"We have six standard sets coming next year." That's definitely an issue. Like, I remember when Standard was between 4 and 6 sets, over two blocks, and that was honestly great.
@@ejaypozo84I mean, the problem is that a lot of them are under printed. New folks who want to try and join the community because they get to be Iron Man in commander or w/e can’t because Wizards doesn’t print enough of the UB sets.
Six is extremely... lot. The amount of money that would go into maintaining some standard level is a quite a bit. Foundations itself is a ton of fun, but yeah, the six releases per year is far too much. Four would be acceptable.
Slowly and gradually, this game sort of became Magic the Removal. Instead of toning it down when it was possible, WotC started introducing more ridiculous cards, leading to even more effective and efficient removal. Now we are in the era of: play something -> doesn't get answered instantly -> win. It might be balanced, but it is not fun.
and it's not going to get any better, otherwise people playing their Shiny New UB set featuring Cloud Strife (TM) will lose to turn 3 boros and stop playing and wotc can't have that, the power creep is going to only get that much worse and I'm sure they have to make sure the cards are high powered out of a need to meet specific sales numbers for their IP agreements as well, it'll basically always be the same speed of aggro in a different skin unless they print cards that DRAMATICALLY slow down or kill any sort of aggression, and I doubt they would
I actually like the older, slower formats with worse creatures and better answers. It actually emphasized better play decisions even more rather than just going "do you have the removal? No? Okay, I win!" kind of effect that is frequent today.
It's okay to have fond memories of slow magic, but faster magic is definitely here to stay. Trying to go back is like saying you want to remove all short-form content and go back to 2016, it's not realistic
I think the bigger issue for me is that six standard sets leaves only 2 months between releases. That means assuming I'm a hyperenfranchised tournament grinder, I can play eight FNMs, Plus maybe a weekend event or two. That means I get to play any given deck a maximum of 10 times. The only way around this is to get on Arena and spend twice as much money on the game. Buying the deck once on Arena and then again in paper. Then a shift in the metagame is going to happen with the new release, which might annihilate my deck, or might merely force me to make some tweaks. This makes the treadmill problem that standard already has significantly worse, wiping out any gains from the slower rotation.
Infact standard will have more sets in it than extended ever had. (16) And with most sets not having a through line of shared mechanics that's about 18 unique mechanical identities. With extended there was usually 6 unqiue mechanical identities. (Not counting core sets or foundations)
With a core set strong enough to make decks almost by itself. That's goijg to push the power of standard sets for 5 years. A set has to either have cards that outclass foundations. (Which why is the point of foundations) or do something foundations doesn't that is stronger then foundations can.
My worry is that, with 6 sets a year and 3 years of standard, it just seems awfully difficult to account for 19 sets worth of cards at any given time. That was always one of the things I liked better about Standard is that it was easier for someone new to learn what to play around or expect.
Exactly this. I brew on Arena but I try to make decks that can at least function in the meta. It's lower tier decks, or "this is what I have" piles, or other brews, that cause more issues, non-games, and misplays. A reasonable level of that is ok, probably healthy to keep the meta from stagnating, but there's going to be so, so much of it, and it's tough for newer or weaker players to keep enthused about losing games where they never felt like they could do anything about it.
I literally think the only problem murders had was that everyone was in hats, the concept of a murder political mystery in ravnica is really exciting to me, big urban intrigue feels very fitting to ravnica, the only issue was that they didn;t have "big ticket murder in ravnica, how do all the guilds and characters react?" it was "suddenly everyone just played and is really hyperfixated on the great ace attorney and wants to be herlock sholmes"
Situations like the Marvel secret lair are going to hurt WOTC more than they realize. I have seen more people interested in proxy sites than ever before after that disaster and I’m not sure there is going to be a lot of going back for some people. Short sighted anti-consumer practice only hurts the brand
100% Standard is the new Modern now. Like the "foundations" that Wizards is laying here is really good and I love a ton of the cards here, but man do decks feel super powerful compared to the old generation of standard I guess we'll call it.
Yeah, I don't dislike this set by itself. But I think the larger format change is essentially going to destroy Standard. It's basically a different format with the same name now.
I don't think that's a foundations issue tbh, most of the decks I'm seeing winning standard leagues right now barely have foundation cards, if any... A lot of the good foundation cards are way too expensive for a format with such a fast aggro meta, it feels like if your game plan is not online by turn 3, maybe 4, you are out of the game.
WotC: We want Modern to be a 4+ turn format. Standard: We are dying on turn 2 and 3. WotC: Everything is fine. I watched the Pioneer championship in Europe a week ago. All the decks were just standard decks with better lands and then Izzet Phoenix. What the hell is the point of all the other formats at this point?
@herpderp66 Izzet Phoenix has only ever been the 3rd best deck and Rakdos got cards banned not Phoenix. Black based decks have been the best deck in Pioneer since the format started. They have banned a card out of whatever the best Bx deck is almost every B&R and Bx decks are still the most dominant in the format.
53:30 So... my problem with that argument is... does that new wave have staying power? I mean, some will probably stay, but what proportion will just have a transient interest in the game for a few months after cards featuring their favorite franchise are released? What proportion will get exhausted by the continuous onslaught of new cards the same way the old guard is? What proportion will leave or start proxying because of the prohibitive costs of having good decks, especially in this new standard that promises to be much more powerful than before? It's great to get new players, but if they leave just as quickly as they arrive, it won't help revitalize Magic.
It's not a monolith is the thing, some will stay and some will leave. I think there's little reason to believe it will be any less (or more) retention than other sets. Whether or not this offsets people leaving or retains players has yet to be seen, I think they know they're taking a risk and will adjust based on how it turns out. I'd rather they continue to try and evolve than play it safe and, like they said towards the end, stay in a little bubble while the entire world moves ahead of them.
@@ShadowMage223 That's a point but, at the same time, you don't need Universe Beyond for the game to evolve. And well... when you have people coming to the game because they like another IP instead of because the game interested them, I'm pretty sure there'll be less retention overall. I might be wrong, but it feels like it'll attract players in the short-term but will see a net loss in the long term combined with the price and product fatigue issues.
@Ellie-Angela I think they've seen with the existing UB that people just need to get their hands on the game and they'll be hooked - I was a LOTR convert, I had tried to get into standard before with arena but wasn't really hooked until I really got into the thick of it through releases like LOTR and Fallout. It isn't necessarily that people arent interested in magic it's that they haven't tried it or given it enough of a shot. Drawn in by IP, sucked in by how fun the game is, that's what crim was trying to say about the "blank cards" thing. But product fatigue is a real concern and I think being skeptical of that is totally fair. But there is definitely a way they can design the formats such that you don't really *need* to interact with every release (i.e. low power creep), with foundations forming the higher power "glue" of the decks.
Sheoldred is a good benchmark for what standard has become. When she was printed, easily the best card in standard. Now, she's often times too slow and rarely included in pro decks. They wanted faster, they got it
@@kunimitsune177 However you feel about it, whether it was Grixis, Esper or really any other midrange. Sheoldred was a meta staple from ladder to pro tour. Most played creature in standard
Sheoldred isn't good in arena if the algorithm doesn't want it to be. If the opponent finds their third go for the throat in their top 10 cards than sure she isn't good. I think arena is so damn toxic and we are so used to unrealistic things happening we can't decently Guage some stuff
There's always gonna be people opposed to gatekeepers and saying they're exaggerating and I agree to a certain extent but it becomes silly imo when it turns into "we'll get used to it, we've seen worse". Basically giving up, bending down and letting the mega corporation do whatever extracts the most money from its player base with absolute disregard for the quality of the product. Also the amount of discussions not mentioning the fact that Standard will have 18 sets is baffling to me. The flavor and UB is whatever, but having 2 months between sets and 18 total sets is unsustainable.
We already had a *murder mystery* plane, it was called Fiora, the setting from the Conspiracy. It was called *Conspiracy*, the themes of murder and mystery and betrayal had already been planted. Sure, it doesn't have as many familiar characters, but the themes at least wouldn't have felt forced.
But, see, that was Renaissance-era Machiavellian political intrigue. If they wanted to do a detective set there, they would've had to Neon Dynasty the plane far into the future. Meanwhile, Ravnica is based on 19th-century Eastern European cities with some steampunk and urban fantasy elements, so it's a perfect setting. They just tropified it excessively with weak narrative continuity (though the story was pretty decent). I think Ravnica was the right choice of plane (though New Capenna could've also worked with a more Film Noir/ French New Wave aesthetic), but putting a fedora on a gargoyle was the wrong way to go about it, as it's more Ravnican't than Ravnican.
I still feel like Karlov Manor was supposed to be New Capenna II, but based on the response there was a moment of "oh no, we've gotta pivot fast, people didn't like that"
It didn't feel forced at all to me. I think it was already great, but I do think the conspiracy plane might have been better, but it was already awesome.
I get the talk around 55:00 about there were always complainers around magic taking a difference in thematic approach, but I think the huge difference here is that these are brand deals bringing IP's into magic. It's like selling out to other companies and brands for money, not just thematically taking the game somewhere different. I mean like holy hell, the next year is gonna be 50% not the magic IP in our magic sets, but instead it being universes beyond. I think it's valid to think that's a huge issue and mostly brand deal money grabbing. Not the same as having samurai theme or a different historical take in a plane.
Yep, and there are only so many prestige IPs. It is inevitable that more mid IPs will be used in the future, or even just real-life brands (NFL was a good example, or imagine Aetherdrift but it's Harley Davidson, etc). Unfortunately, the players that care about this are now the minority, I think. The game Magic was 10 years ago is dead and never coming back. Magic is purely profit-driven and UB is uber profitable. Still sucks to watch happen
Absolutely. It'd be diff if they were sprinkling it in with some taste like lotr. But it's so brazen and disgusting. That, and the fact that it (UB) is being FORCED into standard. Yuck. Gtfo.
@@petr4150 I mean, those of us who do care about magic's IP have already left and just watching on from the sidelines at this point. Hasbro told us we weren't welcome anymore, and we left.
