, yeah true
Yep
Hey, Magic’s lineup may not be looking great, but at least it’s nice to have a Red Bobcat video to wake up to!
Have a happy new year!
Happy new year to you too!
watch them eventually make play booster boxes be 24 packs so that each box is exactly enough to play a 8 person draft, but then keep the prices the same as the current 30/36 pack boxes.
6:04 wait, that’s gonna fuck over store owners that host draft. Mark hurt it’s self in confusion
Yeah, I honestly have no idea what's going on there... outside of "Hey, charge the same for less packs" I suspect
@RedBobcatGames Basically, my store is trying to sort out the logic behind it, as myself and the other judges and TO's are just... scratching our heads.
It won't. I own a store. No store is getting three 8-man pods going anyway. You just crack the packs you need for however many players showed up and sell the rest. If I have 1/3 a box left over, so what? The packs don't go in the trash.
@thebigsquig While true, it does make those stores that have an abundance of players a bit more awkward... that's why my store is scratching its head at the change overall.
probably LGS's will focus on other board games that sell better
Had no idea we’re getting fewer packs now in booster boxes starting next year. Unbelievably stupid.
Always glad to hear good takes that we normally dont see because many of the Mtg content creators success are tied to the popularity of the game so for thier own financial interrests they can't be too negative about it and instead always try to sugarcoat that Wotc these last few years have taken a horrible dive and given up integrity and originality for favor of constantly trying to increase profit and enrich the shareholders.
Thank you. It's not a great business model from me honestly but I do try haha
@RedBobcatGames It gives you credibility, and makes any positives you highlight more impactful. Every IP has different types of fans, and I think every type of fan should have someone who is articulating and exploring their perspectives. For those who unconditionally love anything with "Magic: The Gathering" on it and are excited to see the "New!" no matter what, there are channels for that. For those who love to hate it, there are channels for that. For lukewarm or casual fans who dabble, there are more targeted (financial aspect, historical aspect, etc..,) channels. This channel seems to be for hardcore fans of the game who lean into the lore, celebrate the good, and condemn the bad. Something isn't inherently good because it has "Magic: The Gathering" written on it, but the hope is that will be the case more often than not. --That said, unless there is a drastic course correction (in leadership, if not vision), WotC seems incapable of adding anything of value to this IP. It's an ironic situation, in that usually companies with pedigree and history tend to stumble or fall because they cling too fiercely to the past and what worked for them at the outset. WotC seems to be headed for a cliff by wildly abandoning a lot of what made the game work for thirty years and turning to truly peculiar and abysmal mix of greed-enhanced business decisions and an indiscriminate embracing of everything except the past.
Foundations looked like the last set for me for a while. Building a forever set cube from it plus some additions from my existing collection and that will be what I play with for the foreseeable future. These dress up sets and universes beyond stuff don’t feel like Magic: the Gathering.
7:50 Tarkir obviously was gonna have cultural consults. Since it was set they changed the art of the rakshasa and remove their cat typing and also changed all the naga to snakes.
that, changing the name of Kaladesh, and all the other politically correct garbage WotC have been doing for years.
that, changing the name of Kaladesh, and all the other politically correct garbage WotC have been doing for years.
Good insight! Hope next year is a good year. I was introduced to MTG during Bloomburrow and since then have felt overwhelmed with so many releases back-to-back. These videos make me feel good that people are all on the same page and help me catch up on lore I’ve missed. HAPPY NEW YEARS!
What’s really disappointing for me is that a few years ago I would have been stoked for a sci-fi set. Magic used to be insanely creative and seeing the minds who came up with an all metal world or plane caught up in a crazy day-night cycle do something science-fantasy would have been awesome.
Now MtG is so SEO trope-ified that I’m expecting some truly stupid cards. A white blink spell called “to boldly go” or a ramp spell that also creates a wurm token called “the mana must flow”. Whether these happen or not, this shows where my bar for creativity in Magic design is…
This last year has turned me into a cube player, and I don't think 2025 will change that.
I really need to get into cube at some point
Happy New Year! Also, I fear Aetherdrift will be less like "Akira" and more like the 1968 cartoon by Hanna-Barbera "Wacky Races". In this analogy, Mark Rosewater is "Muttley" (the giggling mutt with the annoyingly wheezy snickering). He's "tee-hee-hee"ing at our expense, all the way to the bank.
I've already taken to referring to Aetherdrift as "MTG Wacky Racers ". Although it's safe to say that Hannah-Barbera put more thougt into their crossover, since it lasted longer than a month.
So wacky races, but not as fun.
Honestly, as a Yugioh-only player, Konami did a better job referencing wacky races through a TCG-first archetype known as Gold Pride. Which as far as I know, exists within its own mini-verse within the Yuigoh monster lore.
Professor Pat Pending would be appalled!
I do have to push back on the cultural consultant arguments on Tarkir, because there IS something they feel they goofed on with the previous visit to Tarkir in the form of the Rakshasa. Cultural consultants also have been just as much a part of successful sets as unsuccessful ones, as I very distinctly remember quite a bit of that coming up during the buildup to Neon Dynasty.
Also, Happy new year.
Happy new year to you too. And yeah, I guess you're right when I think about it. There was backlash last time. Still feels a bit weird though, but I'm also not sure how they'd get around it
In retrospect it’s kind of damning that Wotc allowed the Rakshasa misinformation to run wild for decades. Such a fundamental mistake on what Rakshasa are has almost certainly been brought up multiple times internally, but none of the decision makers could be bothered to fix it until recently
Yeah, was gonna say this, plus all the other cultural issues they really blundered with Tarkir the first time round haha. Tbh my only concern is whether they're actually going to listen to those cultural consultants if it means going against the exact vision of Tarkir that people are nostalgic for. I for one would love to see a Mardu Horde that's more true to the real imperialist horde structure, since that's a better fit for Mardu colours than what we originally got anyway!
World building for aetherdrift has documents out that are actually pretty cool. The teams aren't all helmed by "hey look it's X with a funny hat" and where it is for Winter or Chandra, there's a reason to it. Miguel, one of the writers, is really good at handling diverse piles of influence and blending them into something cohesive and it's own
@@nice2835 It's still pretty tropey but fine. What remains to be seen is whether the cards reflect the lore. That's usually where things break at the pace they have been going.
@magic_claw Yes, exactly my concern and why I'm waiting to read it
@RedBobcatGames I am willing to bet money that it won't be as coherent haha. Even if if is coherent though, how immersion breaking is a planar demon sponsoring a wacky races team? XD. MaRo said it takes a while for them to implement the feedback from MKM. I hope this is the last of the tropey sets. If not, I am going to be saving money!
Problem is they do that all the time. Duskmourn, bloomburrow, and thunder junction all had cool world building guides that were mostly ignored in the actual set. Since we don't have blocks theres not enough time to have the cards actually explore those guides, so they just become background lore and nothing more.
The problem for me is that the race is the least interesting part, and Chandra and Winter are the least interesting parts of the race.
UUB will be The Elder Scrols: Hammerfell supporting TES VI videogame. Both will be announced on X-Box show late in the january. That's my bet.
Love the idea of a purge! Good luck. But we do love your videos. And even when people might disagree with you, you are the most coherent and well reasoned MTG content creator i know. So even when i do disagree with you….. i totally respect and totally enjoy listening to your views. And your views are massively important. Anyway. Thank you. Happy new year!
Why thank you very much! And a happy new year to you too
Wizards: lets make things people dont want.
Wizards: why aren't people buy our crap?
Wizards: lets make even more things people don't want, that will get people to buy more.
Wizards: Now lets pick all the low hanging fruit! I'm sure this will be a sustainable business model
idk the sales don't lie. As much as the fanbase complains about UB. A lot of the UB sets are selling more than the in-universe sets. I'm not saying they all are but the ones that are the tentpole for the year certainly are making profit.
@@Surfer669 warhammer and lord of the rings are fantasy. And people who play magic love fantasy. That is why all the fantasy UB do well. But most of the new UB are not fantasy, so I am skeptical they will do well
@@ProfessorSprouts I agree with warhammer and lotr. What about Fallout? There's also Secret Lairs from non-fantasy that sell out immediately. Although those are more scarcity and FOMO. But if they were full sets people would get upset. The Lost Cavern of Ixalan had Jurassic Park and people seemed to love it or hate it (very few are in the middle). The Brother's War had transformers; people didn't mind that set and the transformers as much as Murder at Karlov Manor with the Clue crossover cards. People HATED MaKM and the Clue board game cards.
Lol! Magic is in a bull market, buddy!
2025 is looking like the biggest year of the floppiest of floppy tacos. And that’s what I’m afraid that when we finally get out of the crappy Dress up sets, and high chance the UB well is quickly drying up….not every UB is Lord of the rings…..
LOTR, the greatest selling set of all time, is NOTHING compared to what the Spider-Man set will do. Did you miss how absurd the Marvel Secret Lair was? The set won't even have to be good to outsell LOTR by a multiplier.