@schroecat1 I haven't left and there are plenty I know who despise the universes beyond move. We just plan to draft other sets and not touch universes beyond
Agreed. Plus, the huge brands just choke out other ideas. I'm not a fan of everything being crossover platforms where the big brands show up over and over. If every game or whatever does the whole "UB, and it's legal everywhere" thing, we end up with EVERYTHING being Marvel. I like Marvel, but I don't want everything to be Marvel. I don't want every game I play to just be filled with references, guest characters and so on - it just kills any unique identity a property has. But honestly, we were already in the "too far gone" territory as far as I'm concerned. Hat magic just makes me feel like the people in charge don't really have it in them to consistently bring out interesting new planes. And the whole, "it's a multiverse, so it's fine!" By that extension, our world is fine to visit too. Legendary Creature - Donald Trump. Enchantment - 2024 Presidential Election. "People are always gonna complain! It's not a big deal!"
The thing is that Arena tried to make the cards exciting too, but between people complaining about them and not wanting to pay animators you don't see the cool entry animations anymore. Remember how crazy it was the first time Uro hit the board, or if you ever did Cast Off and saw the giant hand come in to squish the battlefield. I personally remember making a deck with luminous Broodmoth just because I thought the flying in animation was sweet.
_Fiend Artisan_ and _Luminous Broodmoth_ animations are so cool. I don't care if the game looks like a bowling screen; give me my neat animations! Could you imagine the _Abhorrent Oculus_ or _Herald of Eternal Dawn_ animations?
Arclight Phoenix entry scraw was great. Look at YGO Master Duel adding some cool visuals to cards like Zeus, they get that that stuff is important and Konami is probably one of the most out of touch card companies out there
"It could be blank white squares as long as the gameplay is good" I heavily disagree, and as someone who also has a foot in the Fighting Game Community, this comment is very reminiscent of Combofiend saying that Magneto in MvC is "just a function" - a sentiment that drew HUGE criticism from the fan base. Lore matters. Aesthetic cohesion matters. Not for everyone, of course not, but in the same way that we need to acknowledge people who like UB because they're fans of SpongeBob or whatever, we also need to recognize that the other side (focus on Magic's core lore) is just as valid. And sure you can say that it's not like the core story isn't serviced anymore, but as both of you discussed this episode, the recent "pure" Magic sets (i.e. not other IPs) have been extremely weak on a narrative level, while also feeling like the priority is put more on gimmicks than on narrative cohesion. And lore focused players aren't just limited to old boomers. But they will be soon if the game continues like this, because new players will barely have any interesting unique MTG lore to hold on to anymore.
THANK YOU. The issue with the some of the worst Universes Beyond sets and breaking immersion is that things like Marvel Comics clash so much with the fantasy setting that Magic is. Even some of the more sci-fi things in Magic like the Phyrexians still have fantasy elements to them. This is why Lord of the Rings is a very beloved Universes Beyond set and why the Walking Dead was such a controversial one. LotR is fantasy, it is the fantasy that inspired DnD and Magic. The more Universes Beyond that Magic does that clash with its fantasy setting the more it erodes the lore and settings of Magic the Gathering. I am all for bringing in new players with Universes Beyond IPs but I think they should be things that fit with Magic's aesthetic as a fantasy.
I think one issue that Wizards is really honed in on is that, as it stands, Magic has no star power whatsoever. I mean that in the sense that nobody outside of Magic's community is deriving any sort of appealing brand identity from Jace or Loot or whoever they're deciding to push as the next face. And the immediate reaction from a lot of players is "well they just haven't invested enough in a cohesive lore or universe!" when in reality they've been actively trying to do so for 30 years. Wizards has had literal decades to create an IP that draws new players and retains old ones based on setting alone, and they haven't managed to do it. At least not on the scale that compares to UB. I would say Magic is, in contrast to MvC, dominated by function. The most memorable cards are always treasured for their impact on the gameplay first, and their flavor second. Creatures like Tarmogoyf, Snapcaster Mage, and Dark Confidant have practically zero lore, but their power in game skyrockets them to the height of Magic's recognizable cards. Every once and a while you'll get a JTMS or a Yawgmoth where a powerful, recognizable card is also recognizable in the lore, which is a home run on WOTC's part. But we're lightyears away from people running up the price of a new Jace card just because it's Jace. Again, Magic has failed to do in 30 years what franchises like Pokemon, Yugioh, and even Lorcana have done with much less, and Hasbro is tired of it. Hence UB, the Netflix show, the sudden explosion of secret lair drops, etc...
You can disagree all you want but he's right. It's like saying chess would be bad if the naming of the pieces were different, nope it would be still good because the game is good. The flavour you add is just that flavour. Bad art of old MTG never held it back, nor did yugioh's funny that.
@@Waffletown654 yeah this comment nails it. They got close with a few characters like Jace, but no one goes as crazy for him compared to say Blue Eyes White Dragon for Yugioh or for Charizard and Pokemon. Which isn’t to say that they haven’t tried but they certainly haven’t succeeded like other card games have. Yugioh and Pokemon had it easier because of their anime/manga origins but that doesn’t mean MTG couldn’t have caught up with better execution.
@@N7Crow So I think you're touching on what I consider the most relevant point at the end there: MTG does not have the cross-media tie-ins that YGO and Pokemon have (or hell, even the One Piece and Digimon TCGs, most of what Bandai does tbh). That is a huge thing. The vast, vast majority of players in those games came into the game via the anime, manga, what have you. MTG doesn't have that. However, that puts them in a weird position. They could attempt to create that kind of media tie-in (in the same way that LoL has Arcane, for instance), but at this point MTG is already looking back at a 30 year history, which makes it quite difficult to create a series/comic/movie/whatever that works as both a draw for new players and doesn't alienate the existing fanbase. And while they still do some of that (e.g. that nebulous Netflix animated series that's supposedly coming), they clearly decided that instead of making their own mythos more interesting and accessible to newcomers, they simply leech off of other fan communities. The problem here is that the message that sends is "Come play Magic, we have Iron Man / [whichever UB you want to use here]", which doesn't bring any incentive for those new players to engage any deeper with the core setting. The channel RedBobcatGames put it well in their most recent video I think: It leads to a segregation of the player base.
I like Crim... he's clearly coping, but I like Crim. You should not be doomed if you don't draw out curve every single game and you should be able to be rewarded for choosing simply to untap and pass (even without a bunch of flash cards or counter spells). The game as lost a lot of nuance when you don't need to make as many executive decisions but just play by flow chart and the cards are no so powerful that it is the optimal way to play.
Foundations, on its own, would have been great! But 6 standard sets a year, a 3 year rotation and the need for every set to sell for eternal formats these days are all terrible. On top of all of that it likely just doesn't matter.
Yeah, it may be a bit of a tangent but I hate the contemporary tendency to design for eternal formats. It may be the boomer in me but I prefer the good old days where cards were designed for standard and the eternal formats were more organic. My opinion for sure doesn't matter though as I can't afford to play Magic outside of budget EDH.
CGB is absolutely right on this. Between the normal power creep that happens with the miserable switch to 3 year rotations, and a 5 year power-boosted “core set,” standard is too fast and strong to have the type of thoughtful, plan based gameplay Magic is supposed to be about. I can usually tell within two turns whether I’m going to win, or it’s literally impossible to. That’s not fun or interesting.
I think that something getting lost in the conversation with UB sets, and the shift to half UB, half not, is that people understand that Magic is more than the art and name on a card. The mechanics of Magic, with lands, and spells, and the stack are all great and solid. They have well stood the test of time and gone on to inspire and influence many other games. So no, Magic is not anywhere close to dying when you look at it like that. There are concerns, and I'm glad Crim brought this up, around testing and power level, but we'll have to wait and see how this shift changed Standard and other formats. If someone's really worried about that then I suggest they look into Pauper for a cheap, but still competitive constructed format, or Commander for a bit of a broader more casual format. On the other hand the art and names of cards do matter. They are not the end all, be all as I said before, but they do matter, otherwise UB wouldn't have happened in the first place. So for those who don't care for Spider-Man or Final Fantasy is can be harder to get into, or an outright let down if they actively dislike those properties. I don't think it's necessarily a problem of not being high fantasy either. As far as theme or genre goes there have been plenty of sets in Magic's history that are either not high fantasy, or even if they are high fantasy they take a different spin on it to make them unique, Innistrad is a perfect example of the former, and original Ravnica the latter. What all of these sets have in common though is that they are in Magic's worlds. I'm not sure how to say it any other way. Magic is what it is because it's a multiverse of its own worlds. Maybe the better way to put it is I can only really go to Magic to see Magic's worlds and characters. There are some comics, and the story that releases with every set, don't get me wrong, but if I want magic characters and magic gameplay I go to the game. If half of all sets coming out are UB half the time I'll only be getting the game portion, and losing out on the art/flavor side. That's the best way I've found to describe this disconnect I have with UB sets and hopefully anyone who reads this understands where I'm coming from.
100% understand where you're coming from. And I do think it intersects with gameplay too, simply because so many UB sets now have unique and often powerful/useful cards. I would have way less of a problem with it if they stuck with the Godzilla approach of simply having these UB cards be skins for existing cards - people who love those franchises can get their cool alt arts, and people who don't want to engage with that stuff can still play normally without missing out on anything. But since they're mechanically unique, the only choice I have beyond just not playing at all is to either bite the bullet and include cards I actively dislike the flavor of, or not include them and deliberately handicapping myself by reducing my available card pool. It's so frustrating.
Talking about magic deviating from "high fantasy," and y'all mentioned original Kamigawa, but magic has had heavy sci fi influence from very early on. The entire Weatherlight saga was *dripping* with sci fi vibes, Mirage block was almost renaissance coded in places, the victorian horror of The Dark, Arabian Nights, and even ABU didn't keep to a single "high fantasy" tone. There's never been a point where magic was ever strictly "high fantasy," no matter how someone would try to define high fantasy as a term.
You can ask Rarran about how is it feels to play standart where one set just never rotates. Hearthstone players lived with the same basic set for 7 years, and at some point it became a torture
Honestly, it is already a torture to me personally, even though it was just increased from 2 to 3 years. The last rotation we lost some annoying cards like Wandering Emperor, which I am glad for, but it mostly stayed the same and still overly powerful. Tbh, I miss the "full rotation" with a single set right after. Yeah, it gets boring real quick when you only have a single set, but it kinda feels like a fun half vacation from mtg. Once more sets come out, you are basically back in anyways
Pro Tour Gatecrash was a standard tournament, which was literally was won by the Boros Reckoner Blasphemous Act deck and beat more than 1 control deck to do so. Control was good then but it was hardly overpowered compared to creatures. I feel like the criticism that creatures weren't good enough is off by like 5-10 years there.
In my opinion Magic has been taking massive L's since I picked up the hobby in Theros: Beyond Death. Collector's Packs, Secret Lairs, Product Fatigue, Universes Beyond, dilution of the IP in general... I'm already completely out other than watching youtube content.
Welcome to the club! We started around the same time, and I stopped right after MH3 due to insane powercreep. The feeling I had when I played the War of the Spark block, feeling totally immersed in the set and universe of Magic, is long gone. Now it's either cowboy/ detective hats, or stuff like Spongebob or Marvel.
printing exquisite blood on a creature and sanguine bond on a creature in back to back sets seems like a really bad idea plus black is the only mono color with an efficient infinite loop in standard seem like black is just the best color in magic in general
I used Starscape Cleric with Delney in a BW Critter/Bats Deck Having Lifecreed Duo T2, Delney T3 and Starscape Cleric with Offspring on T5 can be deadly too
Not back to back. Back to back to back. Enduring Tenacity in Duskmourn, Starscape Cleric in Bloomburrow, and Marauding Blight-Priest got a reprint in Foundations as well. That's three Sanguine Bonds in Standard, right now.
I was listening to this in the background and i got jumpscared by 1:29:34 so bad I had to rewind and make sure that the audio was from the video and not from somewhere else
I feel like a lot of decks are too fast and too powerful, probably simply bc of the large pool of cards. Played some Historic, Explorer and Standard today. Honestly couldn't tell you the difference. Found myself wondering what the point of Standard is, then. And for some reason, it feels like people are bringing their meta decks into the play queue, too. As for paper, I was thinking about joining some local Standard tournaments next year but with that many cards to have to pick the best from, this many updates and UB in Standard to boot, I just won't bother. Will still play casually but will never try to rank again or join a tournament, probably. Just how I feel about it.
As someone who drives truck and listens to podcasts alot, and you being my favorite TH-camr and has been wanting a podcast with you brought back, PLEASE DO MORE OF THESE!!!! THIS WAS F'ING AWESOME!!!! 😁😁😁😁👍👍👍👍
I think UB will become the norm. It's alot easier to use an existing IP than building one from the ground up and hoping it sells. My main concern in the long run is: A: Will players stick around regardless of the IP's? Will a player who comes in for Final Fantasy wanna still play when the Game of Thrones set drops? Wizards may be hurting long term growth for short term profits. 2: The fact that ToR isn't banned in Modern is really perplexing to me and the cynical part of me think that there's a clash between the owners of these IP's and banning cards. I can see a world where the health of formats comes second to profit which could see magic moving away from the competitive scene and just embracing the fun and casual nature of commander and brawl.
If it's profitable for Wizards/Hasbro then absolutely not. If it ends up burning people out then maybe they will course correct but probably not. So I'm not hopefull. The only thing that matters in our society is profit unfortunately. If Magic could make their money selling cards to a single individual they would.
What a treat. I really enjoyed you 2 together on the worst possible commander show, then was absolutly hyped to see you both again on shuffle up and play and now we get this. Also for a long time missed CGBs Arena podcast, so really cool in general to have you on a podcast again Mesa falcon-guy. For a long time your videos were my go-to for falling asleep at evening, but recently i have been hyped about your content again
As someone that only buys collecter products to try and get the anime foils, and have 3 completely custom anime art proxy commander decks. Yes I would play an anime foil only deck. Gladly.
My problem is that counterspells are unplayable. I tried playing tempest djinn tempo and the card was alright vs red and llanowar elf decks, but when opponent was playing tribal or domain and dropping uncounterable overlords starting from t3 there is literally nothing you can do about it. That leads to everyone playing doom blade tribal(demons/golgari) or red aggro
I'm definitely not the type of person to dislike something simply because it's new and different. I'm glad some people are enjoying the uptick in universes beyond stuff and, of course, magic isn't anywhere close to dying. That segment of this podcast sounds kind of dismissive of people's opinions though imho. I simply like mtg lore and characters. As much as I do the gameplay (which is a lot). I'm just a bit sad to be getting less of that per year than before to make room for the universe beyond stuff.
My favorite thing about CGB Is that he isn't pretentious like so many other magic creators. I normally can't listen to magic players talk for this long.
I’ve been running a couple awesome decks w Bloodfeather Phoenix and Virtue of Courage! Think about it like this: turn 2 Artist’s Talent. Turn 3 Boltwave, Talent triggers, loot away the Phoenix, Boltwave resolves, pay 1 mana return Phoenix w haste, hold up another mana for Torch the Tower.
Hey me too! Talent + Phoenix is such a nice combo, and the fact that Talent and Virtue provide a nice late game engine means it doesn't hurt as much to use your burn spells on creatures if you need to. I'm also running 2 copies of Second Rites and I've been getting people with it surprisingly often. Plus Talent lets you rummage it away if it's dead! Honestly the most fun I've had in Standard in a while.
This current Standard environment is the closest the game has felt, since I started playing in Tarkir block, to playing Yugioh. I have lost games on turn three. When I go from Arena to Master Duel, games tend to end on turn five or six (In Yugioh, each player’s turn is another on the counter, instead of a full rotation being one turn).
I still hold out that Murders should have been on Capenna more. Its my favorite plane and could have given Capenna something to brag about with the lands. The theme of Murders fits Capenna way better and would have given us potentially new leaders of the groups.
51:38 A first time player of magic friend of mine not so long ago got our table of veterans with Savage Ventmaw + Aggravated Assault (that I gifted him to upgrade his draconic destruction precon deck). His realization of "Oh, this goes forever, right?" was beautiful. He is now realizing that playing a random mana rock that also gives haste will put the table on edge faster than any BIG/BIG dragon and is loving it. That said he also hates it that now the table runs a lot more of instant speed removal.
I tore through a tournament in the early 2000's with a mono red deck that was all haste/sacrifice creatures and burn spells. My final opponent I played Urza's Rage with kicker, into Final Fortune, into another Urza's Rage with kicker to win the first game. But she was playing a Blue Skies deck and had Chill in her sideboard, so I lost big time the following two games haha.
We need at least an episode with Arjuna! As for Foundations, I think it's dangerous to have format warping cards lasting so long. Cards like Llanowar Elves or Wrath of God may not look much but they warp what is playable or not and can limit future design. I think in this case it's better to take a more conservative approach.
Yoo nice! I hope we get more episodes. I miss having CGB in podcast form. The ArenaCraft Podcast was my favorite CGB content during it's era. Glad to see similar content returning to the channel, even if this is just a one-off
It would be good but they put in some things that should not be there, i do not want to play against cheese turn 4 omniscense decks for 5 goddamn years.
Foundations wouldn't be a problem if WOTC was committed to a sane standard release schedule, but there are multiple ways to combo out consistently on turn 4 or 5 now, and contra to purple hair guy's contention, there really aren't answers for most of it. So, just imagine what standard will look like when it's Foundations plus 9 sets or Foundations plus 12 sets or Foundations plus 15-16 sets as we near the end of 2026. It's insanely fast now and it's only going to get faster.
I wonder how large the audience would be for a "loreful" format that bans UB and everything else which isn't within the standard Magic setting. Hold "loreful modern" and "loreful commander" etc, and see how the players like it.
I think we have two distinct issues and both seem pretty easy to solve. 1) 6 standard legal sets x 3 years = 18 sets in standard + foundations makes for a standard with 3500 - 5000 cards in it depending on where we are in rotation - compared to old 2 year standard with 4 standard legal sets per year which at its largest was more like 2500 cards. That's fine but it is a lot more to manage. I suspect some new shorter than standard (annual? deciduous?) format will emerge that just includes the 6 most recent sets and foundations giving a constantly rolling pool of around 2000 cards. 2) UB being a large proportion of standard. Recent sets have leaned heavily into Magic as a collectable with alt frames and alt arts comprising almost half of each set (by collector number) which is cool, it facilitates there being stuff that is out there or collectors while not excluding the player base from access to the cards. Why not in UB sets, use some of this alternate art space to add the in-universe partners to mechanically unique UB cards - or even make it something like - Big Score - a set within a set. Then on the UB cards we could use the 'counts as' naming conventions we have grown used to with things like the Dracula cards from crimson vow. Once again, best of both worlds - its not like they are not commissioning extra art already for any given card so it wouldn't stuff their system and those who don't want UB to 'infect' their decks can have in universe versions with a minimum of fuss.
The blank white squares is wrong. Simply wrong. The game as it is does not exist for blank white squares. Everybody has a pack of playing cards and nobody paid more than $5 for them. Theming drives design. You think they're coming up with interesting blank white squares? No. You think the mana and color system exists with blank white squares? No. Hell the main reason I don't mind UB even when it's IPs I really don't like is, they have to more closely follow the theming when designing, which makes for better cards than some of the obviously bad designs they've come up themselves in the last few years.
Oh yeah and to add to Crim's "Are they properly testing these 6 sets a year", you also have to remember that the testing is getting stretched even thinner when you consider testing the commander cards, commander precons, direct to modern sets, secret lair, etc.
I'd think its good, as kind of just an enternal core set. But DAMN is it fast and powerful that makes me worry about how much cards will have to be banned or restricted Especially as we move into the next 2-3 years of standard legal cards. Like, if *this* is the power we're expected to see from a 5 year set, the 2-3 year sets will *have* to be more powerful, and its pretty intimidating to think that literally every card in Wacky Racers, Final Fantasy, Spider-Man, Space Opera and Lorwyn Delaying Unannounced Set will have to not just compete with the raw power we see at the moment but literally outpace it
the reason i played standard for nearly 10 years now is that i loved the 2 year rotation small cardsizes ... wasnt it even 1 year at kaladesh and they reverted it fast to 2 ? 3 years already are to much cards with 4 sets a year i would even complain right now about 6 sets a year 2 year legal standard being to big ... but a 3 year legal standard 6 sets a year means 18 sets + foundation being legal at some point ... that feels like pioneer at that point or modern ... standard was always 4-8 sets and now its 18+ -_- i have lost every intrest in standard because of this, and it was also intended to "make cardshops and real cards player happier" ??? WTF since 3 year rotation every single card store in 50km around me have stopped offering standard as people lost all the intrest ... rly good move guys that worked so well
There are two camps of people on this, one is "this has been done before so Im not that into it" and the other is "this has been done before so I can wrap my mind around this, lets go!"