I’m so annoyed we’re gonna go back to generic fantasy slop because of you whiners lmao.
I’d be fine with UUB if it was just one, maybe two sets a year, but it’s actually damaging the game by taking up half of the release slots
Also the decision to legalise them is insane - when they first started doing this, I was happy with it as long as it stayed separate for the most part
I think I reached the point where I just don't really care about the new releases anymore. the only thing i'm excited for next year is the Tarkir set. I care so little that I think i'm gonna stop playing(at least with new cards) next year, even decided to skip foundations which I was hyped for, because this killed my hype for this game so much.
I honestly can't get over that they put UB in standard. It's madness
Final Fantasy is the only thing I'm looking forward to for MTG in 2025. I don't understand the "this isn't magic" mindset. They made a card for you 20 years ago called Old Fogey.
consoom
CONSOOOOM
Look! It's Cloud and Tifa! I'm soypogging so hard right now, I love FF!
@@vikorovstock2432 I'm sorry you're so jaded and bitter.
Can't wait for my epic Cloud/Tifa combo-deck vs my friends Spider-man/Sponge-bob ramp deck
Don't forget Gandalf in Fallout power armour!
@RedBobcatGames "I have come at the turning of the tide...in my badass mech!" - WotC Gandalf
Happy new year! Also please keep the tangents, I love them so much
I love you The Red Bobcat
Awwww!
Wish I could say that this is the _worst_ I'm expecting from next year...
There's always surprises
Ummm should I tell him their are like 30 616 universe spiderman alone not counting his many friends and supporting cast. And that their are like another 20 extremely popular spiderman from across the multiverse. And that spiderman has like 10 different major suits that have massive power reworks or should someone else.
Because I see the spiderman set having a lot of content across all 5 colors especially since alot of his rogue are not villains and are instead antiheroes or antivilians. Like you could legit make a very good set spanning all 5 colors with just venom. Will they make a good set I don't think so it will probably be average nothing to write home about but not offensive. Could they make a great set. Easily if they had the time and resources. Make base spiderman red blue make a red blue black symbiot one. What miles be a red white green make antivemon white red black. MJ red green so on. Their is sooo fucking much the spiderman set could do.
The most surreal part of all of this is that, of all the sets announced for next year, the Final Fantasy set is the most like Magic: The Gathering of them all. Final Fantasy has exactly that blend of Mages casting powerful spells and mad scientists (re: Artificers) building airships and superweapons that makes planes like Dominaria, Fiora, and Avishkar what they are. But now, we're finally getting a look at the prehistoric plane of Muraganda, and it's a background for our characters to drive motorcycles through.
I'm working on making a deck out of all pre-2013 foils as my final deck.
Feeding my nostalgia and giving me a deck to play whenever my friends want to play a game. My magnum opus and final work.
I’m not too put out by Mass Hysteria specifically getting an Innistrad facelift because it never felt thematically like a card that could only exist on Mirrodin. I do remember feeling a little confused when Silvergill Adept snuck onto Ixalan though.
It's not like Lorwyn Merfolk got included in a Remastered set where there were none before. It was an okay reprint that Merfolk people liked from 2007 that was safe to put in the set.
With non-Innistrad cards in an Innistrad Remaster, it makes you wonder how much crap they shoved in it that has nothing to do with Innistrad. If they put in off-theme cards for money, why stop at a single-digit rare?
happy new year! I quite enjoy your ranting content, I feel like you put my thoughts in words quite regularly, sadly
Haha, why thank you very much! And a happy new year to you too!
wotc: "were gonna do one planeswalker per set from now on"
>2-3 sets later
wotc: "we changed our minds"
I don't understand why they make a Final Fantasy set when it has it's own cardgame, but Lorwyn get's pushed back an entire year.
I think there is something forgotten about UB in standard sets- that even sets in MTG lore could still have the Jurassic World treatment with some characters visiting. Like Star Trek in Edge of Eternities
Video thoughts, I'll update as I go
- I don't mind the Innistrad setting reskins on cards, because there's a game design justification there. Bringing in "cards related to Innistrad, but which haven't been part of any sets there" could lead to balance issues taking the set as a whole, so letting themselves dip into thematically relevant cards (mass hysteria but make it werewolves is on flavor) is a tool to let them balance how everything interacts.
VS System was somewhere in between Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh. Basically, your face-down Plot Twists and Locations simultaneously became your resources (like the lands in Magic), with the added twist that you could also set characters (=creatures) in the resource zone, if you were really desperate (but they couldn’t attack from there). You could attack characters directly, like monsters attacking monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh. That’s about as much as I remember from the original, now discontinued VS System from the early 2000s - I’ve heard it’s been re-released with a slightly different rules system.