For me the worst thing about Universes Beyond is that they feel creatively bankrupt. More like something a fan on Reddit would make than an official product. I started playing during the Weatherlight saga and the story ended up being one of my favorite things about the game despite not caring at all about it initially. There was a ton of lore to dig up, interesting characters whose identities were more than 'x color personified', and it kept evolving from one set to the next. Wizards crafted their own lore and made cards to fit. Now they're just ripping off other IPs for cheap cash grabs. Crim did make a good point in bringing in new players though. For Magic to keep going they will always need new players and it's not like Wizards hasn't tried other methods to get them, if Universes Beyond is what it takes for the game to thrive then I guess I'm just a crotchety old boomer lamenting about the good ol' days and yelling at the kids with their ridiculous SpongeBob cards to get the hell off my lawn.
Standard for me is less fun then pre rotation. And I have to disagree with Crims logic here. If the issue is that removal/answers are too good the solution is not to print a handfull powerfull cards so you reach equilibrium. Because all it does it reduces your format to the few hyper pushed answers ( right now prowess decks) and the "oops I answer everything" decks ( dimir and golgari midrange.) For all other decks it feels like an endless casino where the house ( aka the meta) sooner or later always wins. The right answer is to rotate faster. Which, with the change to a 3 year rotation is in my opinion something that will eat at magic over the next years.
I remember the first time playing Magic at a friends house and seeing Alaborn Cavalier and I thought it was great that different planes had different tech levels. It felt like it really was multiversal.
Regarding UB, my sadness is that it and the more spoofy sets recently (Eldraine, Capenna, Bloomburrow, Duskmourne) signal that WotC is similtaneously going more exotic with their plane ideas (which is okay) and taking the lowest hanging fruit card ideas to translate the planes into sets (which I dislike). A lot of cards these days use blatant references and puns and stereotypes that scream a side-eyeing "Get it?" It's great if a card is just a fairly generic thing like Getaway Car or Heaped Harvest or Big Score. I dig that. It's cards like Carrot Cake and Enchanted Carriage and Sleep with the Fishes that really feel like low-hanging fruit, less genuine worldbuilding and more cards to serve the Gimmick. It's been more pronounced ever since they eliminated blocks and as rules text has eclipsed flavor text. (I don't even care whether cards _look_ like they're "from Magic," honestly. I liked the collage of artstyles in older Magic sets and I wish main sets weren't so uniform now. I just care whether they feel like they're trying to do something new.)
I think the biggest problem in understanding with standard for people who played back in the day is the progression of magic as a game. It has become very similar to Yugioh in one sense - the game is almost entirely about +/- on card value, almost everything replaces itself in some way these days. The control decks we remember playing were extremely efficient at wearing down an opponent and the control decks were often times the only decks that had access to any kind of efficient card generation options. These days red has burning the top of the deck, blue has draw, white has good token generation, and black has draw or graveyard recursion as essentially basic mechanics. Green is really the only deck that doesn't have those draw engines but often times it doesn't matter because whatever color it is paired with will make up for it. I don't think this is a bad thing and gives much better color diversity for playing options. What really hurts MesaFalconGuy is I think we are a point where blue is definitively not the best color in magic anymore and all the colors are much more even in their power. What I hope foundations does it keeps standard from getting too close to pioneer and modern in power level and creates a path for future sets where if for instance the Sanguine combo just sees 0 play and isn't considered good enough it is a sign for them they are printing cards too powerful into the non-foundation/core sets. I think this is a high hope for wizards given the context of universes beyond sets being set to be legal in standard in the near future, but none of us know the future and can only guess at what is going to happen in the next 5 years for magic. It is a good talking point but we should focus on doing the best we can with what we are given in the moment. If standard ends up being great, hopefully there will be more local tournaments for it, if it ends up being terrible then maybe another format will be fun to play and we will see more those around. No matter what game you play, the people you play with matter more than the cards you play with, find the right group and it won't matter if the set is good or bad, you'll have a good time regardless.
Kutzil is a great add to the cat deck for some solid card advantage combined with the Squire and completely shuts down removal mid combat for the blow outs.
I quit MTG with the insult that was their 30th anniversary thing. It was actually a great decision, I was jsut so burnt out. To me the biggest issue is WOTC. It speaks volumes that Larrian Studios does not want to cooperate with them anymore even with the succes of Baldurs Gate 3 in their pockets. Still very much enjoy your content tho. I don not want to be too negative, I am happy if people still enjoy it. It just is not for me anymore.
Well I can already say I'm tired of Bloodthirsty Conqueror. If I don't have hard removal that destroys, exiles, or burns for 5 at instant speed, waiting for the opponent to play Conqueror every game now, I lose a third of my games automatically.
I think 5years is way too long for a rotating format (we have non-rotating formats). And the next big mistake is butchering the MTG identity with UB sets. Of course it will sell cards as many fans of a UB will buy the cards (see the rush towards the Secret Lairs) but in the long run we will have no consistent game-feeling anymore with half the sets UB. And not to mention the 6sets per year topic.... BUT: Very nice to see you doing podcast!
This is awesome! Definitely need more of these podcast style videos! Great to listen to at work and love seeing the content with Crim. Maybe get Voxy in on the next one with him!
I love this content! Love hearing you and crim discuss this game and sharing personal experiences. I got into Magic to hang out with friends and it’s sick that so many new people are discovering a game I love.
I feel like highlighting the combo would have been a little more impactful with Marauding Blight-Priest instead of Starscape Cleric, MBP is also the other half of the combo, in Foundations, and printed at common. Like this isn't going away when Enduring Tenacity and Starscape Cleric when Duskmourn and Bloomburrow rotate out.
As a 20+ year long Magic player I really like the universes beyond stuff mainly because they've nailed the flavor with the mechanics hard so far. I love the rad counters from Fallout, I think Captain America is pretty cool, The Assassin's Creed stuff feels great. I think they missed on Wolverine badly (he should have either indestructible or zero cost regenerate imo) but I don't expect a 100% hit rate but then we also got Berserk and that's cool. I also like the renamed cards more than I though I would. From my perspective everything outside of Dominaria breaks the original flavor of Magic so I don't mind them going a bit wild. I straight up don't like the anime aesthetic stuff but that's a personal thing and I do think it's alright here and there as a novelty. I enjoy some anime (I always get a kick out of Blake's HxH gear) but it always feel like the worse stereotype of people at the LGS are dripping in anime paraphernalia. But again, that's a personal gripe.
Newer player here: Commander intimidates me, I really enjoy standard, and Duskmourn brought me into the game. UB being in standard doesn't bother me, just curious to see what comes next. Hoping to see you guys at MagicCon one of these days, thanks for the content!
Crim sounds like he is just straight up not able of critical thought. Always so tiring to listen to poeple asking him his opinion on any controversial Wotc decision only for us all to be confronted to the same Disneyland blind-positivity wall of blank statements that are his answers
I'm one of the people that really got into magic by Universes Beyond, I always been around the game but the doctor who product made me dive head in, now I have 3 commander decks (1 pre-con and 2 that I built), I play arena all the time and I'm looking to get into pauper, pioneer and budget legacy in paper play
The talk about creatures slowly replacing all other spells (around 18:00) reminds me of Yu-Gi-Oh! The older days of Yu-Gi-Oh! had weak to decent monsters and incredibly powerful spells and traps. Now, monsters do almost everything in almost every deck.
My best deck with 21-4 record is Grixis Superfriends with 2 mana Jace, Liliana General and Viel, vraska, Ral, Teferi, Chandra. Mostly planeswalkers with removal and draw. So yeah, you can cast 6 mana planeswalkers in standard. In fact when you flood the board with them, nobody can deal. And Ball Lighting, anointed Affliction hits it, go for the throat, bitter triumph, etc. it's good against other aggro tho
"We have six standard sets coming next year." That's definitely an issue. Like, I remember when Standard was between 4 and 6 sets, over two blocks, and that was honestly great.
It's ok./s 3 of the sets are standard sets but not magic the gathering sets for your magic the gathering game.
Am just gong to stop buying cards for a while. If you give them your money they will keep over printing.
That’s a lot of minimally playtested cards entering a format that rotates every 3 years now. We’ll have 20+ legal sets by end of 26
@@ejaypozo84I mean, the problem is that a lot of them are under printed. New folks who want to try and join the community because they get to be Iron Man in commander or w/e can’t because Wizards doesn’t print enough of the UB sets.
Six is extremely... lot. The amount of money that would go into maintaining some standard level is a quite a bit.
Foundations itself is a ton of fun, but yeah, the six releases per year is far too much. Four would be acceptable.
Slowly and gradually, this game sort of became Magic the Removal. Instead of toning it down when it was possible, WotC started introducing more ridiculous cards, leading to even more effective and efficient removal. Now we are in the era of: play something -> doesn't get answered instantly -> win. It might be balanced, but it is not fun.
and it's not going to get any better, otherwise people playing their Shiny New UB set featuring Cloud Strife (TM) will lose to turn 3 boros and stop playing and wotc can't have that, the power creep is going to only get that much worse and I'm sure they have to make sure the cards are high powered out of a need to meet specific sales numbers for their IP agreements as well, it'll basically always be the same speed of aggro in a different skin unless they print cards that DRAMATICALLY slow down or kill any sort of aggression, and I doubt they would
Cavern of souls is the problem not removal. You can't stop all the dumb stuff from happening. Especially true with DSK overlords
It feels less skill intensive than go fish at this point, which at least requires a hint of card recall and deduction.
Replying to myself, but... Just had two games in a row where opponents had nothing but lands and removal/discard, 7-10 per game... It just sucks.
removal definitely didn't keep up with threats, considering swords to plowshares is still by far the best creature removal ever printed.
I actually like the older, slower formats with worse creatures and better answers. It actually emphasized better play decisions even more rather than just going "do you have the removal? No? Okay, I win!" kind of effect that is frequent today.
Agreed.
It's okay to have fond memories of slow magic, but faster magic is definitely here to stay. Trying to go back is like saying you want to remove all short-form content and go back to 2016, it's not realistic
@@Crytaljam found the red player
@@TheKillaShow So you're saying that Red players are realistic? I never really considered that to be their type, but maybe you're right.
@@Crytaljamlove it or hate it this applies to a LOT of things people complain about these days, hobby or otherwise.
I think the bigger issue for me is that six standard sets leaves only 2 months between releases. That means assuming I'm a hyperenfranchised tournament grinder, I can play eight FNMs, Plus maybe a weekend event or two. That means I get to play any given deck a maximum of 10 times.
The only way around this is to get on Arena and spend twice as much money on the game. Buying the deck once on Arena and then again in paper.
Then a shift in the metagame is going to happen with the new release, which might annihilate my deck, or might merely force me to make some tweaks. This makes the treadmill problem that standard already has significantly worse, wiping out any gains from the slower rotation.
Standard is extended right now. 19 sets (including foundations) for the next few years
Infact standard will have more sets in it than extended ever had. (16)
And with most sets not having a through line of shared mechanics that's about 18 unique mechanical identities.
With extended there was usually 6 unqiue mechanical identities. (Not counting core sets or foundations)
With a core set strong enough to make decks almost by itself. That's goijg to push the power of standard sets for 5 years. A set has to either have cards that outclass foundations. (Which why is the point of foundations) or do something foundations doesn't that is stronger then foundations can.
My worry is that, with 6 sets a year and 3 years of standard, it just seems awfully difficult to account for 19 sets worth of cards at any given time. That was always one of the things I liked better about Standard is that it was easier for someone new to learn what to play around or expect.
Exactly this. I brew on Arena but I try to make decks that can at least function in the meta. It's lower tier decks, or "this is what I have" piles, or other brews, that cause more issues, non-games, and misplays. A reasonable level of that is ok, probably healthy to keep the meta from stagnating, but there's going to be so, so much of it, and it's tough for newer or weaker players to keep enthused about losing games where they never felt like they could do anything about it.
I literally think the only problem murders had was that everyone was in hats, the concept of a murder political mystery in ravnica is really exciting to me, big urban intrigue feels very fitting to ravnica, the only issue was that they didn;t have "big ticket murder in ravnica, how do all the guilds and characters react?" it was "suddenly everyone just played and is really hyperfixated on the great ace attorney and wants to be herlock sholmes"
Situations like the Marvel secret lair are going to hurt WOTC more than they realize. I have seen more people interested in proxy sites than ever before after that disaster and I’m not sure there is going to be a lot of going back for some people. Short sighted anti-consumer practice only hurts the brand
100% Standard is the new Modern now. Like the "foundations" that Wizards is laying here is really good and I love a ton of the cards here, but man do decks feel super powerful compared to the old generation of standard I guess we'll call it.
Yeah, I don't dislike this set by itself. But I think the larger format change is essentially going to destroy Standard. It's basically a different format with the same name now.
I don't think that's a foundations issue tbh, most of the decks I'm seeing winning standard leagues right now barely have foundation cards, if any... A lot of the good foundation cards are way too expensive for a format with such a fast aggro meta, it feels like if your game plan is not online by turn 3, maybe 4, you are out of the game.
Caw o and jund wanna have a word with you
@@eleuisthen they aren't good cards
WotC: We want Modern to be a 4+ turn format.
Standard: We are dying on turn 2 and 3.
WotC: Everything is fine.
I watched the Pioneer championship in Europe a week ago. All the decks were just standard decks with better lands and then Izzet Phoenix. What the hell is the point of all the other formats at this point?
Exactly.
Well in pioneer you can lose with your old decks if you want.
@josephcourtright8071 LOL, right
Izzet Phoenix is still the best deck and it just had cards banned.
Modern has not been that since Twin was banned
@herpderp66
Izzet Phoenix has only ever been the 3rd best deck and Rakdos got cards banned not Phoenix. Black based decks have been the best deck in Pioneer since the format started. They have banned a card out of whatever the best Bx deck is almost every B&R and Bx decks are still the most dominant in the format.
53:30 So... my problem with that argument is... does that new wave have staying power? I mean, some will probably stay, but what proportion will just have a transient interest in the game for a few months after cards featuring their favorite franchise are released? What proportion will get exhausted by the continuous onslaught of new cards the same way the old guard is? What proportion will leave or start proxying because of the prohibitive costs of having good decks, especially in this new standard that promises to be much more powerful than before? It's great to get new players, but if they leave just as quickly as they arrive, it won't help revitalize Magic.
It's not a monolith is the thing, some will stay and some will leave. I think there's little reason to believe it will be any less (or more) retention than other sets. Whether or not this offsets people leaving or retains players has yet to be seen, I think they know they're taking a risk and will adjust based on how it turns out. I'd rather they continue to try and evolve than play it safe and, like they said towards the end, stay in a little bubble while the entire world moves ahead of them.
@@ShadowMage223 That's a point but, at the same time, you don't need Universe Beyond for the game to evolve. And well... when you have people coming to the game because they like another IP instead of because the game interested them, I'm pretty sure there'll be less retention overall. I might be wrong, but it feels like it'll attract players in the short-term but will see a net loss in the long term combined with the price and product fatigue issues.
@Ellie-Angela I think they've seen with the existing UB that people just need to get their hands on the game and they'll be hooked - I was a LOTR convert, I had tried to get into standard before with arena but wasn't really hooked until I really got into the thick of it through releases like LOTR and Fallout. It isn't necessarily that people arent interested in magic it's that they haven't tried it or given it enough of a shot. Drawn in by IP, sucked in by how fun the game is, that's what crim was trying to say about the "blank cards" thing. But product fatigue is a real concern and I think being skeptical of that is totally fair. But there is definitely a way they can design the formats such that you don't really *need* to interact with every release (i.e. low power creep), with foundations forming the higher power "glue" of the decks.
Sheoldred is a good benchmark for what standard has become. When she was printed, easily the best card in standard. Now, she's often times too slow and rarely included in pro decks. They wanted faster, they got it
It makes a lot more sense that they didn't ban it after the fact. They knew that Sheo was the tip of the iceberg 😅
I was playing golgari last year and came tp the realization that it was the worst card in the deck.
Some of us told you all along that Sheoldred wasn't THAT good.
@@kunimitsune177 However you feel about it, whether it was Grixis, Esper or really any other midrange. Sheoldred was a meta staple from ladder to pro tour. Most played creature in standard
Sheoldred isn't good in arena if the algorithm doesn't want it to be. If the opponent finds their third go for the throat in their top 10 cards than sure she isn't good. I think arena is so damn toxic and we are so used to unrealistic things happening we can't decently Guage some stuff
There's always gonna be people opposed to gatekeepers and saying they're exaggerating and I agree to a certain extent but it becomes silly imo when it turns into "we'll get used to it, we've seen worse". Basically giving up, bending down and letting the mega corporation do whatever extracts the most money from its player base with absolute disregard for the quality of the product. Also the amount of discussions not mentioning the fact that Standard will have 18 sets is baffling to me. The flavor and UB is whatever, but having 2 months between sets and 18 total sets is unsustainable.
We already had a *murder mystery* plane, it was called Fiora, the setting from the Conspiracy. It was called *Conspiracy*, the themes of murder and mystery and betrayal had already been planted. Sure, it doesn't have as many familiar characters, but the themes at least wouldn't have felt forced.
But, see, that was Renaissance-era Machiavellian political intrigue. If they wanted to do a detective set there, they would've had to Neon Dynasty the plane far into the future. Meanwhile, Ravnica is based on 19th-century Eastern European cities with some steampunk and urban fantasy elements, so it's a perfect setting. They just tropified it excessively with weak narrative continuity (though the story was pretty decent). I think Ravnica was the right choice of plane (though New Capenna could've also worked with a more Film Noir/ French New Wave aesthetic), but putting a fedora on a gargoyle was the wrong way to go about it, as it's more Ravnican't than Ravnican.
I still feel like Karlov Manor was supposed to be New Capenna II, but based on the response there was a moment of "oh no, we've gotta pivot fast, people didn't like that"
It didn't feel forced at all to me. I think it was already great, but I do think the conspiracy plane might have been better, but it was already awesome.
Please make this a weekly podcast, you two are great together.
I get the talk around 55:00 about there were always complainers around magic taking a difference in thematic approach, but I think the huge difference here is that these are brand deals bringing IP's into magic. It's like selling out to other companies and brands for money, not just thematically taking the game somewhere different. I mean like holy hell, the next year is gonna be 50% not the magic IP in our magic sets, but instead it being universes beyond. I think it's valid to think that's a huge issue and mostly brand deal money grabbing. Not the same as having samurai theme or a different historical take in a plane.
Yep, and there are only so many prestige IPs. It is inevitable that more mid IPs will be used in the future, or even just real-life brands (NFL was a good example, or imagine Aetherdrift but it's Harley Davidson, etc).
Unfortunately, the players that care about this are now the minority, I think. The game Magic was 10 years ago is dead and never coming back. Magic is purely profit-driven and UB is uber profitable. Still sucks to watch happen
Absolutely. It'd be diff if they were sprinkling it in with some taste like lotr. But it's so brazen and disgusting. That, and the fact that it (UB) is being FORCED into standard. Yuck. Gtfo.
@@petr4150 I mean, those of us who do care about magic's IP have already left and just watching on from the sidelines at this point. Hasbro told us we weren't welcome anymore, and we left.
@schroecat1 I haven't left and there are plenty I know who despise the universes beyond move. We just plan to draft other sets and not touch universes beyond
Agreed. Plus, the huge brands just choke out other ideas. I'm not a fan of everything being crossover platforms where the big brands show up over and over. If every game or whatever does the whole "UB, and it's legal everywhere" thing, we end up with EVERYTHING being Marvel. I like Marvel, but I don't want everything to be Marvel. I don't want every game I play to just be filled with references, guest characters and so on - it just kills any unique identity a property has. But honestly, we were already in the "too far gone" territory as far as I'm concerned. Hat magic just makes me feel like the people in charge don't really have it in them to consistently bring out interesting new planes.
And the whole, "it's a multiverse, so it's fine!" By that extension, our world is fine to visit too. Legendary Creature - Donald Trump. Enchantment - 2024 Presidential Election. "People are always gonna complain! It's not a big deal!"
The thing is that Arena tried to make the cards exciting too, but between people complaining about them and not wanting to pay animators you don't see the cool entry animations anymore. Remember how crazy it was the first time Uro hit the board, or if you ever did Cast Off and saw the giant hand come in to squish the battlefield. I personally remember making a deck with luminous Broodmoth just because I thought the flying in animation was sweet.
+1 massacre wurm still sweet af
_Fiend Artisan_ and _Luminous Broodmoth_ animations are so cool. I don't care if the game looks like a bowling screen; give me my neat animations! Could you imagine the _Abhorrent Oculus_ or _Herald of Eternal Dawn_ animations?
Arclight Phoenix entry scraw was great. Look at YGO Master Duel adding some cool visuals to cards like Zeus, they get that that stuff is important and Konami is probably one of the most out of touch card companies out there
Grim tutor animation with the book opening and dripping with blood on the paper was so cool first time I saw it.