Oh that's a cool way of handling a resource system. Man I'd play that for sure. Especially if there was an X-men set!
Another interesting thing is that most of the characters are "legendary" but then you can use a duplicate in your hand as a combat trick.
Obviously for spiderman we need to rename the lands as follows
Swamps -> ghettos
Plains -> suburbs
Forests -> parks
Islands -> Ports
Mountains -> skyscrapers
Idk what to rename everything else as yet though
Jokes aside, your mention of magic mechanics and terms not making sense with UB stuff is similar to a conversation i had with a friend about The One Ring (a conversation i mentioned in another comment here)
It should have been a black card and maybe have some blue in it. Temptations and the desire (and price) of power is a very black thing and it being a tool of control and manipulation for sauron is also kinda blue. Instead they made it a colorless artifact so everyone can use it.
Happy New Year!
I appreciate your reasoned arguments and hope WotC will take heed. It is obvious you care for the game, its long-term health, and its players.
I do! And a happy new year to you too!
I felt the same way when I first saw the line up.
I guess I’ll be focusing on older sets that I missed out on.
Partly why I'm so on board with the Innistrad remaster
Happy New Year Red Bobcat!
00:24 wait... is that date correct? Does 2025 doesn't count and you are already seeing to 2026? That's harsh bro.
Of topic, but first time watching your video and i love how the art style of your character and overall tone remind me of yahtzee crowhaw of zero punctuation and fully ramblomatic fame.
Thank you! Believe it or not, that was completely unintentional. Unless you're more gifted than I, putting out a weekly animation means you need to make some short cuts. Stick figures, no mouths, circles for hands, no attached arms for instance. I was like 5 videos deep before I even realises it haha
That's why I built a cube to drafr with my friends & magic homies. Everything blends into powerful vintage decks.
With Spiderman, I suspect that there will be several different Spidermen alongside the array of villains and allies. The instants and sorceries are going to be actions like battle tricks that other planes have, Spiderman webbing a foe or swinging through the city can be spells. Instants and Sorceries have long since added in physical combat and daring feats that don't necessarily involve magic to perform. Enchantments can be focused on the magic villains Spiderman encounters like Mysterio.
Just a bit about the cultural consultants and Tarkir.
One reason they pointed out they worked with CCs may be because the first Tarkir block was kinda full of orientalist tropes. While I believe it wasn't made maliciously and the designer really wanted to portray the clans positively in relation to the cultures they were based on, it would be lying to say that some portrayals weren't kind of outdated (the whole sultai clan, while interesting story-wise and fitting in the universe, is based on the colonial "myth" of India's "elites" performing gruesome rituals to obtain supernatural powers).
With this in mind, WotC pointing out the fact they're working with CCs may be done in order to reassure some worried players that the less tasteful portrayals of some aspects of the clans may be slightly reworked.
Happy new year Mr. Bobcat. Frankly, as a not exactly longtime player, I’m sick of WOTC’s management of the game, and I’ve only been playing for 6-7 years.
As for the tarkir cultural consultation thing, spice8rack has a good(but long) video on the issues with it, but I'll try to boil it down. Original tarkir was a lot of the western interpretation of the cultures it presented, rather than being faithful representations of those cultures with a magic twist.
The Rakshasa were based on a wholly western concept with close to no ties to actual Hindu demons, in addition to the fact the culture it was representing(Southeast Asian culture) was vastly deeper and different from its portrayal.
man I love going on ebay to get five year old draft booster boxes, thanks wizards of teh coast for supporting me in this endeavor!
Looks like I'll finally be able to fill out my backlog of singles this year. I haven't really had a breather since Kaledesh. Thanks WOTC!
7:30 I think it's the other kind of scenario. Their sensitivity readers found something to be outraged about that nobody else even noticed in the original Tarkir sets so now they have had to change whatever that is and that's why they're telling us they worked with cultural consultants.
happy new year!!
Happy New Year!
2:12 For a moment I thought that said "Groovy was their stage."
I'd be a fan of a tie-dye werewolf
I'm only one person, but I don't mind your longer videos. 👍
As a lifelong SpiderMan fan, there are a couple simple solutions to your stated problem of adapting to the game:
-Multiversal characters. Miles Morales, Miguel O'Hara, Spider-Gwen, etc.
-Variations on characters. There have been so many different suits and eras for SpiderMan himself to tap into- Symbiote suit, Superior, Future Foundation, etc.