"It could be blank white squares as long as the gameplay is good"
I heavily disagree, and as someone who also has a foot in the Fighting Game Community, this comment is very reminiscent of Combofiend saying that Magneto in MvC is "just a function" - a sentiment that drew HUGE criticism from the fan base.
Lore matters. Aesthetic cohesion matters. Not for everyone, of course not, but in the same way that we need to acknowledge people who like UB because they're fans of SpongeBob or whatever, we also need to recognize that the other side (focus on Magic's core lore) is just as valid. And sure you can say that it's not like the core story isn't serviced anymore, but as both of you discussed this episode, the recent "pure" Magic sets (i.e. not other IPs) have been extremely weak on a narrative level, while also feeling like the priority is put more on gimmicks than on narrative cohesion.
And lore focused players aren't just limited to old boomers. But they will be soon if the game continues like this, because new players will barely have any interesting unique MTG lore to hold on to anymore.
THANK YOU. The issue with the some of the worst Universes Beyond sets and breaking immersion is that things like Marvel Comics clash so much with the fantasy setting that Magic is. Even some of the more sci-fi things in Magic like the Phyrexians still have fantasy elements to them. This is why Lord of the Rings is a very beloved Universes Beyond set and why the Walking Dead was such a controversial one. LotR is fantasy, it is the fantasy that inspired DnD and Magic. The more Universes Beyond that Magic does that clash with its fantasy setting the more it erodes the lore and settings of Magic the Gathering. I am all for bringing in new players with Universes Beyond IPs but I think they should be things that fit with Magic's aesthetic as a fantasy.
I think one issue that Wizards is really honed in on is that, as it stands, Magic has no star power whatsoever. I mean that in the sense that nobody outside of Magic's community is deriving any sort of appealing brand identity from Jace or Loot or whoever they're deciding to push as the next face. And the immediate reaction from a lot of players is "well they just haven't invested enough in a cohesive lore or universe!" when in reality they've been actively trying to do so for 30 years. Wizards has had literal decades to create an IP that draws new players and retains old ones based on setting alone, and they haven't managed to do it. At least not on the scale that compares to UB.
I would say Magic is, in contrast to MvC, dominated by function. The most memorable cards are always treasured for their impact on the gameplay first, and their flavor second. Creatures like Tarmogoyf, Snapcaster Mage, and Dark Confidant have practically zero lore, but their power in game skyrockets them to the height of Magic's recognizable cards. Every once and a while you'll get a JTMS or a Yawgmoth where a powerful, recognizable card is also recognizable in the lore, which is a home run on WOTC's part. But we're lightyears away from people running up the price of a new Jace card just because it's Jace.
Again, Magic has failed to do in 30 years what franchises like Pokemon, Yugioh, and even Lorcana have done with much less, and Hasbro is tired of it. Hence UB, the Netflix show, the sudden explosion of secret lair drops, etc...
You can disagree all you want but he's right. It's like saying chess would be bad if the naming of the pieces were different, nope it would be still good because the game is good. The flavour you add is just that flavour. Bad art of old MTG never held it back, nor did yugioh's funny that.
@@Waffletown654 yeah this comment nails it. They got close with a few characters like Jace, but no one goes as crazy for him compared to say Blue Eyes White Dragon for Yugioh or for Charizard and Pokemon.
Which isn’t to say that they haven’t tried but they certainly haven’t succeeded like other card games have. Yugioh and Pokemon had it easier because of their anime/manga origins but that doesn’t mean MTG couldn’t have caught up with better execution.
@@N7Crow So I think you're touching on what I consider the most relevant point at the end there: MTG does not have the cross-media tie-ins that YGO and Pokemon have (or hell, even the One Piece and Digimon TCGs, most of what Bandai does tbh). That is a huge thing. The vast, vast majority of players in those games came into the game via the anime, manga, what have you. MTG doesn't have that.
However, that puts them in a weird position. They could attempt to create that kind of media tie-in (in the same way that LoL has Arcane, for instance), but at this point MTG is already looking back at a 30 year history, which makes it quite difficult to create a series/comic/movie/whatever that works as both a draw for new players and doesn't alienate the existing fanbase.
And while they still do some of that (e.g. that nebulous Netflix animated series that's supposedly coming), they clearly decided that instead of making their own mythos more interesting and accessible to newcomers, they simply leech off of other fan communities.
The problem here is that the message that sends is "Come play Magic, we have Iron Man / [whichever UB you want to use here]", which doesn't bring any incentive for those new players to engage any deeper with the core setting. The channel RedBobcatGames put it well in their most recent video I think: It leads to a segregation of the player base.
I like Crim... he's clearly coping, but I like Crim.
You should not be doomed if you don't draw out curve every single game and you should be able to be rewarded for choosing simply to untap and pass (even without a bunch of flash cards or counter spells).
The game as lost a lot of nuance when you don't need to make as many executive decisions but just play by flow chart and the cards are no so powerful that it is the optimal way to play.
Foundations, on its own, would have been great!
But 6 standard sets a year, a 3 year rotation and the need for every set to sell for eternal formats these days are all terrible.
On top of all of that it likely just doesn't matter.
Yeah, it may be a bit of a tangent but I hate the contemporary tendency to design for eternal formats. It may be the boomer in me but I prefer the good old days where cards were designed for standard and the eternal formats were more organic.
My opinion for sure doesn't matter though as I can't afford to play Magic outside of budget EDH.
@@gothosfolly Nah dude, yours in the most common opinion.
I dont think crim is a good discussion partner for this, mostly just because he is the embodiment of the:
This is fine (dog in burning house) meme
CGB is absolutely right on this. Between the normal power creep that happens with the miserable switch to 3 year rotations, and a 5 year power-boosted “core set,” standard is too fast and strong to have the type of thoughtful, plan based gameplay Magic is supposed to be about. I can usually tell within two turns whether I’m going to win, or it’s literally impossible to. That’s not fun or interesting.
I think that something getting lost in the conversation with UB sets, and the shift to half UB, half not, is that people understand that Magic is more than the art and name on a card. The mechanics of Magic, with lands, and spells, and the stack are all great and solid. They have well stood the test of time and gone on to inspire and influence many other games. So no, Magic is not anywhere close to dying when you look at it like that. There are concerns, and I'm glad Crim brought this up, around testing and power level, but we'll have to wait and see how this shift changed Standard and other formats. If someone's really worried about that then I suggest they look into Pauper for a cheap, but still competitive constructed format, or Commander for a bit of a broader more casual format.
On the other hand the art and names of cards do matter. They are not the end all, be all as I said before, but they do matter, otherwise UB wouldn't have happened in the first place. So for those who don't care for Spider-Man or Final Fantasy is can be harder to get into, or an outright let down if they actively dislike those properties. I don't think it's necessarily a problem of not being high fantasy either. As far as theme or genre goes there have been plenty of sets in Magic's history that are either not high fantasy, or even if they are high fantasy they take a different spin on it to make them unique, Innistrad is a perfect example of the former, and original Ravnica the latter. What all of these sets have in common though is that they are in Magic's worlds. I'm not sure how to say it any other way. Magic is what it is because it's a multiverse of its own worlds. Maybe the better way to put it is I can only really go to Magic to see Magic's worlds and characters. There are some comics, and the story that releases with every set, don't get me wrong, but if I want magic characters and magic gameplay I go to the game. If half of all sets coming out are UB half the time I'll only be getting the game portion, and losing out on the art/flavor side. That's the best way I've found to describe this disconnect I have with UB sets and hopefully anyone who reads this understands where I'm coming from.
100% understand where you're coming from.
And I do think it intersects with gameplay too, simply because so many UB sets now have unique and often powerful/useful cards. I would have way less of a problem with it if they stuck with the Godzilla approach of simply having these UB cards be skins for existing cards - people who love those franchises can get their cool alt arts, and people who don't want to engage with that stuff can still play normally without missing out on anything.
But since they're mechanically unique, the only choice I have beyond just not playing at all is to either bite the bullet and include cards I actively dislike the flavor of, or not include them and deliberately handicapping myself by reducing my available card pool. It's so frustrating.
All hail the return of CGB podcasting. We have been patiently waiting.
Talking about magic deviating from "high fantasy," and y'all mentioned original Kamigawa, but magic has had heavy sci fi influence from very early on. The entire Weatherlight saga was *dripping* with sci fi vibes, Mirage block was almost renaissance coded in places, the victorian horror of The Dark, Arabian Nights, and even ABU didn't keep to a single "high fantasy" tone. There's never been a point where magic was ever strictly "high fantasy," no matter how someone would try to define high fantasy as a term.
You can ask Rarran about how is it feels to play standart where one set just never rotates. Hearthstone players lived with the same basic set for 7 years, and at some point it became a torture
Honestly, it is already a torture to me personally, even though it was just increased from 2 to 3 years. The last rotation we lost some annoying cards like Wandering Emperor, which I am glad for, but it mostly stayed the same and still overly powerful.
Tbh, I miss the "full rotation" with a single set right after. Yeah, it gets boring real quick when you only have a single set, but it kinda feels like a fun half vacation from mtg. Once more sets come out, you are basically back in anyways
2 different Standards will fix it. Having stuff that doesn't rotate sounds great. @@markomancikas
At least they can 'nerf' cards in a digital game. In paper you're just stuck or have to ban them.
@@ryangainey94 no, it doesn't.
No you can't. Yu-Gi-Oh has soft rotation where power creep is so nuts that older cards can't compete anyway.
Pro Tour Gatecrash was a standard tournament, which was literally was won by the Boros Reckoner Blasphemous Act deck and beat more than 1 control deck to do so. Control was good then but it was hardly overpowered compared to creatures. I feel like the criticism that creatures weren't good enough is off by like 5-10 years there.
In my opinion Magic has been taking massive L's since I picked up the hobby in Theros: Beyond Death.
Collector's Packs, Secret Lairs, Product Fatigue, Universes Beyond, dilution of the IP in general... I'm already completely out other than watching youtube content.
Same for me. Best decision ever. Still enjoy these kind of videos.
Welcome to the club! We started around the same time, and I stopped right after MH3 due to insane powercreep. The feeling I had when I played the War of the Spark block, feeling totally immersed in the set and universe of Magic, is long gone. Now it's either cowboy/ detective hats, or stuff like Spongebob or Marvel.
You forgot the most important one… magic arena. No doubt this was the true beginning of the end of “magic: The GATHERING”
printing exquisite blood on a creature and sanguine bond on a creature in back to back sets seems like a really bad idea plus black is the only mono color with an efficient infinite loop in standard seem like black is just the best color in magic in general
There is also Enduring Tenacity that can return as an Enchantment
Black is the best color in STD 💯
I used Starscape Cleric with Delney in a BW Critter/Bats Deck
Having Lifecreed Duo T2,
Delney T3 and Starscape Cleric with Offspring on T5 can be deadly too
Not back to back. Back to back to back. Enduring Tenacity in Duskmourn, Starscape Cleric in Bloomburrow, and Marauding Blight-Priest got a reprint in Foundations as well. That's three Sanguine Bonds in Standard, right now.
I don't know about in general but in Standard black is king for sure. And has been for the past several years (if you're not playing Bo1)
I was listening to this in the background and i got jumpscared by 1:29:34 so bad I had to rewind and make sure that the audio was from the video and not from somewhere else
Foundations feels more like a fond farewell to the good ol' days of Magic than anything to actually build on.
Absolutely. Nailed it.
I feel like a lot of decks are too fast and too powerful, probably simply bc of the large pool of cards. Played some Historic, Explorer and Standard today. Honestly couldn't tell you the difference. Found myself wondering what the point of Standard is, then.
And for some reason, it feels like people are bringing their meta decks into the play queue, too.
As for paper, I was thinking about joining some local Standard tournaments next year but with that many cards to have to pick the best from, this many updates and UB in Standard to boot, I just won't bother. Will still play casually but will never try to rank again or join a tournament, probably. Just how I feel about it.
As someone who drives truck and listens to podcasts alot, and you being my favorite TH-camr and has been wanting a podcast with you brought back, PLEASE DO MORE OF THESE!!!! THIS WAS F'ING AWESOME!!!! 😁😁😁😁👍👍👍👍
CAN WE HAVE 1 EPISODE WITH ARJUNA PLEASE FOR US COVERTGOBOOMERS
I TOTALLY SUPPORT THIS A PRAYER GOOD MORNING COFFEE
THIS!!!
I don’t think Arjuna wants to…
@@TheStanishStudioswhy? What was the reason that they stopped before?
Can we have Karna instead?
I dont think Crim has every criticized WoTC. His take that he would be ok if the standard format was the same for years is nuts.
A lot of these guys are like that tbf. It's their livelihood to get people pumped about magic.
Right, this is a disconnect between streamers and actual players. Actual players don’t want to deal with the kinds of things he’s saying are exciting.
I think UB will become the norm. It's alot easier to use an existing IP than building one from the ground up and hoping it sells. My main concern in the long run is:
A: Will players stick around regardless of the IP's? Will a player who comes in for Final Fantasy wanna still play when the Game of Thrones set drops? Wizards may be hurting long term growth for short term profits.
2: The fact that ToR isn't banned in Modern is really perplexing to me and the cynical part of me think that there's a clash between the owners of these IP's and banning cards. I can see a world where the health of formats comes second to profit which could see magic moving away from the competitive scene and just embracing the fun and casual nature of commander and brawl.
"put Jace in a Yankee's jersey"
They already did. Don't you remember baseball card Jace from the baseball card secret lair?
Can we stop at 4 expansions max a year... 6 is too much
If it's profitable for Wizards/Hasbro then absolutely not. If it ends up burning people out then maybe they will course correct but probably not. So I'm not hopefull. The only thing that matters in our society is profit unfortunately. If Magic could make their money selling cards to a single individual they would.
What a treat. I really enjoyed you 2 together on the worst possible commander show, then was absolutly hyped to see you both again on shuffle up and play and now we get this. Also for a long time missed CGBs Arena podcast, so really cool in general to have you on a podcast again Mesa falcon-guy.
For a long time your videos were my go-to for falling asleep at evening, but recently i have been hyped about your content again
As someone that only buys collecter products to try and get the anime foils, and have 3 completely custom anime art proxy commander decks.
Yes I would play an anime foil only deck. Gladly.
I'm just glad there is finally an anime art Llanowar Elves. Shame it's gonna cost a third of a paycheck just for 1 copy
Fun fact, I went and put CGB's cat deck into my cart on TCG player, you can buy the whole thing for less than $20.
My problem is that counterspells are unplayable. I tried playing tempest djinn tempo and the card was alright vs red and llanowar elf decks, but when opponent was playing tribal or domain and dropping uncounterable overlords starting from t3 there is literally nothing you can do about it.
That leads to everyone playing doom blade tribal(demons/golgari) or red aggro
I'm definitely not the type of person to dislike something simply because it's new and different. I'm glad some people are enjoying the uptick in universes beyond stuff and, of course, magic isn't anywhere close to dying. That segment of this podcast sounds kind of dismissive of people's opinions though imho.
I simply like mtg lore and characters. As much as I do the gameplay (which is a lot). I'm just a bit sad to be getting less of that per year than before to make room for the universe beyond stuff.
My favorite thing about CGB Is that he isn't pretentious like so many other magic creators. I normally can't listen to magic players talk for this long.
I’ve been running a couple awesome decks w Bloodfeather Phoenix and Virtue of Courage! Think about it like this: turn 2 Artist’s Talent. Turn 3 Boltwave, Talent triggers, loot away the Phoenix, Boltwave resolves, pay 1 mana return Phoenix w haste, hold up another mana for Torch the Tower.
Hey me too! Talent + Phoenix is such a nice combo, and the fact that Talent and Virtue provide a nice late game engine means it doesn't hurt as much to use your burn spells on creatures if you need to.
I'm also running 2 copies of Second Rites and I've been getting people with it surprisingly often. Plus Talent lets you rummage it away if it's dead! Honestly the most fun I've had in Standard in a while.
Died 2022, reborn 2024. Welcome back Arena Craft Podcast (we miss you Arjuna)
This current Standard environment is the closest the game has felt, since I started playing in Tarkir block, to playing Yugioh. I have lost games on turn three. When I go from Arena to Master Duel, games tend to end on turn five or six (In Yugioh, each player’s turn is another on the counter, instead of a full rotation being one turn).
Needs more Arjuna!
This 100%
I still hold out that Murders should have been on Capenna more. Its my favorite plane and could have given Capenna something to brag about with the lands. The theme of Murders fits Capenna way better and would have given us potentially new leaders of the groups.
51:38 A first time player of magic friend of mine not so long ago got our table of veterans with Savage Ventmaw + Aggravated Assault (that I gifted him to upgrade his draconic destruction precon deck). His realization of "Oh, this goes forever, right?" was beautiful.
He is now realizing that playing a random mana rock that also gives haste will put the table on edge faster than any BIG/BIG dragon and is loving it. That said he also hates it that now the table runs a lot more of instant speed removal.
I tore through a tournament in the early 2000's with a mono red deck that was all haste/sacrifice creatures and burn spells. My final opponent I played Urza's Rage with kicker, into Final Fortune, into another Urza's Rage with kicker to win the first game. But she was playing a Blue Skies deck and had Chill in her sideboard, so I lost big time the following two games haha.
This was a great conversation and I really enjoyed it, but... What was with the audio hiss and "Hey guys" at 1:29:34?
We need at least an episode with Arjuna!
As for Foundations, I think it's dangerous to have format warping cards lasting so long. Cards like Llanowar Elves or Wrath of God may not look much but they warp what is playable or not and can limit future design. I think in this case it's better to take a more conservative approach.
Holy shit we got faces of the MTG community who like Universes Beyond, I have finally found my shelter
Yoo nice! I hope we get more episodes. I miss having CGB in podcast form. The ArenaCraft Podcast was my favorite CGB content during it's era. Glad to see similar content returning to the channel, even if this is just a one-off
It would be good but they put in some things that should not be there, i do not want to play against cheese turn 4 omniscense decks for 5 goddamn years.
Foundations wouldn't be a problem if WOTC was committed to a sane standard release schedule, but there are multiple ways to combo out consistently on turn 4 or 5 now, and contra to purple hair guy's contention, there really aren't answers for most of it. So, just imagine what standard will look like when it's Foundations plus 9 sets or Foundations plus 12 sets or Foundations plus 15-16 sets as we near the end of 2026. It's insanely fast now and it's only going to get faster.
I wonder how large the audience would be for a "loreful" format that bans UB and everything else which isn't within the standard Magic setting. Hold "loreful modern" and "loreful commander" etc, and see how the players like it.
2:13 I think it’s that (unfortunately) a lot of people are shuffling like 10% of their net worth when they shuffle lmao
Foundations is so big… I had no idea Ball Lightning was in it! Throwing that in a burn deck immediately
I can't believe wizards hasn't issued any statement about the marvel secret lair stuff
As a guy who hasn't played Magic seriously in like 20 years, 6 sets per year sounds bonkers
"Kamigawa brought something from the real world!" Well those people definitely weren't around during Arabian Nights lol
Is there a low power constructed format?
Closest we have now is Pauper.
I think we have two distinct issues and both seem pretty easy to solve.
1) 6 standard legal sets x 3 years = 18 sets in standard + foundations makes for a standard with 3500 - 5000 cards in it depending on where we are in rotation - compared to old 2 year standard with 4 standard legal sets per year which at its largest was more like 2500 cards. That's fine but it is a lot more to manage. I suspect some new shorter than standard (annual? deciduous?) format will emerge that just includes the 6 most recent sets and foundations giving a constantly rolling pool of around 2000 cards.
2) UB being a large proportion of standard. Recent sets have leaned heavily into Magic as a collectable with alt frames and alt arts comprising almost half of each set (by collector number) which is cool, it facilitates there being stuff that is out there or collectors while not excluding the player base from access to the cards. Why not in UB sets, use some of this alternate art space to add the in-universe partners to mechanically unique UB cards - or even make it something like - Big Score - a set within a set. Then on the UB cards we could use the 'counts as' naming conventions we have grown used to with things like the Dracula cards from crimson vow. Once again, best of both worlds - its not like they are not commissioning extra art already for any given card so it wouldn't stuff their system and those who don't want UB to 'infect' their decks can have in universe versions with a minimum of fuss.
The blank white squares is wrong. Simply wrong. The game as it is does not exist for blank white squares. Everybody has a pack of playing cards and nobody paid more than $5 for them.
Theming drives design. You think they're coming up with interesting blank white squares? No. You think the mana and color system exists with blank white squares? No.
Hell the main reason I don't mind UB even when it's IPs I really don't like is, they have to more closely follow the theming when designing, which makes for better cards than some of the obviously bad designs they've come up themselves in the last few years.