-The rogue's gallery is surprisingly deep for the Webhead, and not all of them are straight up villains. He's also got a lot of allies and friends; personally, I'm curious how they'd do a J. Jonah Jameson card.
Are they perfect solutions? No. But it is most likely where they'll be going. Same with the potential X-Men, Avengers, etc. sets that are in the pipeline.
I imagine you're probably correct and that's what they'll do
Maybe a J. Jonah Jameson card can have something with demanding something to happen when Spider-man shows up.
As for MTG: I genuinely would like to try MTG, but if this is the plan, I guess I'll stick to Yugioh and gradually branch more into some alt formats online. As well as try and define some decks for remote/irl play, battle box, and/or cubing.
Haven't even watched the video yet and I already agree. Played many standard games Saturday night and almost every game was basically the opponent playing their whole hand by turn 3 and either winning or losing on the spot. Standard is in such a bad spot and all the extra sets are going to just make it worse
I thought it was just me. I had delved into this game a couple months ago, thinking it was a longer format, dynamic game with lots of interplay. But I found most decks I've gone up against have almost no interaction (aside from removal) and consistently pull off very simple combos that win the game by turn four. Or else it comes down to, "Here's a uniquely difficult threat to deal with. Do you happen to have the answer in your hand?" If you do, you probably win. If not, you lose. I might give Commander a try, because it seems to have a lot more interaction and shouldn't have the consistency to pull off early combos, but I've checked out of the 1v1 formats.
I stopped playing and keeping up with Magic some time around 2018/2019, around the release of that Ravnica set, to focus on college. Decided to try and get back into it this year and oh man, it's as if I've been hit with multiple mental flashbangs looking at all of the things that has happened to the game since I've last played it. What the actual hell happened to Magic? Why are half of the sets for next year going to be from non-Magic settings? Why are Omenpaths a thing? Why is Kamigawa now cyberpunk, in a fantasy game of all things? Why is Chandra doing an Akira slide on a Tron bike? Why are they putting SpongeBob in Magic?
This is just utterly bizarre to see happen. The entire identity of Magic has been watered down so heavily these past 5 years it doesn't even feel like the same game. Was there any changes to the writing/design team between now and then? Because it honestly feels like they either brought on board new people who have no clue what it is they are doing, or the writing/design team have just lost full confidence in themselves and they have to resort to UB sets to pad out the year and having the Omenpaths act as a crutch. This sucks, man.
Pfff. I was a sailor for 22 years. We had a saying - a sailor's only happy when he's bitching about something. You're like that sailor. The truly happy sailor could be standing outside where it was raining 100-dollar-bills and he would STILL look up at the sky and shout "WHAT ???! YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING SMALLER??!
Well, as you said, you're a former sailor...and you've just made a strong case that a sailor is only happy when he's bitching about something. 😄
@schwaaard : yeah, was what I intended :)
@@MrCenturion13 😆👍
Happy new year &c,. Next year looks pretty miserable, but I am so willing to be pleased by it. I don't have a lot of faith, though.
I disagree with the point about blending things together (on the reskinned cards chapter) i think it’s quite interesting to see how some things look in different planes, like sorcerous spyglass from og ixalan and its reprint on eldrain.
Do you know what. Yes actually. In fact I made this exact argument for Sol Ring. I think for some reason I'm okay with it for Artifacts, but not spells? I don't know. I'll have a mull over on this, you've given me something to think about
@RedBobcatGames There’s also a raw mechanical argument to not create functional reprints of cards in eternal/non-rotating formats. There’s a good chance that having access to 8 copies of a card has unintended consequences. They intentionally make most cards have plane-neutral names for the express intent of reprinting with new flavour and that’s honestly correct as a gameplay-first restriction.
Providing a perspective from someone completely new to Magic: The Gathering, the Universes Beyond cards are what first caught my attention after so many years of no interest in the game at all. I got one of the Fallout commander decks, then also picked up Thunder Junction and Bloomburrow packs because I like their aesthetics and didn’t want to be restricted to only commander. I’ve found a local shop where people are willing to help a beginner learn to play the game.
That’s partially the point of UB- bringing new eyes to the game that wouldn’t have turned out otherwise. There’s also generally a pretty big overlap between different hobbies and subcultures, meaning they hope existing players will enjoy these crossovers. I can understand why these changes are frustrating though, especially since MTG’s original lore has been sidelined for things like Spider-Man or Final Fantasy. It’s bringing new eyes to the series though, so I feel like it does have a place in MTG. I agree that it shouldn’t take the spotlight though.