Oh yeah and to add to Crim's "Are they properly testing these 6 sets a year", you also have to remember that the testing is getting stretched even thinner when you consider testing the commander cards, commander precons, direct to modern sets, secret lair, etc.
I'd think its good, as kind of just an enternal core set. But DAMN is it fast and powerful that makes me worry about how much cards will have to be banned or restricted
Especially as we move into the next 2-3 years of standard legal cards. Like, if *this* is the power we're expected to see from a 5 year set, the 2-3 year sets will *have* to be more powerful, and its pretty intimidating to think that literally every card in Wacky Racers, Final Fantasy, Spider-Man, Space Opera and Lorwyn Delaying Unannounced Set will have to not just compete with the raw power we see at the moment but literally outpace it
the reason i played standard for nearly 10 years now is that i loved the 2 year rotation small cardsizes ... wasnt it even 1 year at kaladesh and they reverted it fast to 2 ?
3 years already are to much cards with 4 sets a year
i would even complain right now about 6 sets a year 2 year legal standard being to big ...
but a 3 year legal standard 6 sets a year means 18 sets + foundation being legal at some point ...
that feels like pioneer at that point or modern ...
standard was always 4-8 sets and now its 18+ -_-
i have lost every intrest in standard because of this, and it was also intended to "make cardshops and real cards player happier" ??? WTF
since 3 year rotation every single card store in 50km around me have stopped offering standard as people lost all the intrest ... rly good move guys that worked so well
There are two camps of people on this, one is "this has been done before so Im not that into it" and the other is "this has been done before so I can wrap my mind around this, lets go!"
For me the worst thing about Universes Beyond is that they feel creatively bankrupt. More like something a fan on Reddit would make than an official product.
I started playing during the Weatherlight saga and the story ended up being one of my favorite things about the game despite not caring at all about it initially. There was a ton of lore to dig up, interesting characters whose identities were more than 'x color personified', and it kept evolving from one set to the next. Wizards crafted their own lore and made cards to fit. Now they're just ripping off other IPs for cheap cash grabs.
Crim did make a good point in bringing in new players though. For Magic to keep going they will always need new players and it's not like Wizards hasn't tried other methods to get them, if Universes Beyond is what it takes for the game to thrive then I guess I'm just a crotchety old boomer lamenting about the good ol' days and yelling at the kids with their ridiculous SpongeBob cards to get the hell off my lawn.
Standard for me is less fun then pre rotation. And I have to disagree with Crims logic here. If the issue is that removal/answers are too good the solution is not to print a handfull powerfull cards so you reach equilibrium. Because all it does it reduces your format to the few hyper pushed answers ( right now prowess decks) and the "oops I answer everything" decks ( dimir and golgari midrange.) For all other decks it feels like an endless casino where the house ( aka the meta) sooner or later always wins. The right answer is to rotate faster. Which, with the change to a 3 year rotation is in my opinion something that will eat at magic over the next years.
100000% percent. Very well put.
They should have left standard alone and invented a modern that starts in 2019 or something like that.
I remember the first time playing Magic at a friends house and seeing Alaborn Cavalier and I thought it was great that different planes had different tech levels. It felt like it really was multiversal.
Hit mythic for the first time ever while listening to this video, obviously the wisdom seeped in
Regarding UB, my sadness is that it and the more spoofy sets recently (Eldraine, Capenna, Bloomburrow, Duskmourne) signal that WotC is similtaneously going more exotic with their plane ideas (which is okay) and taking the lowest hanging fruit card ideas to translate the planes into sets (which I dislike). A lot of cards these days use blatant references and puns and stereotypes that scream a side-eyeing "Get it?" It's great if a card is just a fairly generic thing like Getaway Car or Heaped Harvest or Big Score. I dig that. It's cards like Carrot Cake and Enchanted Carriage and Sleep with the Fishes that really feel like low-hanging fruit, less genuine worldbuilding and more cards to serve the Gimmick. It's been more pronounced ever since they eliminated blocks and as rules text has eclipsed flavor text.
(I don't even care whether cards _look_ like they're "from Magic," honestly. I liked the collage of artstyles in older Magic sets and I wish main sets weren't so uniform now. I just care whether they feel like they're trying to do something new.)
I think the biggest problem in understanding with standard for people who played back in the day is the progression of magic as a game. It has become very similar to Yugioh in one sense - the game is almost entirely about +/- on card value, almost everything replaces itself in some way these days. The control decks we remember playing were extremely efficient at wearing down an opponent and the control decks were often times the only decks that had access to any kind of efficient card generation options. These days red has burning the top of the deck, blue has draw, white has good token generation, and black has draw or graveyard recursion as essentially basic mechanics. Green is really the only deck that doesn't have those draw engines but often times it doesn't matter because whatever color it is paired with will make up for it. I don't think this is a bad thing and gives much better color diversity for playing options. What really hurts MesaFalconGuy is I think we are a point where blue is definitively not the best color in magic anymore and all the colors are much more even in their power.
What I hope foundations does it keeps standard from getting too close to pioneer and modern in power level and creates a path for future sets where if for instance the Sanguine combo just sees 0 play and isn't considered good enough it is a sign for them they are printing cards too powerful into the non-foundation/core sets. I think this is a high hope for wizards given the context of universes beyond sets being set to be legal in standard in the near future, but none of us know the future and can only guess at what is going to happen in the next 5 years for magic. It is a good talking point but we should focus on doing the best we can with what we are given in the moment. If standard ends up being great, hopefully there will be more local tournaments for it, if it ends up being terrible then maybe another format will be fun to play and we will see more those around. No matter what game you play, the people you play with matter more than the cards you play with, find the right group and it won't matter if the set is good or bad, you'll have a good time regardless.
Return of ArenaCraft?? Loving the podcast discussion!
Idk what you guys are on but skullclamp will never be okay 😂
Kutzil is a great add to the cat deck for some solid card advantage combined with the Squire and completely shuts down removal mid combat for the blow outs.
I quit MTG with the insult that was their 30th anniversary thing. It was actually a great decision, I was jsut so burnt out.
To me the biggest issue is WOTC. It speaks volumes that Larrian Studios does not want to cooperate with them anymore even with the succes of Baldurs Gate 3 in their pockets. Still very much enjoy your content tho.
I don not want to be too negative, I am happy if people still enjoy it. It just is not for me anymore.
Crim has such permanently good vibes. I aspire to be as chill as him.
the podcast format is finaly back!
the issue is acquiring cards from legal sets that are older like march of the machine aftermath, store in europe dont even sell the boosters anymore.
Well I can already say I'm tired of Bloodthirsty Conqueror. If I don't have hard removal that destroys, exiles, or burns for 5 at instant speed, waiting for the opponent to play Conqueror every game now, I lose a third of my games automatically.
I think 5years is way too long for a rotating format (we have non-rotating formats). And the next big mistake is butchering the MTG identity with UB sets.
Of course it will sell cards as many fans of a UB will buy the cards (see the rush towards the Secret Lairs) but in the long run we will have no consistent game-feeling anymore with half the sets UB.
And not to mention the 6sets per year topic....
BUT: Very nice to see you doing podcast!
@28:00 Desecration Demon is now standard legal which was iconic for its time I guess? But it's just in the starter set not even boosters.
This is awesome! Definitely need more of these podcast style videos! Great to listen to at work and love seeing the content with Crim. Maybe get Voxy in on the next one with him!
I love this content! Love hearing you and crim discuss this game and sharing personal experiences. I got into Magic to hang out with friends and it’s sick that so many new people are discovering a game I love.
I feel like highlighting the combo would have been a little more impactful with Marauding Blight-Priest instead of Starscape Cleric, MBP is also the other half of the combo, in Foundations, and printed at common. Like this isn't going away when Enduring Tenacity and Starscape Cleric when Duskmourn and Bloomburrow rotate out.
This would be a cool weekly thing with different guests! Hope you put it on Spotify too so I can listen while working
As a 20+ year long Magic player I really like the universes beyond stuff mainly because they've nailed the flavor with the mechanics hard so far. I love the rad counters from Fallout, I think Captain America is pretty cool, The Assassin's Creed stuff feels great. I think they missed on Wolverine badly (he should have either indestructible or zero cost regenerate imo) but I don't expect a 100% hit rate but then we also got Berserk and that's cool. I also like the renamed cards more than I though I would. From my perspective everything outside of Dominaria breaks the original flavor of Magic so I don't mind them going a bit wild.
I straight up don't like the anime aesthetic stuff but that's a personal thing and I do think it's alright here and there as a novelty. I enjoy some anime (I always get a kick out of Blake's HxH gear) but it always feel like the worse stereotype of people at the LGS are dripping in anime paraphernalia. But again, that's a personal gripe.
Newer player here: Commander intimidates me, I really enjoy standard, and Duskmourn brought me into the game. UB being in standard doesn't bother me, just curious to see what comes next. Hoping to see you guys at MagicCon one of these days, thanks for the content!
Crim sounds like he is just straight up not able of critical thought.
Always so tiring to listen to poeple asking him his opinion on any controversial Wotc decision only for us all to be confronted to the same Disneyland blind-positivity wall of blank statements that are his answers
I'm one of the people that really got into magic by Universes Beyond, I always been around the game but the doctor who product made me dive head in, now I have 3 commander decks (1 pre-con and 2 that I built), I play arena all the time and I'm looking to get into pauper, pioneer and budget legacy in paper play
The talk about creatures slowly replacing all other spells (around 18:00) reminds me of Yu-Gi-Oh!
The older days of Yu-Gi-Oh! had weak to decent monsters and incredibly powerful spells and traps. Now, monsters do almost everything in almost every deck.
CGB, I'm loving the podcast again. I missed the arena craft podcast so much. Please keep making these.
My best deck with 21-4 record is Grixis Superfriends with 2 mana Jace, Liliana General and Viel, vraska, Ral, Teferi, Chandra. Mostly planeswalkers with removal and draw. So yeah, you can cast 6 mana planeswalkers in standard. In fact when you flood the board with them, nobody can deal. And Ball Lighting, anointed Affliction hits it, go for the throat, bitter triumph, etc. it's good against other aggro tho
Way off base saying planeswalkers are a non factor tho. So many good ones now
Oooh share your list? Would love this
Nice surprise, I didn't expect a podcast! I'm 1000% down for a control mages podcast with these two. 😋😁
Please bring back Goldspan Dragon. I just want to play Izzet hah.